window into history.
‘We’re there,’ Rebecca said. She issued a stream of instructions to the AI.
That March night in eighteen thirty-two played out in front of me, flickering and jerking like a home movie recorded on an antique strip of film. Christine sat at a table with her friends in the middle of the Orange Grove. Young, beautiful, and full of zest, their smiles and laughter making me ache for my own youth. They told each other stories and jokes, complained about tutors, gossiped about students and university staff, argued family politics. After the waiter brought their main course they went into a giggling huddle to decide if they should complain about the vegetables. More wine was ordered. They became louder.
It was snowing when they collected their coats and left. Tiny flecks of ice adding to the mush of the pavement. They stood as a group outside the restaurant, saying their goodbyes, Christine kissing everybody. Then with Carter’s arm around her shoulder, the pair of them made their way through Oxford’s freezing streets to the block where she had her artist’s garret.
There was the baby-sitter to pay and show out. Then the two of them were alone. They stumbled into her studio, and kissed for a long time, surrounded by Christine’s outré paintings. There wasn’t much to see of that time, just smears of Carter’s face in badly blurred close-up. Then she went over to an old chest of drawers, and pulled a stash of cocaine out from an old jewellery box. Carter was already undressing when she turned back to him.
They snorted the drugs, and fondled and groped at each other in an ineffectual manner for what seemed an age. The phone’s whistling put an end to it. Christine staggered over to answer it, then handed it to Carter. She watched with a bleary focus as his face showed first annoyance then puzzlement and finally shock. He slammed the handset down and scooped up his clothes. A clock on the studio wall said twenty-six minutes to twelve.
I couldn’t move from the clinic seat. I sat there with my head in my hands, not believing what I’d just seen. It had to be faked. The Locketts had developed false memory implantation techniques. They’d corrupted our institute AIs. Christine had repeated the alibi to herself for so long it had become stronger than reality. Aliens travelled back in time to alter the past.
‘Edward.’
When I looked up, Christine Jayne Lockett was staring down at me. There was no anger in her expression. If anything, she was pitying me.
‘I wasn’t joking when I said I knew people on our elder council,’ she said. ‘And let me tell you, you arrogant bastard, if this . . . this mental rape had been in connection with any other case, I would have kicked up such a stink that your whole family would disown you. The only reason I won’t is because I loved Justin. He was my friend, and I’ll never forget him for bringing a thread of happiness into my life. I wanted his murderer caught back then, and I want it just as bad now.’
‘Thank you,’ I whispered feebly.
‘Are you going to give up?’
My smile was one of total self-pity. ‘We’re reaching what Bethany called the plateau, the end of scientific progress. I’ve used every method we know of to find the murderer. Every one of them has failed me. The only thing left now that could solve it is time travel, and I’m afraid our physicists are all pretty much agreed that’s just a fantasy.’
‘Time travel,’ she said contemptuously. ‘You just can’t see beyond your fabulous technology, can you? Your reliance is sickening. And what use is it when it comes down to the things that are genuinely important?’
‘Nobody starves, nobody dies,’ I snapped at her, abruptly infuriated with her poverty-makes-me-morally-superior attitude. ‘I notice your happy stone-age colony isn’t averse to using our medical resources any time something nasty happens.’
‘Yes, we fall back on technological medicine. We’re
‘We’re there,’ Rebecca said. She issued a stream of instructions to the AI.
That March night in eighteen thirty-two played out in front of me, flickering and jerking like a home movie recorded on an antique strip of film. Christine sat at a table with her friends in the middle of the Orange Grove. Young, beautiful, and full of zest, their smiles and laughter making me ache for my own youth. They told each other stories and jokes, complained about tutors, gossiped about students and university staff, argued family politics. After the waiter brought their main course they went into a giggling huddle to decide if they should complain about the vegetables. More wine was ordered. They became louder.
It was snowing when they collected their coats and left. Tiny flecks of ice adding to the mush of the pavement. They stood as a group outside the restaurant, saying their goodbyes, Christine kissing everybody. Then with Carter’s arm around her shoulder, the pair of them made their way through Oxford’s freezing streets to the block where she had her artist’s garret.
There was the baby-sitter to pay and show out. Then the two of them were alone. They stumbled into her studio, and kissed for a long time, surrounded by Christine’s outré paintings. There wasn’t much to see of that time, just smears of Carter’s face in badly blurred close-up. Then she went over to an old chest of drawers, and pulled a stash of cocaine out from an old jewellery box. Carter was already undressing when she turned back to him.
They snorted the drugs, and fondled and groped at each other in an ineffectual manner for what seemed an age. The phone’s whistling put an end to it. Christine staggered over to answer it, then handed it to Carter. She watched with a bleary focus as his face showed first annoyance then puzzlement and finally shock. He slammed the handset down and scooped up his clothes. A clock on the studio wall said twenty-six minutes to twelve.
I couldn’t move from the clinic seat. I sat there with my head in my hands, not believing what I’d just seen. It had to be faked. The Locketts had developed false memory implantation techniques. They’d corrupted our institute AIs. Christine had repeated the alibi to herself for so long it had become stronger than reality. Aliens travelled back in time to alter the past.
‘Edward.’
When I looked up, Christine Jayne Lockett was staring down at me. There was no anger in her expression. If anything, she was pitying me.
‘I wasn’t joking when I said I knew people on our elder council,’ she said. ‘And let me tell you, you arrogant bastard, if this . . . this mental rape had been in connection with any other case, I would have kicked up such a stink that your whole family would disown you. The only reason I won’t is because I loved Justin. He was my friend, and I’ll never forget him for bringing a thread of happiness into my life. I wanted his murderer caught back then, and I want it just as bad now.’
‘Thank you,’ I whispered feebly.
‘Are you going to give up?’
My smile was one of total self-pity. ‘We’re reaching what Bethany called the plateau, the end of scientific progress. I’ve used every method we know of to find the murderer. Every one of them has failed me. The only thing left now that could solve it is time travel, and I’m afraid our physicists are all pretty much agreed that’s just a fantasy.’
‘Time travel,’ she said contemptuously. ‘You just can’t see beyond your fabulous technology, can you? Your reliance is sickening. And what use is it when it comes down to the things that are genuinely important?’
‘Nobody starves, nobody dies,’ I snapped at her, abruptly infuriated with her poverty-makes-me-morally-superior attitude. ‘I notice your happy stone-age colony isn’t averse to using our medical resources any time something nasty happens.’
‘Yes, we fall back on technological medicine. We’re
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