Story: The Disappearance (XIV)

(Part XIII , XV)

I may have appeared uncaring about exposing my past to Agnes and my ever curious partner Sharon, but it was actually the worst thing I'd ever had to do. For all my time in the Force I had sheltered this remnant of another life I kept going in the wee small hours from the storm of bureaucracy, as if I could negate its importance with its secrecy. Now, well, could both go on?

Rolf's statement had been verbose but quite short. He had dictated it with witnesses and now the tape was under lock and key and the digital version encrypted and hidden in the flat above. The resident of the flat above was away on her own new professional and secretive life and we had exchanged door keys for those occasions of professional interest that popped up from time to time. Once Carter turned up we could take turns watching the prisoner under a slightly less tense and demanding regime.

It was a long, long night and I wiled away the guard duty over the restrained Rolf by editing a few articles that had been on the back burner for a while and following a trail of references on some obscure Hittite markings just to keep myself awake. The prisoner didn't make any trouble. For a while he almost seemed at ease with his situation, which was in itself quite disturbing, but some hours before dawn silent sobbing racked him from head to foot and it seemed some dam had broken.

The problem overlapping yourself in time is that you have to almost hide from the events of the world in order to not end up changing them. It was tempting to be out there, trying to change what would happen, but in actuality it would be crass foolishness to venture out of this flat, let own the old university town I loved, before the overlap was over. Also, there were other reasons to not get out too much, one in particular I hoped to never meet again. It would be stupid enough to go out and meet Lily in the morning but she was an expert and an old friend, and the risk was minimal. Once she had been an even older friend but she wouldn't know it for another twenty to thirty years.

Dawn approached and the sleepless night began to catch up with what was already an exhausted man of dubious vitality. Light began to leak through the curtains, stripey as they already were, and noises crackled through from the guest room. Reviewing my work I realised that most of it was nonsense trailing back into antiquity, but what could be expected when distracted by the outside world and its madnesses. We still had about thirty hours of this to get through, and Carter couldn't get here fast enough, if only to stop me from a sleep-deprived fall into Agnes McGonagle's arms.

A wash and a shave never hurt, so after letting the prisoner go about his own business I freshened up and prepared for the gathering storm. Returning to the living room, Agnes was sitting there reading an introductory textbook on complex analysis. I fell asleep on the sofa. Such was life.

Excitement shall ensue