‘Yes. Yes, what … were we doing there?’
‘Looking for your son. Finding a couple of libraries, maybe.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Jem said, himself again. ‘What the hell was that?’
‘You just forgot for a minute what—’
‘That’s not normal, that’s never happened before.’ Jem’s voice broke halfway. ‘Everything was gone, I didn’t know who I was bloody talking to, not since I woke up!’
He pushed his hand over his mouth. Kite levered it away and put both arms around him. Jem hugged him tight. Outside, the limits of London were sliding by, tenements and washing lines, and then houses with gardens. There was a strange brown mist in the streets. He thought it was smoke at first, but there was too much of it. Nearer the station, tributaries of track ran together and, beyond them, dull grey walls and wires stretched overhead, some singly and some in tentacular clusters that wound down wooden poles. He couldn’t see what they did. Unease hit the seabed under his diaphragm. They looked like totems, the kind the Caribbean maroons made, that might have been memorials or KEEP OUT signs. He wouldn’t have known it was London if Jem and the timetables hadn’t said so.
Jem gripped his hand as the train glided into the platform. When it stopped, the jolt jerked them sideways an inch.
‘Gare du Roi,’ the guard called. ‘Gare du Roi, all change!’
‘Miz, I think …’
‘Hold on,’ Kite said, worried now. He was closest to the door and the latch wasn’t obvious until he saw a sign that said you had to push down the window and open it from outside. It meant leaning awkwardly. Once the door was open, he stepped back to let Jem go first. ‘What’s wrong?’
Kite saw it go from him this time. He stopped still on the platform and stared at the people going past, his eyes sliding over Kite as much as they did anyone else. He jumped when Kite touched his arm. He didn’t recognise him.
‘I’m sorry, this is – but could you tell me where we are?’ Jem said. He sounded different. It was a French accent. When Kite told him, he shook his head. His shoulders had gone back, taut; he didn’t like talking to a stranger. Kite put his teeth together and tried not to stare. It wasn’t a lapse. Everything that made him Jem was different. Even his expression wasn’t right. He held his face open usually, but it was locked now. It was how people looked in the parts of the docks you didn’t go if you were in a uniform, where it was only stevedores and carpenters, and women who watched you too hard over the slick noise of the fish knives.
Feeling like he was sinking, Kite asked his name. There was a long pause before the wrong one arrived.
Joe.
The panic came down slowly, not in a normal flustering rush but like something very, very heavy. It had solid edges. Kite could think past it enough to get them into a cab and to a hospital, where the doctor at least seemed to take it seriously. He waited, but before long a nurse came to say, crossly, that visiting hours were over thank you.
He stayed the night at the first place he walked into, an inn called the Coeur de Lion. The chatter at the bar was English and the men were rough; mostly they were filthy and still wearing tool belts. They talked about tunnels and drills. There were newspapers strewn about, so he found a corner and read one start to finish. It was in French, but easy French, and full of pictures. Mainly it was news from Paris. The Emperor’s brother had been typically silly; society parties; abolition rally. The Saints had blown up something, again, in the Premier Arrondissement.
He felt better for having had to concentrate on something and slid the paper under his coat to show Agatha later, but it still made him jump when a girl cleared her throat next to him and said the room was ready. He saw her wondering whether to ask about the burn scars, but she was too polite, and only gave him the new candle that came with the room and explained that he could have another on Wednesday, if he stayed, or before for three sous, and he had to pretend to know whether or not that was reasonable.
In the morning, the doctor explained the transfer to La Salpêtrière, which had been Bethlem when Kite had last read about it. There were strictly no visitors except on every second Monday, so he had to negotiate and managed ten minutes, but Jem, or Joe, had no idea who he was and didn’t want to speak English. Kite explained that they had been on the train together, but he could see it wasn’t sinking in. He tried again the next day. One of the doctors didn’t like having unashamed English people there and had him arrested. He spent a night in a police cell. By the time he got out again, Joe had gone home with a family who said he was theirs.
The address was easy to find after he’d bribed a nurse for it. It was a shabby town house in Clerkenwell. He introduced himself in the evening to the landlord, who gave him a cup of tea for his trouble.
‘It was very good of you to follow it up,’ the man said. He had excellent manners, but through their weave shone a match head of suspicion. The more English Kite spoke, the less M. Saint-Marie seemed to want him in the kitchen. It was a calm caginess; not rude, but how Kite would have been if an obvious highwayman had thumped down opposite and put his boots up on the table. He would not, he had said right at the start, fetch Joe; there had been enough confusion already.
‘I just wanted to be sure he’s – where he should be. Has he lived here long?’
‘Always. He grew up in this kitchen. He’s where he belongs, I can assure you. I imagine you need to be getting home now?’
‘Not till tomorrow,’ Kite said, and inclined his head to say he hadn’t missed the hint. ‘Does the name Castlereagh mean anything to you?’
‘No.’
‘Was his family always called Tournier?’
‘I believe so. Why?’
‘On the train, he said his name was Castlereagh.’
‘Well, everyone lies on trains,’ Saint-Marie said, quite gently, though he tipped his shoulder to say, particularly if they’ve been accosted by an English thug. ‘If you were hoping for a reward, this isn’t a wealthy family, I’m afraid.’
‘No. I’d just like to see him, that’s all.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Saint-Marie.
There were footsteps on the stairs and Joe came down with a basket of laundry. ‘It’s freezing up there, can I sit in with you and steal your marzipan?’ he asked Saint-Marie in French, and then paused when he saw Kite. He didn’t recognise him.
‘Well, good night,’ Saint-Marie said to Kite. ‘Don’t let me hold you up.’ He saw him to the door. Once it had shut behind him, Kite heard Saint-Marie tell Joe he’d been some kind of beggar. He let his head bump against the wall. He could see horribly clearly what had happened. Joe Tournier was who Jem Castlereagh would have been, born into a London that had fallen to Napoleon. Jem’s London was lost, and so was Jem.
Could he really kidnap a man who was taller than him and get him all the way back to Eilean Mòr, all without hurting him? Even if Jem’s memory were guaranteed to return, he didn’t think he could do it.
‘He’s still there,’ Saint-Marie murmured. ‘Let’s call the gendarmes.’
He tried to talk to Joe again the next day, one last time, was arrested again on suspicion of conspiracy to steal a slave, spent two days in another police cell, and came out having decided, leadenly, what he would have to do. He had wondered about sending a letter – that would get through the front door, at least – but Joe had no reason to believe a random letter from a stranger. In the end, he went back up to Eilean Mòr and straight back through to the present side, back round to Stornaway. Trying not to think about it too much, he went to the post office and wrote a letter for them to hold until 1899. The woman at the counter looked suspicious of a scam, but promised to follow the instructions.