What are you doing New Year's Eve?
Danny had earned a cup of tea. He had started the morning re-hanging the back door to the service entry, followed by unblocking the guttering above the lower-ground flats. He still had to phone the electric company to query the latest bill and give Mrs Hazeldene a hand to put up some bookshelves, but the worst jobs were already behind him and it was only eleven o'clock. He slid open the packet of leftover mince pies and lifted one of the golden, flaky offerings out of the box.
But as Danny looked up, something caught his attention. Two young boys had come in the front entrance and were heading into the building, apparently oblivious to his presence.
"Excuse me!" he called, causing the boys to stop.
They looked around, the younger one bearing a particularly guilty expression.
"Can I help you, lads?" he asked, coming round to the front of his cubby hole.
"Oh, no, it's fine, thanks," the older boy replied breezily. He was wearing a grey ski-jacket and a blue woollen hat.
The younger boy joined in.
"We're just visiting our -"
"-Aunt"
"-Uncle"
They had spoken simultaneously, and quickly exchanged irritated glances. Danny regarded them suspiciously. They didn't look like trouble-makers, but you couldn't be too careful. The older boy took the lead again.
"It's our aunt. She used to be married to our uncle..."
"...but now she's not."
"What's your aunt's name?" Danny asked them. It was hard not to be amused by this slightly desperate double-act. He saw them trying to read the list of occupants out of the corners of their eyes.
"Er...Aubrey Winslow," the older boy said.
Danny smiled.
"Nice try. But Mr Winslow is visiting his daughter in Australia – and he's eighty-four."
The older boy sighed theatrically, his shoulders slumping.
"Please," the younger one said. "We just need to go inside. We'll come straight back, we'll take no time at all."
Danny shook his head and started to herd them back towards the front door.
"I'm sorry, but I can't just let you in on your own. Why don't you come back with your mum and dad?"
He saw the two boys exchange another glance.
"I don't think that's going to happen," the older boy told him, gloomily.
"Here," Danny said, following them to the top step. "Have a mince pie."
They took the offerings with little enthusiasm, but Danny saw them tuck into the food as soon as they were back on the pavement. He wondered momentarily whether he should have called someone – after all, the younger one looked very small to be out without an adult - but by the time he gave it a second thought, they had disappeared.
"Happy New Year, Slade."
Jeff Slade looked up at the speaker and then down at the sheaf of papers that had just been dumped on his desk. Morris smiled back at him, with more than a hint of schadenfreude.
"What's this?" Slade questioned.
"Your last four reports. Grisham wants you to do them again."
"Why?" Slade demanded.
Morris shrugged.
"Something to do with a trained monkey having a better grasp of the English language than you."
Morris slunk back to his own desk and Slade dropped his head to his chest. It was New Year's Eve, and he'd purposefully brought himself up to date with his paperwork so he would have the evening free. He'd been trying to think of some way to casually ask Holly whether she wanted to spend New Year's Eve with him, but hadn't yet found the right approach. Although he had had to work on Christmas Day, he and Holly had spent the previous evening together. They took in It's a Wonderful Life at a small arts cinema, then walked back to Holly's flat sharing a bag of hot chestnuts bought from a vendor by the river. He followed her into Sundown Court , and a sort of teasing stand-off ensued at her front door; Holly was waiting for him to ask to come in, and he was waiting to be invited. They had stood silently challenging each other, Slade becoming more and more fixated on Holly's lips, but at the very second he decided to seize the moment, they both realised they were being watched by Holly's elderly neighbour, Mrs Abner. The evening then ended somewhat abruptly and self-consciously with a peck on the cheek and hurried offerings of 'Merry Christmas'. Slade had been hoping they could make up for that this evening, but now it looked like he would be working late again. He wondered whether Grisham would at least be willing to view it as overtime.
Just then, he was distracted by Frank, the desk sergeant, apparently heading into Holly's office.
"She's not here, Frank," he said. "She's giving a lecture at the training college and won't be back until after lunch."
Frank looked pensive for a moment.
"I've had the caretaker of her building on the phone, is all," Frank said.
"Danny?"
"You know him?"
"Yeah...I mean, I've met him once or twice."
Slade felt he should probably be cagey on this point; it could be hard to explain why he spent so much time going in and out of Holly's flat. The logical explanation people would jump to would probably mortify Holly, and the truth was even more problematic.
"Apparently, some kids tried to break into her flat this morning," Frank continued.
"What?"
"That's what this Danny chap said. He's got them there at Holly's building now – think he was hoping she'd go and talk to them."
"Did they actually get into the flat?" Slade asked, immediately concerned at the possible ramifications. Thoughts of paperwork were now cast firmly to the back of his mind.
"I dunno. Can I tell this fella you'll go over there?"
Slade grabbed his jacket and car keys.
"Where are you going?" Morris asked when he saw Slade about to leave. "You're supposed to be writing reports."
"Serious police business," Slade replied, with a wink. "A breaking and entering."
When Slade arrived at Sundown Court, he was confronted by a scene that he wasn't expecting. Two boys were crammed into Danny's cubby hole with him, watching the television and finishing up the remnants of a box of mince pies. One thing immediately struck him, even from just seeing the backs of their heads – they were a lot younger than he was expecting. And looked a lot more reputable.
Danny came round to greet him.
" Jeff, so sorry to bother you like this," Danny said.
"No problem," Slade told him. "What happened?"
"I caught the older one trying to break in through Holly's living room window. Climbing up the drainpipe of all things."
"What?"
"And this was after I stopped them walking in the front door earlier on," Danny added.
"Did they say what they were doing?" Slade asked, leaning sideways to try and get a better view of the boys.
"Won't tell me anything," Danny replied. "Though they've certainly got an appetite."
"Did they tell you their names?"
"Just their first names. The older one's Jack, the little one is Freddie. I think they're brothers."
"Thanks, Danny. I'll take it from here."
"Let me know if you need anything, Jeff. I'll be up at Mrs Hazledene's."
The two boys leaned out of the cubby hole.
"Bye, Danny!" they called, almost in unison.
Slade saw the two boys clock him, and watched as they exchanged glances that he couldn't quite decode. There was something oddly familiar about them, and he started to wonder whether he'd seen them around the streets there before.
"So what's going on here?" Slade asked, once Danny had gone. "Why were you trying to get into Miss Turner's flat?"
"Are you her boyfriend?" the older one asked.
Slade started to wonder what Danny had been telling them.
"No...I'm her...we work together. I'm Detective Slade. You're Jack, is that right?"
The boy nodded. He had dark, almost black hair, and dark eyes, too. His younger brother was more fair-complexioned.
"This is your brother?"
The younger boy piped up.
"I'm Freddie."
"Jack and Freddie what?"
"We can't say," the younger boy assured him.
"Says who?"
Neither of them replied.
"We just can't," Jack cut in. "We have a right to remain silent."
Slade couldn't prevent himself from laughing.
"You're not under arrest," he said. "Yet. So are you going to tell me what you were doing?"
The two boys looked at each other again.
"We just wanted to get in," Jack replied, eventually. Slade had to admit that this youngster had perfected the art of providing only the most necessary information.
"Do you know Miss Turner?" he asked.
"Not really," said Jack, cagily.
"That'll be a no, then," Slade said. He sighed. "Where are your parents?"
Again, there was silence. The younger boy was starting to look a little nauseous, Slade thought.
"They're...we can't contact them at the moment," Jack said.
"Are they away somewhere?"
"Sort of," Freddie agreed. "They're with our sister."
"Did they leave you home alone?"
"No," Jack said.
"Okay, so you ran away?"
"No!" Freddie said, with a tone of panic. "Well...not technically."
Slade frowned.
"Come on, you're both coming with me," he told them.
"Why?" Jack protested. "I thought you weren't arresting us?"
Slade smiled. "I'm not. But I need to take you back to the station where I can keep an eye on you while we get to the bottom of this. I'm going to need to speak to your parents, and you're going to need to apologise to Miss Turner."
No sooner had Holly got the news from Nicky, she spotted Slade arriving back in the office, preceded by two young boys. The older one was swinging what was presumably Slade's own pair of handcuffs around his finger. Both of them were bundled up in winter clothes. Holly's immediate thought was whether she knew them, but the truth was that she actually knew very few people with children. Except for one couple in her building with a new baby, all the other children from her building had grown up moved away.
Slade noticed her loitering indecisively, and corralled his troops in her direction.
"Wait there," he told the boys, parking them by his desk. "And don't touch anything."
"Slade, what's going on?" Holly asked him, looking from him to the boys, and back again.
"Did someone fill you in?" he asked.
"Nicky said something about a break-in at my flat. When I called Danny he said that you were dealing with it."
"Danny caught those two trying to get into the building. I don't think they were necessarily targeting your flat specifically. Although they're not giving very much away at the moment."
Holly was not feeling particularly reassured.
"Did they see the machine?"
"Holly, they didn't get past the front door. Or the drain pipe."
"What?"
Slade shook his head, as though to convey that it wasn't worth going into.
"To be honest, I could do without this today," he said. "At this rate, I'll still be doing paperwork well into 1998."
He turned back to the boys.
"Come on. We're going to have a talk in Miss Turner's office."
The younger boy did as he was told, but the older one hung back. Slade went over to him and held up the boy's arm, which conveyed to Holly what was going on; he had handcuffed himself to Slade's swivel-chair.
"What did I just tell you about not touching anything?" Slade said, fishing in his pocket for the key.
"I told him it was a stupid idea," the younger one piped up, in a tone surprisingly world-weary for a boy of his age.
"I thought I could pick the lock," the older boy protested. "I saw someone do it on TV."
"I've half a mind to leave you like that," Slade told him, as he released him from the cuffs.
Slade herded the boys into Holly's office and closed the door. Holly felt oddly uncomfortable, unused as she was to conversing and dealing with children. Both of them looked far too young to be involved in anything criminal, particularly the younger, whose eyes were as bright as the older boy's were dark and piercing.
"Holly, this is Jack and Freddie," Slade told her with a smile. "They've got something they want to say to you."
Neither of them spoke.
"Well, go on," Slade prompted them.
"We're sorry for trying to get into your flat," the older one, Jack said, as though he was reading from a script.
"Once more, with feeling," Slade said.
"What?"
"Say it like you mean it."
This time both boys gave a marginally more heartfelt apology.
"Right," Slade said. "They're all yours."
Holly looked at him, horrified. He seemed to be suggesting that he was leaving these children in her care.
"I've got to do some background checks," he offered by way of explanation. "They won't tell me who their parents are or how to contact them, so I need to do some digging."
"Can't someone else do that?" Holly said, trying to keep her tone low and under control.
"Something tells me that I won't get many offers, not this close to the New Year's break. I won't be long. I just need to check the missing persons reports, get their photographs out there and possibly contact social services."
"You're not going to send them to social services?" Holly asked, immediately questioning why this was any concern of hers.
Slade shrugged.
"Just depends on what I find out." He looked pointedly at the boys. "Or what they're prepared to tell me."
He moved closer to her, apparently to stay out of the boys' earshot.
"Look, Holly, they might talk to you. Tell you something they won't tell me."
Holly frowned, suspicious.
"Why would they do that?"
"Well, you know..."
Holly was starting to get it now.
"What, because I'm a woman, Slade?"
He shrugged, semi-apologetically.
"Just half an hour," he said.
Holly knew Slade was employing his most persuasive smile, and the frustrating thing was that she could already feel herself starting to relent. She had been hoping he might invite himself round to her flat after work, that the New Year might yield some significant and long-desired new beginnings, but right now she was feeling less inclined.
"Fine!" she sighed, and Slade quickly slipped out of the door before she could change her mind.
"Who wants to look through the microscope?" she asked, turning to the boys.
They both seemed enthusiastic, and she gestured for them to take off their coats and hang them on the stand. Jack did this for the both of them, Freddie's reach coming up short. Holly went through her stock of microscope slides and selected a few she thought fitted the bill of being interesting without being gruesome – although she suspected that gruesome would interest them a great deal.
"Did Detective Slade feed you?" she asked, as they settled onto the stools at her desk.
They shook their heads. Holly temporarily left the room, went over to Slade's empty desk and relieved him of the stash of bananas and cereal bars she knew he kept in his drawer. It was the least he could do.
The boys attacked the food with gusto, and Holly couldn't help but smile as she watched them do it. Why was she suddenly feeling so fondly towards two children who had attempted to burgle her flat? Once they'd finished, she started to show them the slides, explaining as she went what they showed and why they were important.
"So, do you like science lessons at school?" she asked.
"He does," Jack said, indicating to his brother. "He won a prize last year."
"Really? What for?"
"A competition for the best invention," Freddie replied. "Just a theory. I didn't actually have to build a prototype."
Holly was slightly amused by the boy's mature, matter-of-fact tone.
"Is that what you want to do when you grow up?" she asked.
"Maybe," Freddie replied.
"What about you?" she asked the older boy.
"He wants to be a free-runner," Freddie cut in.
"Sorry?"
"Someone who does parkour," Jack added, as though this would enlighten Holly. They both regarded her blank expression with a measure of amazement and exasperation.
"Parkour – you know," Jack said. "You run and jump over buildings and stuff. Like Jason Bourne."
"Like who?"
Holly saw Freddie nudge his brother, whose expression then changed.
"I might just be a policeman instead," Jack said.
"So...when did you last see your parents?" Holly asked gently.
"Yesterday, sort of," Jack said. "It's fine, they won't be missing us yet."
"I'm not so sure about that," Holly said, amused by his confidence. "You're both way too young to be out overnight by yourselves. How old are you?"
"Thirteen and a half," Jack said. "He's just turned nine."
"We need to get you home," she told them.
"You don't need to keep us here," Jack replied. "Honestly, we can find our way back. We were always going to, anyway."
Holly broke off a piece of cereal bar and popped it into her mouth.
"Something tells me that Detective Slade is going to see things a little differently."
Slade finished jotting down notes and hung up the telephone. He finally felt as though he was getting somewhere. He checked his watch and saw that it was now mid-afternoon, and most of his colleagues would start to clock out pretty soon in preparation for the New Year festivities. He wasn't one for parties, fireworks and the whole New Year's Eve shebang, but he had been looking forward to the prospect of something more intimate.
"Making any progress with those young lads, Slade?" Grisham asked, as she passed by his desk.
"A little," he replied. "Chief, can't I pass this over to the night shift?"
"No, you can't. Those children need to be placed somewhere tonight while we find out who they are and where their family is."
Slade sighed.
"You know," Grisham continued. "When I saw the older one wandering through here earlier, I thought you'd shrunk in the wash."
Slade frowned, unsure what was being implied. The main thing was that he was not yet off the hook. He knocked on Holly's door, and when he opened it, she saw her and the two boys crowding around the microscope, the younger one dressed in her white lab coat. Maybe she should have been a science teacher.
He gestured for Holly to step outside the office with him.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Good news, bad news and strange news," he told her. "I've circulated their photos, but nothing's come back yet. They don't appear to have been reported missing either by their family or from care. But police caught two boys matching their description trespassing in a house yesterday, and they were taken in by social services."
"Where? In London?"
"No," Slade said, glancing at his scrawled notes. "Sixty miles away - in Cambridge. Except it seems they did a runner this morning and came to London."
"That doesn't make any sense," Holly said.
"I know. And of course, they wouldn't tell the local police in Cambridge who they are and what they were doing. They don't seem to be connected to the owners of the house they were found in, either."
"So what happens now?"
Just as Slade was about to reply, they were interrupted by an apologetic Nicky.
"Sorry to interrupt, Slade, but you just had a call from social services."
"Great! Did they find somewhere for the kids to stay tonight?"
Nicky grimaced slightly.
"Not exactly," he replied. "They said the local homes are all full, and that they won't be able to find any foster carers to take them this late on New Year's Eve."
Slade's heart sank.
"Oh, fantastic. So now what am I supposed to do with them?"
Nicky, relieved to discover that this was only a rhetorical question, quietly made his exit. Slade's mind suddenly struck on an idea.
"Holly..." he began.
"No. No way."
She started to walk away from him, and he followed.
"Come on! You've got a spare bedroom; you've got loads of space."
"I've got a time machine in my living room, is what I've got," she replied in a low whisper. "And besides, do you really think it's a good idea for me to invite two children who tried to break into my flat for a sleepover?"
"Okay, so I'll stay the night, too."
Holly immediately shot him a look, and he realised that for a split second she might have misinterpreted his words.
"I'll make sure they don't get up to anything. All you'll need to do is keep the living room door locked."
"Where will you sleep?" she asked, with suspicion.
"Wherever you like, Holly," he grinned, before heading back into her office to tell the boys the news.
The two boys had seemed excited to be returning to Holly's flat, and she certainly noted the surprise on Danny's face when the four of them trooped past him.
"Having a New Year's party?" he asked, clearly confused.
"Something like that," Slade had replied.
They were both laden down with shopping, Holly having realised on their way out of the office that there was no way that she had enough food for the four of them. Slade had offered to cook which, frankly, was the least he could do, having been the originator of this whole ridiculous idea. When asked what they would like to eat for dinner, the boys answered in unison that they wanted spaghetti Bolognese. Holly noticed that Slade had slipped a bottle of wine into the shopping basket, too, although when he thought they would have the chance to drink it she didn't know.
The moment they walked through the front door, Holly went straight to the living room door and turned the key in the lock. She slipped the key in her pocket before putting it in the usual hiding place in the drawer in the hallway.
Considering this was a flat to which they had been apparently trying to gain entry, the boys seemed remarkably uninterested in their surroundings. They were quick, however, to make themselves at home, and Slade had to stop the older boy from helping himself to things from the fridge. They stayed in the kitchen watching television while Slade made a start on dinner, and Holly set about trying to make the spare bedroom suitable for their habitation. As she hunted around for spare pillowcases, she thought about how strange this situation was and how out of her depth she felt, playing temporary guardian to two stray children. On the bedspread she placed the two brand new toothbrushes that she had insisted Slade add to the shopping. She had been keen for the boys to have clean underwear, too, but Slade had dismissed this, assuring her that they wouldn't care about that kind of thing.
Holly let herself into the living room with a spare blanket and pillow. Slade, she assumed, would be sleeping on the sofa – that was what he expected, wasn't it? His sleeping in the living room would at least provide some extra piece of mind that the machine would remain undetected.
As usual, Slade's cooking was exemplary, and he flicked an amused glance at Holly as they observed the quiet that fell over the room when Jack and Freddie tucked into their food.
"Like it?" Slade asked, smiling.
The boys both nodded.
"S'good," Freddie said, appreciatively.
"Bet it's not as good as your mum's, though," Slade suggested.
The boys looked up at each other for a moment, smiling conspiratorially, but neither responded.
"Who's in Cambridge?" Holly asked, taking a sip of water. "Detective Slade said you were there yesterday."
"Oh, just some people we know," Jack replied, vaguely.
"They weren't in, though," Freddie added.
"Can we stay up till midnight?" Jack asked.
"No," Holly found herself saying in unison with Slade.
"Mum and dad usually let us," Freddie said.
"Well, that's them and this is us," Slade told him. "Besides, you must be tired after your long day of criminal activity."
"We're not tired," Jack insisted.
"Well, it may surprise you to learn that we are," Slade said. "Early nights all round."
After some protests around missing all the best programmes on television, the two boys took themselves off to bed. Freddie was keen for a book to read in bed, which posed a problem for Holly; the contents of her shelves were largely made up of her father's old textbooks and manuals. However, Freddie went straight to an old book of W Heath Robinson inventions, which Holly's mother had bought for her father as a Christmas present one year, and which she had forgotten she even had. Holly lingered while the boys settled into bed and felt herself struck by a feeling of unreality; that bottle of wine was now sounding like a very good idea.
Slade was way ahead of her, and when she returned to the kitchen he was already taking the cork out of the bottle. The clock told her it was nearly ten, but it already felt much later.
"Dunno how anyone does it full time," Slade said with a weary smile.
Holly took the glass of wine from his hand, declining the open packet of biscuits he held out to her.
"Someone must be missing them," Holly reflected. "I don't understand why they won't tell anyone where they've come from."
"They'll have to eventually," Slade replied. "Otherwise they'll find themselves back with social services. Unless you want to take them in permanently, of course."
Holly smiled.
"They seem like good boys," she said.
Aside from the usual noise, unremitting chatter and low-level boisterousness, they had been very well-behaved house guests, and it didn't seem right to her that they weren't in their own home.
She and Slade sat side by side at the kitchen table, with the television mutely playing images of the usual New Year festivities of fireworks, street parties and live music. Holly didn't yearn to be out there amongst all that, but her brightly lit kitchen did not lend itself well to the sort of evening with Slade that she had been hoping for.
Slade knew that Holly was finding it hard to relax in their present circumstances, and he couldn't blame her – this was one of the strangest days of his working life, too. But now he was somewhere closer to where he had hoped to be by this time on New Year's Eve. They started to talk as they shared the bottle of wine, and quickly settled into the playful, flirtatious back-and-forth conversation that had fast become the trademark of their friendship. Slade had lost track of the point at which he'd decided that he wanted more, but the longer he had to wait, the more resolutely he wanted it. There would be no Mrs Abner to thwart him this time, although he had to concede that progress with Holly might be slightly hampered tonight by her current house-guests.
"I never got the chance to tell you how much I enjoyed the film the other night," he told Holly. "It was a great evening."
Holly smiled and nodded her agreement.
"I'm glad your phobia of black and white cinema didn't get in the way too much."
She would never let him forget his reaction to Les Enfants du Paradis although, if he was honest, if it had been in English and in full colour, he probably would still have fallen asleep.
"I didn't even mind that I burnt my mouth on one of those chestnuts," he continued. "I hope you were impressed at how I didn't betray my cool exterior."
"Very," Holly replied, although the note of sarcasm did not elude him.
"I was very impressed myself with just how active the Neighbourhood Watch is around here," he ventured, sliding a look across to Holly. He saw her blush slightly before taking another sip of wine.
On the television, the crowds at Trafalgar Square were waving for the camera, and the focus suddenly moved to the face of Big Ben. It was now only moments from midnight.
"Stick the sound on," Slade suggested. Holly did so, apparently quite relieved at the distraction.
They watched in silence as the crowd chanted the countdown. As the announcer wished everyone a Happy New Year the camera moved around the people at Nelson's Column, capturing the kisses of one couple after another. Slade glanced over at Holly, whose gaze was still fixed on the television.
"Hey," he said softly, seeking her attention.
When Holly turned around, Slade moved a little closer to her. She looked at him shyly; she was giving him permission. He leaned across the corner of the table and kissed her, slowly and tenderly. Slade was immediately enthralled by the soft yielding of Holly's lips against his - and there was no doubt about it, she was kissing him back. The kiss quickly moved from tentative and exploratory to more passionate and purposeful, and Slade's mind started to race almost as fast as his pulse. Without breaking away, he reached for the television remote in the hope of silencing it, but at that moment they both heard another sound – one that was alarming in its familiarity. They broke apart.
"That sounded like -" Slade said, puzzled. But before he could finish his sentence, Holly had leapt up and made a bolt for the hallway.
The sound they had both heard was the one made by the machine as it started up, preparing to initiate time travel. Holly pulled at the living room door, but it was locked.
"What's going on?" Slade said, as Holly fumbled in the hallway drawer.
"The key's gone!" Holly cried. "The room must be locked from the inside!"
Slade dashed along the hallway and threw open the door to the spare room; the feeling that had started to dawn on him was correct – neither boy was in his bed.
"It's Jack and Freddie," he called to Holly.
"What?"
"They're gone. It must be them. They must be using the machine!"
Slade saw the raw panic on Holly's face. They both started to bang on the living room door and shout the boys' names.
"We've got to stop them!" Holly yelled.
Slade took a step back with a view to kicking down the living room door, but at that moment they both saw, through the chinks above and below the door, the pulsing lights from the machine. It was working, and Slade knew from Holly that the process could not be interrupted once it has begun – the results could be cataclysmic.
The lights subsided and the flat fell into silence again. All that could be heard was the low murmur of the television.
"I don't believe this," Holly said, shaking her head. "This is...how could this happen? How did they know how to use the machine; that it was even there?"
"How did they know where the key to the door was?" Slade added. "They were in the kitchen with me when you hid it."
"Slade, this is...it's exactly what I've been afraid of all this time. The machine isn't a toy, it's a complex scientific instrument and if it's not used as it should be then...lives could be at risk."
Holly looked to be on the verge of tears. She reached up to the coat stand and took down the blue duffle coat that the younger boy had left behind.
"We were responsible for them, Slade!"
"I know," he replied, placing his hand on her shoulder.
"And there's nothing we can do to get them back."
He nodded, feeling a weight descend.
"At least we can try and find out who they were."
Holly searched hopefully through the pockets of the duffle coat, but was not surprised when she came up short; little boys carried no driving licenses, National Insurance numbers or bank cards to give away their identities. Slade was on the phone to the station, trying to sound for all the world as though there was nothing amiss.
"Did anything come back on those photos I sent around?" he was asking.
Holly saw from Slade's reaction that the news was not positive. She knew that the police moved fast when it came to missing children, so not to have had any response from the regional forces was surprising. Hanging up the phone, Slade picked up his jacket from the dining chair and fished in the pocket, producing the original Polaroid photographs of the boys that he had hurriedly taken in the office. Holly saw him look at them for a moment, then turn them over, before holding them up to her. They were blank.
"They must have been exposed to too strong a light," he said, with a frustrated sigh. "So much for our best and only lead."
Holly pondered this for a moment. Then, a theory planted itself in her brain and started to unspool thick and fast.
"Slade, what was the address of that house in Cambridge?" she asked. "The one the boys were found inside."
Slade dug into his pocket for his battered notebook, flipping through it to find the notes he took during his earlier phone conversations.
"Er...46 Maids Causeway," he read.
The answer came to Holly merely as confirmation, not news. The neurons in her brain were starting to make further connections, and she reached for Freddie's coat again. Little boys' coats may not contain ID, but there was something else they usually did contain. She knew Slade was watching her with curiosity as she fumbled for the label in the collar of the coat. She felt her hand trembling when she took hold of it and read the name that was written there in marker pen.
"Holly, what's going on?" Slade asked, clearly puzzled by her actions.
Holly looked up at him, feeling a sense of deja-vu. Once again she was going to present him with a truth that sounded so outlandish that he was bound not to believe it.
"Slade, I don't think those boys have travelled back in time," she said, carefully. "Because I think they were already there."
Holly could see his brain trying to process this sentence and what it might mean.
"What are you talking about?" he said.
The magnitude of what she was talking about was such that Holly could barely find a place to start.
"When was the last time we were faced with blank photos?" she said. "It was during the Sonja Duvall investigation; those photos of the clerk, Andrew Hopkins. The photos had to be blank because in the present they didn't exist."
"So, let me get this straight," Slade said, perching on the edge of the kitchen table. "You're saying the photos of the boys are blank because they're now in a different time – in the future?"
"In their present," she nodded, and received in return Slade's most incredulous look.
"So you think that in the future everyone is just zapping about in their own personal time machines?" he asked.
"Not necessarily," she replied, shoring herself up for the further revelations she was about to unleash. "In this case, I think it was my machine that they used."
"How would they do that?"
Holly picked up Freddie's coat again, and held it out to Slade.
"Look," she said. "Look at the name."
She watched him read the writing on the label and take in the name – 'Freddie Slade'. He looked up at her, questioningly.
"Slade," Holly said, in a faltering tone. "I think...I think Jack and Freddie are your sons."
"What?"
"And...I think I'm their mother."
Slade laughed, but he soon stopped when he saw that Holly wasn't joking.
"Holly, what are you talking about?"
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's the only thing that makes sense," she said.
She sat down on the chair closest to him.
"Their names: Jack and Freddie. Who else do you know called Jack Slade?"
"My dad," Slade replied.
"And my father was Frederick. Those boys were named after our fathers, Slade. That house, 46 Maids Causeway – that was my parents' home, the house where I grew up. The older boy, Jack – I felt like I'd seen him somewhere before, but now I think it was because he looked just like you."
Slade looked as though his head was going to implode.
"Wait, Holly, this is crazy. Are you saying those boys -"
"Travelled here from the future," she nodded.
"And they were trying to get into your flat so they could travel back," Slade replied, his mind clearly still reeling. "But how is that possible? If they are who you think they are, then they aren't...we haven't..."
She watched, feeling her cheeks flush slightly, as he tried to find a delicate way of putting this.
"...they haven't been born yet. Is it even possible to travel back beyond your own lifetime?"
Holly exhaled deeply. "There's nothing in my father's research to suggest you can't. It's only the limitations of the machine in its current form that have prevented it. In the future, who knows...maybe I've found a way around that."
"But hang on, Holly, if they really did travel back in time, what, at least fourteen years, then wouldn't they have to live those fourteen years twice, in order to get back to the present?"
"That's how it works now," Holly agreed. "But my father was convinced it would be possible to control the timeline one day; that the machine would be able to return the traveller to the present, back to the point from which they travelled."
"But why go to your old house in Cambridge?" Slade continued. "What would they hope to find there?"
"Maybe they didn't break in – maybe they were already there."
"But why?"
"Slade, ever since my father sold that house, I've dreamed about getting it back - but with all the expense of the machine, I just...well, I accepted it was never going to happen. But maybe somehow I did get it back, and maybe that's where...Freddie and Jack live."
Holly was starting to think about the implications of this; she and Slade living in Cambridge with two sons - it was about as far removed from reality as anything he could think of.
"So right now they could be back in their own home, in their own time zone?" he asked.
Holly nodded, a solemn feeling descending.
"I hope so."
Slade moved from the table to the chair beside her. Her hands were still shaking a little, and he took one in his own.
"You realise how insane this all sounds, Holly?" Slade said.
"Yes."
"But kind of mind-blowing all the same," he added, and she could see a funny little smile hovering around the corners of his mouth. "In a good way."
Holly looked at the hand holding hers and remembered that only a few minutes ago she had been kissing this man and feeling as though she was embarking on something that was going to change her life. But there was a long way to go between first kisses and starting a family...wasn't there?
"Holly, are you okay?" Slade said, interrupting her reverie. "Because if you're thinking about a suitable punishment for those boys when we catch up with them, don't worry; I'm way ahead of you."
Slade seemed to be accepting all this with remarkable calmness and clarity.
"This is all...okay with you?" she asked, tentatively.
"I'm coming around to the idea," he said. "I mean, we are going to get some practice in first, you know, before we...commit to having kids, right?"
Holly couldn't help but smile as she realised the direction in which he was trying to steer the conversation.
"Because I'm happy to start practising whenever you are," he continued, angling his head towards Holly.
Their lips had barely touched when he pulled away again.
"Oh, I should probably tell you," he said. "They have a sister, too."
"What?"
"The boys; they mentioned a sister. Or was it sisters..."
"Slade!" Holly exclaimed.
"No, I think it was only one."
Holly sighed.
"We are definitely stopping at three," she told him.
Slade leaned towards her again, and Holly remembered just how dangerous he was for her to be around; her resistance was pathetically low.
"If you say so, Holly," he grinned. "If you say so..."
THE END