The door immediately to her left was open. She wandered inside. It was a storage room. There were cans of spray paint on a shelf. She put her hand amongst the cans, closed her eyes, and pulled one at random. She checked the label. It was a security paint. It would only be visible in infra-red light. Saskia smiled. She remembered her confusion when she had read that cryptic message on the wall, seconds after Garrel left her alone in the darkened corridor. She remembered the envelope. She needed stationery.
There was a door in the cupboard that led to another. It was full of stationary. She felt dizzy with fatalism. Even the pen of the architect had not been his own.
She took a sheet of A4 paper, a pen, an envelope, a plastic folder, and scribbled the message that she would read in twenty years’ time. She wrote from memory, wondering who the author truly was. She tried to write something different – as an artistic flourish, a token gesture of her defiance against Time – but could think of nothing better to say. Finally she wrote, “To prove this is me, there will be a bullet hole just about here:” and drew an arrow towards the middle, where Hartfield’s bullet would pass through. She sealed the envelope, addressed it, and returned to the corridor.
David had gone. Helen remained. Saskia put the envelope inside the plastic folder. She put the folder underneath the rock that had killed Helen. On the wall, she wrote, in German: “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” Then another arrow.
She threw down the can and ran away from Helen. She made it to the stairwell and, from there, to the surface. The exit was at the rear of the hotel. Automatic charges had opened the final few metres. Saskia emerged into smoky daylight. A temporary field hospital had been erected on the lawn. Army ambulance crews stood by. Shocked personnel walked slowly and silently nowhere. Some cried. Saskia breathed the clean air and feigned breathing problems. An ambulance took her to a nearby hospital. An hour later, she escaped.
Night came to the woodland. The moon was large. She started a fire. One of her many foster parents, Hans, had been a keen hiker. He had taught her how to make fire using a wooden bow drill, but there was a flint-and-metal firestarter in the small survival kit in her flight suit. Nothing else in the suit worked anymore. It was smashed and torn. She collected moss, some dry kindling, and some dead wood logs.
She thought about Helen. She had known her for seconds. She felt responsible for her death but, at the same time, felt responsible for nothing from the moment of her birth onwards.
The firestarter was spring-loaded. The fire caught and she tended it.
The stars were bright. They were a little closer in 2003 than they would be in 2023. The sphere of humanity – the reach of its radio and television signals – was a little smaller. Just as she had looked from the car window soon after arriving in Edinburgh for the Proctor case, she looked now at the trees around her. Conifers, oak, sycamore, beech and horse chestnut. She had seen them all in Germany with Hans. The past, like another country, was always more striking in its similarities than its differences.
She noticed a pink sheet protruding from map pocket in her thigh. It was a part of David’s instructions. She glanced through them. Most were incomprehensible. The penultimate page was headed “Financial Times for the Betting Lady”. It contained a list of British prime ministers and American presidents since 2001, some British grand national winners, and all of the football world cup winners (prefixed with ‘bloody’).
On the final page were the words:
So good luck and bon voyage!
Love David
PS If you could stick a flask of soup in the glider for when it gets chilly, I’d be much obliged! And one of those ‘space blankets’ like they have in marathons.
PPS Oh, and make sure the bike is fast ;-)
PPPS Oxtail flavour, mind – none of that lentil crap!
Epilogue
November 6th 2023: Westminster, London
By November, David was very tired. A doctor had diagnosed an ulcer. He controlled it with medication. He had lost the relaxation of cigarettes. He saw a pigeon flutter to a stop nearby. A young couple wandered into the scene. They looked at David, who smiled. They looked at the remaining space on the bench and continued walking.
The Thames rolled by.
The special committee was due to reconvene at 2 p.m. Had fifteen minutes. He watched the pigeon fly away. Another day spent answering questions from MPs. He sighed. They had been unimpressed by his story. They almost believed it, but the evidence was not quite sufficient. It would take more than Ego’s pictures and crackly audio to exonerate David from the crime of detonating a bomb in the West Lothian Centre. It didn’t matter that David had the best of reasons. Even administered the usual way, euthanasia was not legal in Britain.
“Hello,” she said.
David laughed. She was there, finally. “You give me an odd feeling.”
“Like you’ve seen me somewhere before.” She sat on the bench. She wore a black greatcoat with the collar turned up and a dark purple scarf. Her hair was tied in a ponytail.
“Something like that.” She smiled. There were lines at the corners of her eyes and dimples in her cheeks. “It’s been a while.”
“I thought it was best,” she said.
“Walk me back? I have a committee meeting.”
They made their way towards Westminster Bridge. “Are you some kind of advisor now?” she asked.
“No,” David said. Unconsciously, his hand patted his belly, massaged the ulcer. “I’m still trying to explain myself.”
“To a committee? What kind?”
“A closed parliamentary enquiry. Closed to the public, that is. Ostensibly, they’re charged to find out what
