Mrs Rokabye was enjoying life at Tempus Fugit since Abel Darkwater had fastened his cloak and left. Every morning Sniveller made her breakfast in bed, and every evening they plotted their plan.
Mrs Rokabye thought of her plan with a capital P. It was a Plan. It was a Masterplan. Soon she would be living in a brand new Executive Home on a gated estate near Manchester. It was all she wanted; it wasn’t much, but if she had to destabilise the Universe to get it, then she would.
Sniveller was less sure of Mrs Rokabye’s Plan, but he was prepared to help her because he longed to escape from Abel Darkwater’s service. He had worked for him for over three hundred years, without a day off.
It was night, and the two of them were sitting in Abel Darkwater’s drawing room by a roaring fire. Sniveller had what looked like a set of Scrabble letters on the table in front of him, and he was rapidly spelling out words with them.
EINSTEIN LINE. BOTH NO. YES.
This meant nothing to Mrs Rokabye.
‘The Control tells me that Silver and her friend the Throwback are at the Einstein Line, that they are not together, and that Silver is moving towards the Timekeeper.’
‘Who exactly are you talking to?’ asked Mrs Rokabye, who had assumed they were alone in the room.
‘My Control. His name is Saul and he tells me all.’
‘Does it always rhyme?’
‘No it doesn’t, but I do.’
‘Well, ask Saul how we get to the Einstein Line.’
‘I don’t have to ask him, I knows the way myself. A map is better than a slap.’
‘Then we must go to the Washing Line, wherever that is, and rescue Silver as soon as she has rescued the Timekeeper. When will that be? Ask him.’
Sniveller muttered something under his breath, and his fingers flew over the letters, forming the word SOON.
Soon! Mrs Rokabye was excited. At long last the wretched child was going to do something useful and make Mrs Rokabye rich.
‘Put on your shoes, Sniveller – we must set off at once.’
‘It’s gone eight o’clock,’ objected Sniveller.
‘Everyone in this house is obsessed with Time,’ said Mrs Rokabye, unreasonably, as that was why she was here.
‘If I puts on my shoes after eight o’clock I will run away. Never run away in the day. Flight at night.’
‘You didn’t run away when we went to see The Lion King.’
‘I was on a lead,’ explained Sniveller. ‘Invisible to your eyes, but a lead nonetheless.’
‘But you don’t want to run away from ME, do you?’ asked Mrs Rokabye, batting her few eyelashes.
In truth Sniveller didn’t want to run away from Mrs Rokabye because he had quite fallen for her. Yes, in his own way he loved her, even though she was a foot taller than him, with a face sharp as a saw.
But he knew that if he put on his shoes he would run and run and never come back. That’s what happened if you had been in Bedlam for too long.
Mrs Rokabye was already putting on her hat and coat. She went downstairs to the little kitchen and filled her coat pockets with tins of sardines, packets of salted peanuts, and teabags. Then she borrowed a very long scarf from the coat rack, and whistled up the stairs for Sniveller.
He appeared in his greatcoat, feet bare.
‘Ready steady, don’t think twice, but treat me nice.’
‘Are we going by taxi?’ asked Mrs Rokabye hopefully.
‘A short stroll then straight down the Hole.’
Mrs Rokabye’s suspicions were aroused.
‘What hole?’
‘The Walworth Hole. It’s the quickest way to the Einstein Line.’
‘Just where is the Einstein Line?’ asked Mrs Rokabye, who had been vaguely thinking about Morecambe Bay.
‘It’s on the other side of the Milky Way, in our solar system, and three hundred years off. I swear the Walworth Hole is the knack of there and back.’
Disquieted but resigned, Mrs Rokabye walked the necessary miles to Walworth. In a dark and gloomy side street, Sniveller glanced round, then pulled a jemmy wrench from his greatcoat, and levered up a paving stone.
Underneath was a cast-iron grille made in the eighteenth century. This he pulled aside with both hands, then, fiddling in his coat once more, fished out two miner’s helmets with lamps. He offered one to Mrs Rokabye, and strapped the other on his own bald head.
‘Down the Town!’ he said cheerfully.
Mrs Rokabye looked into the hole. There was no ladder, no rope, no stairs, no lift.
‘What do you expect me to do?’
‘Where there’s no stair, it’s both feet in the air. Jump!’
‘JUMP???????!!!!!!!!!!!’
Sniveller recalled that ladies are the fairer sex, and fainthearted, and in need of encouragement and support. He had never been married but he knew his manners. Bowing slightly, he arranged himself at the edge of the black yawning gap, with the flourish of an Olympic diver.
‘Dear lady, away I go, and don’t be slow.’
Without hesitation, Sniveller leapt down the Walworth Hole.
Mrs Rokabye waited for the scream and the crash. She waited and she waited and after five minutes she reasoned that Sniveller could not be dead. She considered her options; she could go back to Spitalfields, but she didn’t know the way and she didn’t have a key to the house. She could go back to Tanglewreck, but there were two dead men there already, and besides she didn’t have a train ticket.
What did she have? Sardines, peanuts and teabags. They wouldn’t last long in this cold cruel world. She felt the pin in her pocket. She could sell that, but she had to be careful, someone might think she had stolen it – which she had done.
Very well, then. So be it. Chin up. Best foot forward. Stiff upper lip.
She fastened the miner’s helmet over the top of her hat, and tied the borrowed scarf all the way round her, to stop her coat flapping open. She had read somewhere that parachutists are always streamlined.
Stuffing her handkerchief in her mouth to stop herself screaming, Mrs Rokabye jumped.
There she goes, speeding faster and faster through infinite blackness. She seemed to be dropping through the weight of the world. She had a sense of nothing around her but open air, except that it was closed air, with a texture to it, like cloth – yes, she felt as though she was falling through cloth.
Then she felt herself start to spin. She was no longer hurtling downwards, she was spinning round and round like a corkscrew, and she was getting dizzy. She could hear voices. She closed her eyes.
Her last thought as the freezing air numbed her into unconsciousness was of Bigamist. Would she ever see her beloved rabbit again?