time, it seemed more a prediction than a description of events. Except that, unlike then, he was there, ready to change it. Viewed in this light, what he was about to do felt like touching up an already completed painting, like adding a brushstroke to
After gleefully establishing that his victim was alone, the Ripper cast a final glance around him. He seemed pleased, overjoyed even, at the entrenched calm of the place that would allow him to commit his crime in unexpected seclusion. His attitude incensed Andrew, and he stepped out of his hiding place without considering the possibility of shooting him from there. Suddenly the prospect of finishing off the Ripper from a distance, thanks to the sanitised intervention of a weapon, seemed too cold, impersonal and unsatisfying. His intense rage required him to take the man’s life in a more intimate way – possibly by strangling him with his bare hands, smashing his skull with the butt of his pistol – that would allow him to feel the Ripper’s contemptible life ebbing away at a rhythm he himself imposed. But as he strode resolutely towards the monster, Andrew realised that, however keen he was to engage in hand-to-hand combat, his opponent’s colossal stature and his own inexperience of that kind of fighting made inadvisable any strategy that did not involve the weapon he was clutching.
In front of the door to the little room, the Ripper watched him approach with calm curiosity, wondering perhaps where on earth this fellow had sprung from. Andrew stopped prudently about five yards away from him, like a child who fears being mauled by the lion if he gets too close to the cage. He was unable to make out the man’s face in the dark, but perhaps that was as well. He raised the revolver, and, as Charles had suggested, aimed at the man’s chest. Had he fired straight away, in cold blood, giving no thought to what he was doing – as if it were just another step in the wild sequence of events he appeared to be caught up in – everything would have gone according to plan. His action would have been as swift and precise as a surgical intervention. But, unfortunately, he did stop to think about what he was doing: it dawned on him that he was about to shoot a man, not a deer or even a bottle. His finger froze on the trigger.
The Ripper tilted his head to one side, half surprised, half mocking, and Andrew watched as his hand clutching the revolver started to shake. This weakened his already feeble resolve, while the Ripper, emboldened by his hesitation, swiftly pulled a knife from inside his coat and hurled himself at Andrew in search of his jugular. Ironically, his frenzied charge released Andrew’s trigger finger. A sudden, quick, almost abrupt explosion pierced the silence of the night. The bullet hit the man right in the middle of the chest. Still aiming at him, Andrew watched him stagger backwards. He lowered the warm, smoking gun, no less astonished at having used it than he was to find himself in one piece having fended off that surprise attack. This, though, was not strictly true, as he soon discovered from the sharp pain in his left shoulder.
Without taking his eyes off the Ripper, who was swaying before him like a bear on its hind legs, he felt for the source of the pain, and discovered that the knife, although it had missed his main artery, had ripped through the shoulder of his jacket and sliced into his flesh. Although blood was flowing merrily from the wound, it did not appear very deep. Meanwhile, the Ripper was taking his time to prove whether or not Andrew’s shot had been fatal. After bobbing around clumsily, he doubled over, letting go of the knife, which ricocheted over the cobblestones and disappeared into the shadows. Then, with a hoarse bellow, he bent down on one knee, as though to acknowledge in his murderer the traits of nobility, and moaned. Finally, when Andrew was beginning to tire of the display of dying and was toying with the idea of kicking the man to the ground, he collapsed in a heap on to the cobblestones and lay there, stretched out at his feet.
Andrew was about to kneel down and check the man’s pulse when Marie Kelly, no doubt alarmed by the skirmish, opened the door to her little room. Before she could recognise him, and resisting the temptation to look at her after eight years of her being dead, Andrew turned on his heel. No longer worried about the corpse, he ran towards the exit as he heard her scream: ‘Murder, murder!’ Only when he had reached the stone archway did he glance back over his shoulder. He saw his beloved kneeling in a shimmering halo of light, closing the eyes of the man who, in a far-off time, in a world that had taken on the consistency of a dream, had mutilated her to the point at which she was unrecognisable.
The horse was standing where he had left it. Out of breath from running, Andrew mounted and rode off as fast as he could. Despite his agitation, he managed to find his way out of the maze of alleyways and on to the main road that would take him back to Woking. It was only when he had left London that he could acknowledge what he had done. He had killed a man, but at least he had done so in self-defence. And, besides, it had not been any man. He had killed Jack the Ripper, saved Marie Kelly, changed events that had already taken place. He urged the horse on violently, anxious to travel back to his own time and discover the results of his action. If things had gone well, Marie would not only be alive but would probably be his wife. Would they have had a child, possibly two or three?
He drove the horse to the limit, as though afraid the idyllic present would dissolve like a mirage if he took too long to reach it.
Woking was still bathed in the serenity that had aroused suspicion in him a few hours earlier. Now, though, he was grateful for the tranquillity that would allow him to end his mission without further incident. He leaped off the horse and opened the gate. He stopped dead in his tracks: a figure was waiting for him beside the door to the house. Andrew remembered what had happened to Wells’s friend: this must be some guardian of time with orders to kill him for having meddled with the past. Trying hard not to give way to panic, he pulled the gun from his pocket as fast as he could and aimed it at the man’s chest, just as his cousin had suggested he do with the Ripper.
The figure dived to one side and rolled across the lawn until he was swallowed up by darkness. Andrew tried to follow the man’s cat-like movements with his revolver, not knowing what else to do, until he saw him nimbly scale the fence and jump into the road.
Only when he heard feet running away did he lower his weapon, calming himself with slow, deep breaths. Could that man have killed Wells’s friend? He did not know, but now that he had escaped it did not matter very much. Andrew gave him no more thought and began to climb back up the creeper. This he was obliged to do using only one arm, as his wounded left shoulder throbbed painfully at the slightest effort. Even so, he managed to reach the attic, where the time machine stood waiting for him.
Exhausted and a little faint from loss of blood, he collapsed on to the seat, set the return date on the contraption’s control panel and, after bidding 1888 farewell with a longing gaze, pulled on the glass lever without delay.
This time he felt no fear when the flashing lights engulfed him, only the pleasant sensation of going home.
Chapter XVI
Once the sparks had stopped flying, leaving wisps of smoke swirling in the air like feathers after a pillow fight, Andrew was surprised to see Charles, Wells and his wife huddled by the door exactly as he had left them. He attempted a triumphant smile but only managed a weak grimace due to light-headedness and his increasingly painful wound. As he prepared to climb down from the machine, the others glimpsed his blood-soaked sleeve.
‘Good God, Andrew!’ shouted his cousin, leaping towards him. ‘What happened to you?’
‘It’s nothing,’ replied Andrew, leaning on Charles to steady himself. ‘Only a scratch.’
Wells took his other arm, and between them the two men helped him down the stairs. Andrew tried to walk on his own, but they ignored his efforts so he meekly allowed himself to be guided into a small sitting room – at that
