And she was gone. Just like that. I know I was well hungover but surely I hadn’t lost that much of my touch.
I made a giant pot of coffee and sat down to read. There were more words there than I’d read in the last five years put together. It made my eyes ache but at the end of it there was no doubt. Like it or not, I was now a member of the Time Police.
Matthew
I always knew I’d join the Time Police. I hadn’t said anything because I knew my parents wouldn’t like it. They work for the Institute of Historical Research at St Mary’s Priory and the two organisations tend to hate each other on sight. St Mary’s does work with the Time Police occasionally – although not for them, as my mother is always very keen to point out. Sometimes it ends well, although usually it doesn’t, so I was expecting all sorts of fuss when I told them.
There was a long silence and then Dad said, ‘For how long?’
‘Two years,’ I said, and they both looked so relieved that I felt compelled to add, ‘to begin with.’
‘And then?’
‘I don’t know. Depends how it goes, I suppose.’
‘But why?’ said Mum.
‘The initial contract is always for two years. After that there’s a variety of options, ranging from . . .’
‘No, I mean why on earth would you want to join the Time Police? They have the combined intelligence of a pencil sharpener.’
I nearly said, ‘It’s my home,’ but although this was true to some extent – the Time Police had once housed and educated me – it wasn’t what Mum and Dad wanted to hear at that moment, so I told them the work interested me.
‘They shoot people,’ said my mother, waving her arms about. ‘They race up and down the timeline wearing stupid black cloaks and buggering up everything they touch. They’re a bunch of lying toerags with no principles or honour. They don’t keep their word. You can’t trust them an inch. They . . .’
Dad pulled her back down again and she subsided. ‘We agreed,’ he said mildly, ‘that Matthew should choose his own way and that whatever he decided to do with his life, we would support and encourage him.’
‘I am supporting and encouraging him,’ she said, crossly. ‘I’m just making sure he understands what a terrible mistake he’s making and that he’s aware of the true nature of the imbeciles with whom he intends to spend every moment of the next two years. Always supposing they don’t manage to kill him on his first day. Which could happen. Especially the way they go about things. Seriously, Matthew, if you want to join a bunch of mindless thugs who can’t get anything right and ruin people’s lives, why don’t you become a politician?’
‘It’s no different to the way things have been up till now,’ I said, keeping calm because one of us had to. ‘I’ve been in and out of the TPHQ for a couple of years now and you’ve been all right with that.’
‘Yes, but that was different. You could come home any time you liked. You were a sort of guest there. This is something else completely. You’ll be one of them. You’ll belong to them and they could have you doing anything. Do you honestly think you could kill someone?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, because I didn’t. ‘I suppose there’s training for that sort of thing. I might not get through. In which case . . .’
‘Are they making you do this?’ demanded my mother. ‘Have they been putting pressure on you to join them? Because if so, then just tell me and I’ll shoot off and have a quick word with Commander Hay.’
‘No, no,’ I said, meaning no, they weren’t putting any pressure on me and no, for God’s sake, don’t shoot off and have a word with Commander Hay. Mum and Commander Hay frequently had far too many words together and the results were never happy for anyone. ‘Look, you said yourselves, you’d support any career choice I made and this is it.’
She seized at another straw. ‘But you’re too young, surely?’
‘Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? No one knows how old I am. The Time Police have chosen to believe I’ve reached the minimum age.’
‘But . . .’ she said, because she never goes down without a fight.
Dad put his hand on hers. ‘Max . . .’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but even so . . .’
‘I was never going to come and work here,’ I said as gently as I could, because she really was upset and I felt a little guilty. They’re my parents and I love them.
‘I know you weren’t,’ said Mum. ‘And I wouldn’t have encouraged that, anyway, but I thought . . . Oh, I don’t know. It’s as if they’ve been . . . grooming you. That’s it, isn’t it? They’re like a cult and you’ve fallen under their influence.’
I shook my head. ‘Of course they’re not and I haven’t.’
‘But that’s just it,’ said Mum. ‘You wouldn’t know, would you? But don’t panic – there are people out there who can de-cult you and . . .’
‘They’re not a cult,’ I said. ‘And if it makes you feel any better, I approached Captain . . . no, he’s a major now . . . Major Ellis some time ago and said I’d like to join and he said because I was so young, I had to think about it for at least six months before he’d put my name forwards and I have. Waited six months, I mean, and I still want to do it. Now it’s time.’
‘Will they accept you?’ said Dad.
Mum rounded on him at once. ‘Why wouldn’t they?’
‘No reason,’ he said calmly. ‘No reason at all.’ But I knew exactly what he meant. He wasn’t referring to the Time Police as an organisation as a whole, but rather the many individuals who made up that whole. Individuals who had not been selected for their good-natured ability to embrace diversity and live and let live.
Major Ellis, to give him credit, had touched on this.
‘You might find, Matthew, that there’s a big difference between a little boy trotting up and down the corridors clutching his schoolbooks under his arm, and a young man with a defiantly non-regulation haircut and an attitude problem. They still remember that incident when you broke the Time Map.’ And now it would seem that Dad was thinking along the same lines.
‘I’ve thought about that,’ I said to him, because I had. ‘And I still want to do it.’
‘Well, in that case,’ he said, sitting back, ‘good luck, son. Your mother and I wish you well.’
‘So what does all this entail?’ asked Mum, suspiciously. I think she was convinced the Time Police ran special courses for racing up and down the timeline, endangering history and generally getting in her way.