Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [90]
Liam looked at Jasmine. ‘And these clay tablets will last sixty-five million years?’
She shook her head. ‘Uh, well, no … I never said they’d last that long.’
Franklyn shook his head. ‘You really don’t know a great deal about fossils, Liam, do you?’
Liam hunched his shoulders. ‘Nope, Franklyn, I don’t. But you do. So why don’t you tell me how this works, then?’
Franklyn sighed. ‘They’ll most likely break up long before there are even monkeys on planet Earth, let alone Homo sapiens. But the impression they leave behind – like a cast or a mould on the sand – on the silt, which eventually will become a layer of sedimentary rock, that’s the fossil.’ He offered Liam a patient if somewhat patronizing smile. ‘Not those tablets. They’ll be long gone dust.’
Liam nodded thoughtfully. ‘All right, then. So now I know … strikes me that it makes no real difference – there’s still something left behind that a person can read, right?’
Franklyn nodded.
‘Good, so best we get started. The sooner we’re done, the sooner we can leave.’ He turned to address them all. ‘I don’t know about you but come sundown I’d rather be camping out on that big, very wide beach than down here.’
‘With those things out there?’ said Whitmore, looking up the jungle slopes surrounding them. ‘Sure … getting out of here sounds good to me.’
CHAPTER 49
2001, New York
‘Three minutes to go,’ said Sal.
‘Three minutes,’ Maddy echoed. They could both hear the machinery below the desk beginning to hum noisily as it sucked energy greedily from their mains feed. Not for the first time, Maddy wondered who paid the electricity bill for their archway. It had to be astronomical, the amount they used.
She smiled at her dumbness. Yes, of course, no one paid any bills. As far as the world outside was concerned, as far as their neighbour – the car mechanic in the archway near the top of their little backstreet – were concerned, this archway normally sat vacant with a ripped and graffiti-covered sign pasted on the roller shutter outside offering three thousand square feet of commercial floor space at a reasonable rate.
Except of course, for a Monday and Tuesday in September when, to anybody who bothered to notice, it would appear three young squatters had decided to move in, only to vanish again on the Wednesday.
‘Oh,’ said Sal, ‘I forgot … I saw a funny thing the other day.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah, in a shop nearby. A junk shop. Well, not funny really. Just a coincidence.’
‘What?’
‘A uniform, a steward’s uniform … from the Titanic. Just exactly like Liam’s.’ Sal shook her head. ‘Isn’t that weird?’
‘Seriously?’
‘The lady in the shop said it wasn’t a real one, though. Just a costume from a play. But, still, kind of funny. I suppose I could buy it for Liam as a spare.’
‘I’m sure he’s in no big hurry to go back to the Titanic, you know? Given what he’d have to face.’
Sal’s smile quickly faded. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I suppose he wouldn’t … none of us, really.’
The numbers on the clock flickered and changed. Two minutes left.
Maddy really could have done with Foster sitting right here beside them. Calm, relaxed, with a reassuring half-cocked smile on his old wrinkly face. Skin that looked like weathered parchment, skin that looked like it had seen way too much sun –
… I wouldn’t mind feeling the sun on my face …
Foster’s last words. He’d said that the morning he’d taken her out for coffee to say goodbye.
‘Sun on my face,’ she uttered under her breath.
Sal cocked an eyebrow. ‘Uh?’
… I guess I wouldn’t mind feeling the sun on my face whilst I enjoy a decent hot dog …
That’s exactly what he’d said, wasn’t it? One of the last things he’d said. That’s what he fancied doing with whatever time he had left to live. Sun and a decent hot dog. With all