Accordingly, she found herself arriving back on the date shehad chosen, March 4th 1993. She had chosen to go back to the date ofher first gig, that amazing night she had enjoyed at the Equinox Club inLeicester Square seeing Saint Etienne.
The night was every bit as good as she remembered, and shemade sure she soaked up every second of it. It wasn’t just the concert that wasamazing, but also spending time with Angie and Becky, the two friends who hadgone to the gig with her.
On her return, she again asked the angel about futurecrime-solving time travel opportunities. Reluctantly agreeing to consider it,the angel gave her a password to summon her one more time in case of anemergency, stressing not to waste it on anything trivial. She also declaredthat she would have a right of veto over anything Kay might be asking to do.
Kay was more than happy with that and had not evenconsidered calling the angel since. She was keeping that offer firmly underlock and key until it was absolutely needed.
McVie was charged and on the advice of his solicitor decidedto plead guilty. It was pointless doing anything else. The forensic evidencethe police made his conviction 100% certain. He had no defence whatsoever andin January was jailed for life.
Subsequently, Kay received the £25,000 reward money. Atfirst she felt wrong taking it, considering that Anna had had to lose her lifein order for her to receive it. But Kent convinced her she was entitled to itafter all she had been through, taking McVie’s knife in place of Anna in Universe2.0. And Anna would have died anyway, so it was hardly blood money.
The first thing she did when the money came through was toget her teeth fixed up. That wasn’t cheap – with eight teeth missing, it ran tothousands but it was worth it.
She joined a gym, left the booze and fags behind for good,and started eating healthily. The change in her appearance in just a few shortweeks was astounding.
She signed up for an Open University course in journalism,keen to revive her earlier travel and writing plans.
She also decided to keep her job at the shop for the timebeing, keen to save as much money as possible which wasn’t difficult now shewas rent- and mortgage-free. Now she had her new teeth she was even allowedback on the tills again.
Alan agreed to a quickie divorce – he didn’t have muchchoice – and that was progressing nicely. She expected to have her decreeabsolute by the end of February.
As for Kent, his life was moving forward, too. Craigannounced in the New Year that he was planning to sell the lease on the pub.Shortly afterwards, Kent announced that he and Debs were going to buy it, andrun it as a combined pub and restaurant.
With a full smile and confidence restored, Kay plucked upthe courage to seek out Robert, the man she had met on her Valentine’s nightout in London the previous year. Trying not to act too much like a stalker, shefound out where he lived and followed him to Tesco’s one day, where she‘accidentally’ bumped into him in the bakery section.
Striking up a conversation, they got on just as well asbefore. When he suggested going for a coffee, she eagerly accepted. That was inlate-January. By Valentine’s Day they were dating, enjoying a lovely meal outat a country pub just outside Oxford.
During the meal he asked her if she wanted to come to theMonaco Grand Prix with him in May. As part of his job, he got to attend threeor four Grand Prixs a year, and for Kay, a lifelong fan, this was a dream cometrue. She had only been to a Grand Prix once before, at Silverstone as a kid,when her dad had taken her to see Nigel Mansell win.
Two days after Valentine’s Day, she and Maddie had flown outto Tenerife, where they had spent a lazy week basking in the sun. It was thelast day of the holiday now, and Kay felt relaxed, happy and ready to get onwith her life.
She was unrecognisable from the person she had been lessthan two months ago. During the holiday, she had plenty of admiring glancesfrom the men by the pool, and more than a few trying to chat her up in theevenings.
All of these offers she had rebuffed. She had high hopes forher future relationship prospects with Robert, and certainly wasn’t going to doanything to jeopardise them.
Things were looking up for Maddie, too. She had met a lovelyyoung man from Newcastle while they were away, and they had arranged to meet upwhen she got back to Durham. Kay was pleased to discover that he seemed nothinglike Glen or any of the other idiots she had endured. He reminded her more ofthe younger Kent.
It was fair to say that her experience with the angel hadchanged her life for the better. Kay felt proud of what she had achieved, evenif it had been with the help of this mysterious divine intervention.
A little kick-start had been all she needed, just a helpinghand to pick her up off the floor and give her the energy to dust herself downand start again. She knew she could easily have squandered the gift she hadbeen given but she hadn’t. She had used it wisely.
Now she felt like she could achieve anything. She may havebeen forty-three, but as far as she was concerned, she was as good astwenty-three again. There was still time to do everything she had wanted to dothen. This time she would get it right.
Observing her from a sunbed on the other side of the pool,the angel smiled, pleased at another job well done. He was no longer projectinghimself in her younger image but was now here in his true form and his realbody, that of a man in late-middle age.
The angel never gave away anything about his true identityto the people he helped. It amused
