Meet Me On The Bridge by Sarah J. Harris

Author:Sarah J. Harris [Harris, Sarah J.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2024-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

I shower and put on a new purple dress and ballet flats. Alex is fired up about his commission and will stay late. My experiment proved that returning to the present day is not only dependent on spinning the necklace. I can be accidentally pulled back, at least in the initial hours in the past. Alex’s voice in my flat and Jeremy’s in the archives interrupted my journey. I mustn’t be disturbed. I plan to change the events of May 12, 2023, and live that day forwards with Alex.

I check my watch. It’s 7 a.m. I try to focus on the weight of my research, rather than the heaviness of my guilt for messing around with Alex’s life. I’ve written down the sparse details I remember from the reports of his previous death as well as the inquests for Louise Marshall and Charles Fielding. I know what went wrong for the couple in the Thames, but Alex’s inquest hadn’t been heard in full. The coroner had just formally announced he would be investigating the death and released Alex’s body to his sister. He was yet to hear evidence from eyewitnesses and the emergency services. I can only guess how Alex got into trouble after he’d rescued Louise and went back for Charles.

I hug my folder. It’s comfortingly thick, something solid and tangible to cling onto as more doubts flood my mind. I push them away.

This can work. I’ll return to my life with Alex after putting everything right.

I flick through the rest of my file. Merv has given me contact details for DCI Martin Fairweather, the senior investigating officer in the Night Prowler case. I’ve created a timeline of all the attacks over the last year, using stories from the Gazette’s digital library. The burglar strikes at 11 p.m. the evening I should arrive in the past: May 11, 2023. He’ll break into a house in Chiswick and beat a seventy-year-old woman – an article reporting the attack was in Gran’s shoebox. Merv says it happened at number 4, Brackley Road. I’ll tip off DCI Fairweather and get the Night Prowler arrested there a year early. This will save his future victims and hopefully make Gran and her old neighbour, Ivy, feel safer. I’ll also report a faulty signal box at Barnes level crossing to prevent the train crash.

My confidence grows. I make sure Gran’s cuttings are in correct date order in the box before rummaging through my keepsakes. Memories crackle beneath my fingertips; ghosts stir and gather around. I reread love letters between Gran and Gramps; old birthday and Christmas cards; the Mother’s Day cards I crafted at school and never delivered, and stare at pictures of Mum. I can’t go back to the past and find her, but I don’t want to forget her face.

My eyelids flutter. I try to keep them open for as long as possible. Just as I’ve become comfortable in my new skin and remembered everything from the last year, I’m about to slip out of this life and shed it, snake like.

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