No Time Like the Past Read Online Free

it?’
    ‘I know. I’m still gobsmacked. Jane Eyre!’
    ‘Are we going to check this out?’
    ‘Are you kidding?’
    ‘We’ll never get permission.’
    ‘Leave that to me. I’ve had a brilliant idea.’
    He groaned.
    Markham returned and crossed to the parapet, which was just above waist height and looked down. We joined him.
    ‘Bloody hell,’ said Peterson, stepping back.
    ‘You all right?’
    ‘Fine,’ he said, averting his eyes and stepping four or five paces back. ‘Just tell me what you see.’
    ‘Nothing. There’s nothing.’
    ‘And nothing’s been up here today,’ added Markham.
    He was right. Our footprints were clearly visible on the frosty roof. And only ours. Unless someone had come up here barefoot …
    We looked around, our breath frosty in the cold, sharp air.
    I looked at Markham. ‘Are you up for this?’
    ‘How can you even ask?’
    I spent the rest of the day putting things together and just as the lights were coming on and people beginning to drift towards the dining-room, I went to see Dr Bairstow. Who looked about as pleased to see me as he usually did.
    ‘Dr Maxwell. Can I assume you bring me details of your progress organising our Open Day?’
    ‘All in hand, sir,’ I said with massive confidence and even more massive untruthfulness.
    ‘Then you are here because …?’
    ‘I’d like to claim my jump, sir. If you please.’
    At the end of our unpleasantness last year, as an outright bribe, he’d offered me the assignment of my choice. At the time, I’d considered Thermopylae, but now …
    ‘Really? Where and when did you have in mind?’
    ‘St Mary’s. 1643.’
    He finished stacking his files and straightened, slowly.
    ‘And interesting choice. May I ask why?’
    ‘Ghost-hunting, sir.’
    He looked at me sharply. ‘There is no ghost at St Mary’s.’
    ‘We may have recently acquired one, sir.’
    ‘How?’
    I considered my options, remembered no good ever came of lying to the Boss, and said, ‘On three occasions now, Mr Markham has seen someone fall off the roof. When we go to check it out, there’s never anything there.’
    ‘1643? That would be the dastardly Captain Lacey?’
    ‘That’s the one, sir.’
    He moved the files around.
    ‘Do we have a working pod?’
    ‘I’m sure Chief Farrell will have one tucked away somewhere, sir.’
    I waited. There was no need to remind him of his promise.
    ‘Do not let the fact that I have pre-approved this assignment lead you to believe I will not wish to see the usual mission plan, Dr Maxwell.’
    ‘Of course not, sir.’
    ‘Or that the usual parameters will not apply.’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘And your team will consist of …?’
    ‘Me, Dr Peterson, and Mr Markham.’
    ‘Ah. The usual suspects. Why Mr Markham?’
    ‘It’s his ghost, sir,’ I said, more accurately than anyone realised at the time.
    ‘Well, I suppose Mr Markham’s absence from St Mary’s is always a cause for celebration.’
    ‘Well not really, sir. He’ll still be here – just four hundred years ago.’
    He sighed. ‘I don’t really think that will be long enough.’

Chapter Two
    I held a briefing.
    Since there were only the three of us, we held it in my office. I’d asked for tea to be served. Miss Lee had left out mugs, milk, lemon, sugar, tea bags, and even put water in the kettle. Sadly, she had made no attempt to assemble these component parts, all of which remained scattered around the room. It was like a treasure hunt.
    ‘Your turn,’ I said to Markham and to the accompaniment of the boiling kettle and clattering teaspoons, I laid out Dr Dowson’s findings.
    ‘OK, listen up. It’s 1643 – right in the middle of the Civil War, just before the Siege of Gloucester gets under way. At some point, for reasons unknown, Captain Edmund Lacey slips away from the city and makes his way here, to St Mary’s. His elder brother, Rupert,’ I laid down a photograph of a very dim painting of a pouty man in a vast wig, ‘is away fighting