Chapter 6

We surged forward and the room we were in seemed to wobble and become watery, then all the colours ran horizontally, just like different coloured wet paints running into one, and flowing away on either side of us, like a Damien Hirst painting. I watched it stream past the side window and turn into a muddy mess.

“That was really weird—” I started to say, turning back to the Duck. “What’s that?” I said, pointing through the windscreen.

The Duck grinned. “That, mate, is the temporal vortex.”

“It looks like we’re going down a big red plughole,” I said.

“We are now travelling down the Route 66 of history,” said the Duck. “We’re Easy Riders, man. I’m like that one Peter Fonda played—Captain America—and you’re the other one.”

“I’m the one with the cowboy hat,” I said.

“No, not him—the other one—the one who got killed first by those rednecks,” said the Duck.

“Can’t I be the cowboy one?”

“No, you’re like the other one—he wasn’t right in the head,” said the Duck.

And then he started singing “Born To Be Wild.” I don’t think he knew the proper words, but then neither do I, so I’m not sure.

“Is this the way Miss Parker went?” I said.

“No.” He carried on singing.

“Which way did she go then?”

“Don’t know.” He sang on. Beating out what he thought was the backbeat on the steering wheel with his multi-ringed fingers.

“Where’re we going?”

“To pick up Travis,” he said. “He can be the cowboy.”

“I don’t like Travis,” I said.

“Travis is cool,” said the Duck.

“He stole my girlfriend and shot me,” I said.

“Well, yeah, but don’t make a big deal out of it, man—you’ve got Miss Parker now and you’re getting better all the time. Look on the bright side.”

“My side still hurts and Miss Parker’s in prison,” I said.

“Man, you are so negative. I think that aphrodisiac’s wearing off—you’re sounding like your old self.”

We suddenly stopped and the same room, more or less, that we had just left a minute or two before materialized around us. One moment there was only red and black noise and then the walls and ceiling began to colour in. It looked just like some unseen artist was speed painting a perfectly detailed picture of the interior of the garage, starting and continuing in about a hundred places at once and completing the painting in a matter of seconds.

The next minute, we were out of the car and the Duck was performing the same trick with the rotating bookcase, and we were back in the library of Duckworth Hall, only it was March 1803, not March 2002. And there weren’t any guys with flamethrowers charging about. The Duck patted his desk and gazed around the room.

“They’ll trace all this back and destroy it on the day the builders finish building it,” he said, “but at least I saved my books, preserved what really matters, these few realms of gold, safely stored, with the barbarians hammering at the gate.”

“You never read them,” I said.

“That’s not the point—they cost me an arm and a leg—worth a lot of money at third millennium prices,” he said.

“You could buy some more.”

“Buy some more, buy some more—it took me weeks to buy this lot. What would you know about the art of collecting? You—whatsit.”

“Philistine?”

“That’s the word. Come on, let’s get some grub and break the bad news to Travis,” he sighed.

“What bad news?”

“He’s Princess Mormagleea’s personal bodyguard. I told him she’d be fine with me up in the third millennium—he’ll go ape when he finds out she’s been arrested by the TCP.”

“He might challenge you to a duel,” I said.

“Hey, that’s a point. You tell him.”

“Me?”

“Well, she’s your fiancée,” said the Duck. “It’ll sound better coming from you. He respects you now. He says you’re the bravest man he’s ever had the honour to shoot.”

“Fiancée?” I said.

“Yes, didn’t I tell you? I said you’d marry her.”

He headed out the door, I followed him, and we bumped straight into Bentley, who had just been about to knock.

“Bentley!” quacked the Duck. “Why are you always creeping around?”

“I’m sorry, Sir Julian, do excuse me, but I was just coming to see if you had returned, sir.” He looked at me. “Good evening, Mr Duckworth.”

“Hello, Bentley,” I said. I tapped the Duck on the shoulder. “Hey, could we discuss what you just said?”

“No time right now, Stephen—Bentley will see to you.” He hurried off down the corridor.

“Hang on!” I said.

“Don’t worry, sir, I’ll see you to your room,” said the butler, taking my arm.

“Oh, no you don’t,” I said. “I’m not going back up there. Where’s Miss Gummer?”

“Miss Gummer, sir?”

“Don’t start all that,” I said. “Listen, you just toddle off and do some butling, I’ll find Miss Gummer myself. I’ll be all right.”

“Yes, of course, sir,” said Bentley, letting go of my arm. “But you are bleeding rather, sir.”

“Bleeding? Where?” I looked down at my chest—the bandage was blotted with blood. “Oh my God!” I immediately felt faint and fell back against the doorframe.

Bentley supported me at the elbow. “I think you should let me take a look at that, sir,” he said.

* * *

I don’t mind admitting, I was shocked when my gunshot wound started bleeding again. It must have happened when I was dodging flamethrowers. Bentley was great—he helped me back up to my room, had a look at it for me, and changed the dressing.

“I am not an expert in these matters, sir,” he said. “But I think sir has been rather overdoing things. Such a serious wounding requires bed-rest, lots of bed-rest, sir.”

“Are you sure you’ve plugged the holes, Bentley?” I checked my new bandage, to see if any more blood was blotting through. “I think I need a plumber.”

“I believe we may safely say I have fixed the pipe, sir,” he replied.

“Thanks, Bentley. How about something to eat and drink?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“I’ll just have a sandwich or something.”

“Haven’t been invented yet, I’m afraid, sir. I can bring you some bread and cold meat, but I can’t put it between the bread.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that. And tell Miss Gummer I’d like to see her,” I said.

“I am afraid that will not be possible, sir.”

“Why not?”

He glided out.

“Why the hell not?” I called.

There was no answer.

* * *

There was no answer and he never returned. Nobody came. I waited. And waited. And wait—I felt like I was in that play by Samuel Beckett, with the laughs edited out. I think the love potion, or aphrodisiac, or Spanish fly, or whatever it was Nurse Parker injected me with in that private clinic, was wearing off, because I was thinking straighter. In fact, I was getting pretty damned annoyed and impatient with everybody, but since none of them were around, I took to thumping my pillow. The last thing I wanted to do was sleep. That blood loss had scared the hell out of me, but not enough to make me stay in bed. I got up slowly and painfully. There was something very odd going on. I was starting to remember things. Little anomalies. Like that thing with the dates—was it the nineteenth or the twenty-second? And if Nurse Parker was really a princess and De Quipp was her bodyguard—what country were they from—not France, that’s for sure, because the Duck couldn’t even remember the name of the place she was the princess of. And why were those Temporal Criminal Pursuit goons after her? She had to be a time fugitive. And then there was Travis himself, if he was supposed to be guarding Princess whatever-her-name-was’s body, how come he was chasing round after Emma’s? And hanging out with the Duck? Always dodgy company. And if the two of them were time travellers, why was the so-called Monsieur De Quipp masquerading as a Frenchman and playing out dangerous duels? And last, but definitely so not least, what was Julian Duckworth’s part in it all? Past experience told me it would have to be a leading one—the starring role. It was time to look for some answers.

I decided to try the direct approach—I would go downstairs and confront everyone outright, since they all seemed to be in the same conspiracy. But I didn’t even make the door, before I started getting stabbing pains in my chest. They doubled me up. I clutched at my bandage. To my horror, I felt something warm and sticky—my hand was plastered in blood! I staggered in reverse and fell back on the bed.

I was frantically pulling the service bell cord and shouting for help—I thought I was going to die—but still nobody came. And then I realized that by panicking I was making my heart pump faster and losing more blood, so I tried to remain calm and just lay there on my back, staring up at the ceiling. And it worked. I managed to slow up my breathing and get my heart-rate right down.

Now, two things happened. First I stopped bleeding, but also, and more improbably, the pain suddenly went away. I don’t mean it eased off or dropped to a bearable level, I mean, it just stopped. Abruptly. It was odd. Odd enough to arouse my suspicion. You have to remember my brain was in full conspiracy alert mode. And have you ever noticed how easy it is to make any given set of facts or statistics fit your personal theory about something, no matter how outrageous or bizarre it all sounds? This is called market research. For example, people think of tulips because they feel guilty about not washing their cars on Sunday mornings, because tulips have waxy petals and people associate this and their scent with car wax. Therefore, stick a tulip on your tin of car wax and your sales will double. But, having said all that, I was dealing with a weird and convoluted thing—the Duck’s mind—so logic didn’t apply, even irrational advertising logic.

What if, I thought, the Duck was behind everything? If he were in league with Miss Parker and De Quipp, would he really have allowed De Quipp to fire a real bullet at me, his son? Yes, he would! But if he wanted me dead, all he had to do was invite me up onto the roof of Duckworth Hall and push me off. Besides, I didn’t really buy that—the Duck was my father, after all is said and done, he would never let me be killed. Or why would he have bothered to make me immortal? Blood is thicker than water and all that. Therefore, I reasoned, he must have tried to control the duel, but failed when the pistols got mixed up. But what if that had been a double bluff, simply to fool me into thinking I had been shot? But why? It didn’t make sense. But if my training in advertising had taught me anything it was that things did not have to make sense. If the public always acted sensibly big business would be small business. It was time for a little good old-fashioned, new and improved, authentic, just-like-mom-used-to-bake-it irrationality.

Tentatively at first, and then with feverish abandon, I unwound my blood-soaked dressings. Soon I had coils of soiled bandages all over my bed like a vampire’s party streamers and I was down to the last fat gory wad, sticking to my chest. I peeled it off. And gasped.

Whatever I had, it wasn’t a wound. Whatever I was looking at, it wasn’t normal medical practice. It was more like malpractice. I was looking at a small plastic sachet, with a blood-matted nozzle attached to the end, connected to a plastic tube, taped to my side and running up under my armpit to my shoulder and disappearing under the adjoining bandage around my arm. I had definitely been duped. But, if I wasn’t shot, what the hell was wrong with me? I started unwinding the bandage on my arm, wondering what I would find next. As the tail of the bandage slid from my arm, I gulped.

Something small, complicated, and electronic was not only taped to my arm, but actually embedded in the flesh! It looked like a mechanical leech. My instinct was to pull it off me, but I was too terrified to touch it. I could see blood inside the “back” of the thing and wiring connected to diodes, like little antennae. A hypodermic probe protruded from it, going into my artery, like a drip, but there was also a long golden filament running through it. I knew this was no ordinary drip, because drips feed plasma or drugs or saline or nice things into the body to do something good and this thing was clearly pumping blood out, as well as fulfilling some other devious function I could not yet fathom. Which is not good. Notice I never said fiendish. Alliteration was never my strong point.

I sat up and reached for my bedside candle to take a closer look. Sharp spasms of pain shot through the left side of my torso. Blood began dribbling from the nozzle in the end of the sachet. I placed the candlestick holder back on the bedside table and I lay back down. The pain stopped and the blood flow reduced to a drip. I sat up again—the pain came back and the blood spluttered out once more. I lay back down. Both stopped. I sat back up—they started again. I lay back down. They stopped. I was beginning to get it. I wrenched the thing off my arm and hurled it across the room. Alarming amounts of blood spurted from my puncture wound. I quickly wrapped the bandage back around it and pulled the knot tight with my right hand and teeth.

There was no other explanation for it, my father was repressing a subconscious desire to kill me by transferring his loathing for me into imaginary bullets and projecting them from a duelling pistol, which he had placed in the hands of the stigmata of a love rival from a joke, who was holed up in a bell tower in Westphalia, because he saw himself as a failure. I know there are a few flaws in this theory, but I’m still working on the metaphors with my analyst.

That was it for me. That moment was the end. The Duck and I were finished, as far as I was concerned. I was going to find Emma, get the book of twentieth century sporting achievements and records the Duck had promised me as a wedding present, find the Duck, make him take me to the 1920s, tell him to get lost and never have anything to do with him or time machines ever again. I couldn’t begin to think what was going on or what all the lies and treachery meant. I didn’t want to know—I just wanted out.

I found a clean shirt and frock coat in the closet, put them on, and went to look for Emma. I decided not to tell anyone I knew about my phoney wound, because it would give me the element of surprise. But, then again, maybe I was just in denial.

* * *

I scoured that house. It was eerie—they were all gone, vanished into the night. Candles were burning in most of the halls and rooms, there was evidence on the dining table that several people had eaten a meal that evening, the doors were all locked, the windows all closed, there were no signs of a struggle—just stillness and silence, upstairs and downstairs and in my lady’s chamber. Well, I did find what I assumed to be Emma’s chamber, because I recognized some of the clothes she had worn hanging in one of the wardrobes. I must have searched Duckworth Hall high and low for the best part of an hour. It was such a vast place I didn’t get to every corner, every nook and cranny, but if there was anyone around, I never saw him. And, of course, I didn’t go up into the attic—I already knew what was up there. I sat down on the master staircase, eating a piece of cheese and a carrot, and drinking champagne from the bottle, racking my brains to think where else I could look. There just wasn’t anywhere left—except the—I threw down my carrot and descended the rest of the stairs two at a time, skidded on the black and white tiled hall floor, as I turned the right hander into the corridor, and sprinted up to the library door. It was locked. Why the hell didn’t I think of it before? I didn’t bother trying to force it, the thing was made of solid oak, so I dashed back along the passage to the hall, down the rear corridor, through the salon, and out through the back door to run round to the window.

The library was in darkness. I looked about me on the ground for something heavy, found a loose cobblestone and broke in. I was soon on the top of that ladder, feeling about in the back of the shelf for some sort of lever to operate the turnstile mechanism. It didn’t take me long to find it. It felt like a trigger and when I pulled it the whole section of the shelving swung round and I was in the Duck’s secret garage. But there was no sign of the Duck or the white Ford Cortina. I switched on the electric lights and looked around for any clues to his whereabouts. There weren’t any, so I was naturally very disappointed and frustrated. And that is why I found a spray can and a hammer and trashed the place. I vandalized every single tool and surface in that workshop. I totalled it. Now, I know that was a bit juvenile of me, but it felt good—God, it felt good. And I thought I had just cause. And, anyway, it got my adrenalin pumped up—pumped enough to go and get a cutlass I’d seen hanging on a wall in the dining room and a set of master keys from the key cupboard in the cellar, and head for the attic.

You see, during those mad ten minutes in my father’s garage, expressing my insecurities, it had occurred to me that if my dear schizophrenic father was lying to me through his teeth about everything else, why would he be telling me the truth about Jemmons and the squid? Ergo, that was the real Roger Jemmons up there!

And, boy, I so did not want to go back up there. You know in those horror movies when the victim goes into the one place in the haunted house nobody in their right mind would go, and you wish he would just run out the front door like any normal human being, well, it felt a bit like that. I kept telling myself to run away, run away, but something just compelled me to keep going up those dark, winding stairs, with my candle flame fluttering with every puff of draught, step after step, up and up. Actually, I think I wanted to sever the tentacles of that squid because they represented the various influences and holds my father had over my life. I hadn’t yet learnt how to express my feelings for my father. I still needed to verbalize them.

Anyway, I eventually unlocked the door, switched on the lights and there was no squid in the tank—just poor old Jemmons. And was he glad to see me! If that’s a replicant, I thought, I’d like to see how animated the real one could get. As soon as he’d blinked and got his eyes used to the light and saw me, he was rocking up and down, stamping his feet, opening and closing his eyes, nodding his head. I walked over to the glass—my spine squirming like an eel—and mouthed the words:

“Roger? Is that you?”

He nodded vigorously.

“But how can I be sure?” I said.

He twisted his wrist round and flicked two fingers in the shape of a “V” at me.

“Yeah, all right, mate—there’s no need to be offensive, I am the rescuer here.”

I looked for a way up to the top of the tank. It was just a pro-size aquarium filled with luminous green water. Like in one of those old freak shows, Jemmons was submerged and chained to the bars of a metal box, which he was sitting on. His ankles were shackled, too, and he was wearing a simple, but adapted, scuba mask, with two plastic pipes coming off the mouthpiece, trailing up to the top and out over the rear of the tank.

Roll up, roll up—come and see The Tentacled Man, I smiled to myself.

I walked round the back to see where they went and found them attached to an air pump—they looked like feed and return lines. But there was a third pipe coming off a large plastic drum, also with a pump fitted to it. I opened the lid and peered in. It was full of water with bits floating in it, but it smelt organic—some sort of foul-smelling soup, I guessed. I was just going to go back to the front of the tank, when I noticed the bowling alley stretching away into the unlit depths of the attic. So, the Duck hadn’t been lying about everything, I thought. I wandered onto the lanes and looked around for a light switch. I could see bowling balls lined up on the auto-returns and four sets of pins in the distance, at the end of each lane—and then I spotted the fridge against the far wall. I went over and helped myself to a cold beer and took it back to the front of the tank with me. Jemmons saw the bottle in my hand and pulled a face.

“All right, I’m thinking,” I mouthed.

The tank was about fifteen feet high and there was no obvious way up—no ladder or platform to climb, just the sheer four sides of the glass. I gave Jemmons a little wave and walked round it again, looking for an answer. It had me foxed. I took a swig of my beer. And then I had an idea. I sauntered back to Jemmons and tried to mime what I wanted him to do. I clamped my teeth together and pointed at him. He nodded but looked uncertain. Then I pointed at myself, put my bottle on the floor, and acted out me climbing up the side of the tank. He looked puzzled. I pointed at him and made a gesture to indicate his mask and how I wanted him to clamp it tightly in his teeth. He got the message. His eyes widened in alarm and he began shaking his head frantically. I waved my hands to calm him down.

“Don’t worry,” I mouthed. “I’ll soon have you out of there.”

I picked up my bottle and took a couple of gulps. Jemmons was still rocking on his box and shaking his head at me. I put my bottle down, took off my frock coat, and rolled up my sleeves, gazing up at the fifteen-foot glass wall and nodding to myself. No problem, I thought. Jemmons had somehow rocked himself closer to the glass and was kicking it. I waved. He shook his head and glared at me. I picked up my beer and pointed at it.

“I bet you could use one of these,” I mouthed. I clamped my teeth at him. “Hold on tight,” I said.

And then I strolled round to the back of the tank, spat on my hands, grabbed the breathing tubes, and tried to climb up the side of the glass. I got about four feet and fell back down on my ass. Just as I was about to get up and try again, both ends of the tubes wriggled over the top of the tank and fell on me, splashing me with water. I peered through the glass. Jemmons was sitting on his box with his back to me shaking his head and rocking about violently, a mega stream of bubbles flowing from his head.

“Oh shit!”

I looked around me—dashed onto the bowling lane, grabbed two balls and ran round to the front of the tank. Jemmons saw the bowling balls, realized what I was going to do, and tried to duck. I wound the first ball up and threw it with some force at the tank. It bounced off and hit me in the shin, skittling me over. I scrambled to my feet. Jemmons was swaying from side to side, his cheeks puffed out, trying to hold on to his last lungfuls of air. I ran at the tank and bashed it with the bowling ball. I wasn’t making any impression on it. It wasn’t even marked.

“It’s toughened! They used toughened glass! What’s the matter with these people—don’t they know we may have to break these things in an emergency? Some people, they just go around making problems for the rest of us!”

Jemmons was dying. I snapped out of the terminal rant I was in and redoubled my efforts. I used both hands this time and swung the bowling ball from above my head. The shock waves shuddered up my arms, but the dumb glass didn’t break. Jemmons was swaying more slowly and there were fewer bubbles coming from his mouth and his eyes were tightly shut. I was desperate. I started running a few more feet back each time and charging at the glass, banging on it with all my might with my bowling ball. I was shouting a lot. I think I was cursing the people who make aquaria again, but I might have moved on to glass blowers. I don’t remember. I had hit my fatal panic alert button. I was probably just making noises like those weird little Michael Jackson cries he puts in his songs, near the end.

Suddenly, there was a sharp splitting sound. I stood back—my mouth wide open. A white tarantula of cracks had appeared in the glass right where I had been beating it. Jemmons’s eyes opened and we looked at each other in expectation. There was another, louder, splitting noise—I backed away—a long lightning bolt of a crack shot out from the small spidery one and stopped abruptly a few feet from the top right corner of the tank. There was a slight pause. I instinctively scampered over by the sidewall. And then the whole front of the tank just exploded and spewed the fifteen by fifteen sheet across the room in a shower of water and glass. I closed my eyes and heard two thuds against the wall. When I opened my eyes, two “daggers” of glass were sticking in the wall either side of my head. I felt like a knife-thrower’s assistant.

“And for my next trick,” I mumbled.

The water emptied in a matter of seconds and was washing around my knees, and splashing up the walls, but most of it just frothed and flowed straight out the door and ran down the stone staircase in a torrent.

As soon as the water level began dropping, I waded across to the tank and lifted Jemmons’s head up. Water came out of his mouth and he gulped in air.

“Are you okay, Rog?” I said.

“Kill the Duck,” he gasped.

“Kill the Duck—kill the Duck,” I sang, as I checked out the padlocks on his ankles and wrists. “I’ll have to saw these off. Wait here while I go and get a hacksaw. Kill the Duck.”

“Come back,” he said. “Might come back.”

“Who?” I said. “The Duck? He’s long gone, mate.”

“No,” said Jemmons. “It.”

“Oh, that,” I said. “Yeah, right. I’ll run. Kill the Duck.”

I set off for the garage where I remembered seeing, and for some reason not destroying, a hacksaw. I was just on my way back up with it, when I noticed the bottle of Ruinart 1730 and the half-eaten carrot and cheese I’d left on the main staircase were gone.

“Kill the Duck—kill the Duck,” I muttered to myself, and continued on up the stairs.

There was a lot of water still washing around the far end of the upper corridor of the west wing. I splashed through it and was just turning to go up the steps when I ran into Bentley, carrying a silver tray with my champagne and leftover supper balanced on it.

“Bentley!” I exclaimed. “You asshole!”

“Good evening, sir,” he said. “We appear to have a leak, sir. There has been a seepage into the blue drawing room. I fear some paintings may have been damaged.”

“You’ll be damaged and leaking in a minute—get up those stairs—I’ve got a job for you!”

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “Will sir be dining in this evening? The rest of Sir Julian’s party have already eaten and—”

“—Oh, shut up,” I said, giving him a shove up the steps.

The old butler walked ahead of me at a sedate pace, nose in the air, his tray rock steady.

“Look what I found creeping around!” I called to Jemmons, as we walked into the wrecked attic. “Good old Bentley!”

“Good grief, sir!” exclaimed Bentley.

“Hello, Bentley,” said Jemmons.

“He’s a snake,” I said.

“Yes, you are a snake, Bentley?” said Jemmons.

“Mr Jemmons, sir—what in heaven’s name has happened?” said Bentley.

“You should get an Oscar,” I said, giving the treacherous butler an elbow in the rib. “Here, take this and make yourself useful.”

“Yes, of course, sir,” he said. He put down his tray and I handed him the hacksaw. He took it over to Jemmons, knelt down in a puddle, and began sawing at the ankle chain.

“Bentley here knows more than he’s letting on,” I said.

“Bentley,” said Jemmons. “Do you know more than you’re letting on?”

“If you say so, sir,” said Bentley.

“Yeah, and I’d be careful what you say with him around—he’s hand in glove with my father,” I said. I went over and got the champagne and took it back to Jemmons to hold it to his lips while he swigged. “Listen to this,” I winked to Jemmons. “Hey, Bentley,” I said, “where’s Miss Gummer?”

“Miss Gummer, sir?” said Bentley.

“You see,” I nodded. “He knows, but he’s not saying.”

“She’s on her way to Bath to stay with the Mason-Wrights. I believe Miss Emily and her father are taking the waters, sir,” added Bentley.

“He’s just saying that,” I said to Jemmons. And then to Bentley, “How would you know?”

“Because I drove her to the local coaching house in the phaeton this morning, sir,” replied Bentley, continuing to saw through the chain.

“You see,” I said to Jemmons, “he’s making it up.”

Bentley’s arm jerked as the saw severed the last half millimetre of link.

“I think you should be able to prise that open now, sir,” he said. He set to work on the wrist chain.

Jemmons forced his ankles apart. I got down and grabbed the chain and pulled. The link bent open and Jemmons’s legs were free. Jemmons twirled his feet around.

“Feel good?” I said.

He nodded. “Good.”

“Hurry up with his wrists, Bentley,” I said. “We’re wasting time here.”

“I’m going as fast as I can, Mr Duckworth,” said the butler. “Are you taking Mr Jemmons somewhere, sir?”

“Like I’d tell you,” I said. I smiled at Jemmons and shook my head. He grinned back.

“Mr Duckworth, sir—might I have a word?” said Bentley, carrying on with his hacksawing.

“What?” I said.

“In your ear, sir,” said Bentley, looking at me over his shoulder and rolling his eyes towards Jemmons.

I crouched down next to him, so that our heads were level. “What is it?”

“You do know that this Mr Jemmons is a replicant, sir?” he whispered.

I laughed. “Nice try, Bentley,” I said. “Oh, you’re good.”

Bentley shrugged and went on with his work. I looked up at Jemmons, who was staring off into space. True, Roger Jemmons was not the smartest man who ever drove a time machine down the temporal vortex, but I was going to need his help, if I was ever to find Emma again and get even with the Duck.

I stood up and walked around to Jemmons’s other side, to have a quiet word in his ear.

“Don’t trust Bentley. Is your machine here?” I said.

Roger kept looking straight ahead and nodded.

“Good. We’re going to need it, mate—the Duck’s away—and it’s only a matter of time before Temporal Criminal Pursuit get here.” I patted his shoulder. “How’s that chain coming, Bentley?”

“Nearly through, sir,” said Bentley.

Suddenly Jemmons let out a piercing peacock cry—it freaked the hell out of me. Bentley nearly jumped out of his skin and dropped the hacksaw.

“Good grief, sir,” said Bentley. “What was that?”

I stooped down in front of Jemmons and looked into his staring eyes. “Don’t worry, mate—your ordeal’s nearly over,” I said, patting him on the knee. I looked over at Bentley, who, without taking his eyes off Jemmons, was feeling around on the floor for the saw. “You see this man,” I said to Bentley, “he’s been through hell. My father put him in that tank with a bloody great giant squid—what you just heard was delayed shock. He’s traumatized. Now, hurry up. I’m getting him out of here.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bentley, hurriedly finding his cut on the chain and sawing for all he was worth.

Jemmons was soon freed and stood up. I embraced him and patted his back. He embraced me back.

“We’ll get through this together, mate,” I said. “If anyone had put me in there with that thing I’d need counselling. Hang in there.”

I let go and tried to step back, but Jemmons kept hold of me. I gave him another hug and tried to pull away again. He still wouldn’t let me go.

“Yeah, all right, mate—don’t overdo it,” I said, shoving him off.

Jemmons belched and looked around him.

Bentley, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, was edging away from us.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I said.

“The tray, sir.” He picked up his tray and put the hacksaw on it.

“Don’t go sneaking off,” I said. I turned back to talk to Jemmons, but he was gone—he was looking around over by the wall, kicking at something with his foot. “We should split, Rog,” I said. “Tempus fugit, mate.”

Jemmons bent down and picked something up. He had found the cutlass.

“Yeah, bring that—we might need it,” I said. I turned round and wagged a warning finger in Bentley’s face. “And you are going to show us where we can find some guns,” I said.

Bentley whipped the hacksaw off his tray and charged at me with it.

“Aunt bloody—!” I exclaimed, dodging to my left.

Bentley pushed me out of the way. I heard a loud CLANG, swiftly followed by an even louder KERRANG! I kept my head down and wheeled away, screwing my neck round at the same time to see what all the noise was about. Jemmons was hacking at Bentley with the cutlass and Bentley was fending him off with his tray and hacksaw like a gladiator.

“Hey, Rog?” I shouted. “What the hell are you doing?”

Jemmons whacked Bentley out of the way and lunged at me. I ran behind Bentley.

“It’s not Mr Jemmons, sir,” said Bentley. “It’s a replicant—and it’s unstable!”

“Unstable? He’s bloody lethal!”

Bentley’s trusty silver tray took another scything blow, and he parried two more vicious sword thrusts with his hacksaw.

“Try and hold him off,” I said. “I’ll find something.”

“I’ll do my best, sir. Please hurry, sir.”

I patted Bentley’s shoulder and ran off down the side of the aquarium to find something to stop the replicant with. I could still hear the CLANGS and cries of the combatants as I hunted about. I wanted something long and heavy, but I couldn’t see anything that fitted the bill. I didn’t know how much longer Bentley’s brave rearguard action would last, so I settled for two bowling pins. I dashed off down the lane and grabbed them and was just turning round to go back when I saw Bentley running along the other end of the lanes, chased by the sword waving Jemmons, in silhouette.

“Bentley! Down here!” I cried.

Bentley dropped his shoulder and swerved to his right to come down the far lane and cut back towards me. The replicant was slow to react, but then turned like a machine, looked round, saw us, and charged.

I lobbed one of my pins at him. It seemed to hit his shoulder and glance off, clunking, skidding and spinning up the wooden lane and smacking into the back of the tank. The replicant was momentarily halted but then let out another terrifying peacock scream and came on. I threw my second one at him and it struck him full in the chest, and bounced off. And then he was on me and somehow I got my arms out and we were hand to hand, only he still had the cutlass and was trying to wrench his hand away from mine to slash at me with it. The real Jemmons was a big man, a burly Plymothian matelot, and this thing possessed all his strength and some. I fell back on the lane under the weight of his onslaught, still desperately trying to hold him off. But I knew it was only a matter of seconds before he overpowered me and ran me through with that cutlass. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t afford the energy. I just held him there with every ounce of strength I had left.

Suddenly, there was a loud hollow crack, like a batsman hitting a boundary—the force left Jemmons’s arms, the cutlass clattered to the floor, his elbows buckled and he slumped onto my chest. I peered round his shoulder and saw Bentley standing over us, holding aloft a bowling pin with both hands, ready to deliver another blow.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“Kill the Duck,” I gasped, and passed out.