Half-Past Tomorrow

by Chris McGeorge

Genres: Crime Fiction; Psychological Thrillers

Synopsis

Shirley Steadman, a 70 year old living in a small town in the North East of England, loves her volunteer work at the local hospital radio. She likes giving back to the community, and even more so, she likes getting out of the house. Haunted by the presence of her son, a reluctant Royal Navy officer who was lost at sea, and still in the shadow of her long dead abusive husband, she doesn't like being alone much.

One day, at the radio station, she is playing around with the equipment and finds a frequency that was never there before. It is a pirate radio station, and as she listens as the presenter starts reading the news. But there is one problem - the news being reported is tomorrows. Shirley first thinks it is a mere misunderstanding - a wrong date. But she watches as everything reported comes true. At first, Shirley is in awe of the station, and happily tunes in to hear the news.

But then the presenter starts reporting murders - murders that happen just the way they were reported.

And Shirley is the only one who can stop them.

Release date: August 5, 2021

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 448

Sample

00.00

Colm MacArthur

Royal Navy – Operation Kingmaker (Mine Countermeasures)

50 miles off the Persian Gulf

Friday 12 October 2012

1.12 a.m. . . .

Colm MacArthur felt like he could sleep for a week. And, currently, that sleep was threatening to force him into unconsciousness. His eyelids felt heavy – slivers of a strong material he had to strain to hold up. The cool wind of the Gulf sea seemed to be the only thing keeping him awake, as his willpower and a long-expired sense of duty failed. The jet-black night stretched in front of him – the kind of night where you would question every life decision that had led you to this point – this point right here.

The day had been strenuous and filled with menial tasks that alone seemed worthless, but it was promised that they did help the vessel as a whole. He had mopped floors, tidied, washed the dishes – all jobs that the Royal Navy pamphlet had skirted over. All that had got him through was the guarantee of a peaceful night.

So when his friend Gabe Steadman had volunteered them both for nightwatch, Colm could have thrown him overboard. Gabe had convinced Colm though – they needed to curry some favour and hopefully get back to something more exciting, after their high-stakes euchre game below deck had been uncovered.

HMS Aevum, the ship he had been calling home for the past year, was quiet, still, in a black, silent night. The only real sound apart from the wind was a slow lapping of water, as the current figured its way around the immovable vessel. Not enough to hold Colm’s interest, let alone inspire consciousness.

Colm and Gabe had split the ship, and Colm was in charge of walking the port side, and he had barely managed one lap of the lengthy deck in the three hours (and counting) they’d been on shift. Now, he was leaning over a railing, looking down at the dark water below, and he didn’t know how long he had been there. He would be in a lot of trouble if any of his superiors saw him, but they were all fast asleep below decks, and Colm didn’t really think the ship was at risk of anything. The War on Terror was over – they had won. Both Gabe and Colm had seen it from the sidelines, mostly, but they still had some scars to show for it. Now, they were the clean-up crew – their years of experience somewhat squandered.

It sounded like Gabe was a little more enthusiastic about his job, however. If he listened really hard, he could almost hear Gabe’s footfalls on the deck, gently going up and down, up and down, in about fifteen-minute cycles.

As if he had summoned them, Gabe’s footsteps passed by him, on the other side of the captain’s cabin as Colm straightened up, deciding he should start moving again before the cold wind jostled him along. He stretched, did his coat up tighter and started to walk.

Then Colm thought he heard Gabe stop – say something.

He stopped, listened. ‘Gabe?’

Nothing.

Must’ve imagined it.

Colm had been silently a little worried about Gabe for a while now. The two of them had grown up together, back in the North East – a world away. He knew Gabe’s history, and he knew he never wanted to join up. But for a while, he had been OK. Five years in fact. He had sucked it up, and got on with it. But now, the shadows were back in his face, the falter in his voice. He still carried on, but something had returned within him. And that worried Colm.

But maybe he was just imagining it – being overly analytical. In reality, Gabe probably was better in the Navy than himself. Maybe everything he thought of his friend were mere projections of himself. You wouldn’t accuse a puddle, a reflection. Was he unhappy here?

Right now, absolutely. The night shift was Colm’s least favourite activity, because it was so horrendously dull. The ship wasn’t moving, and it wasn’t likely you would spot a mine – they weren’t exactly conspicuous.

Colm’s eyelids drooped again. The wind played across his face, almost willing him to sleep. He leaned on the railing, letting it take his weight. And he felt himself slipping away, down and down into—

A loud splash. From the other side of the ship. Real.

Colm’s eyes shot open. ‘Gabe?’ he shouted. The footfalls were gone.

Maybe something just fell.

But how? Everything was tied down; it was a quiet night (much like the one Colm wanted to sleep through) – and the ship was stationary.

‘Gabe?’

Another splash. Smaller.

Something was wrong.

Colm straightened up. His mind was full of ridiculous notions – pirates mainly, sharks less so.

Where was Gabe?

Colm started to walk around the side of the cabin, crossing the unspoken line into Gabe’s jurisdiction. He looked down the long span of the ship – nothing, no one. No pirates. But also – no Gabe.

Something was very wrong.

He turned to look up the other end, the wind picking up and adding a chill to the air. It took far too long for his brain to make sense of what he saw. ‘Gabe – what . . .?’

Gabe was sitting on the railing, his legs over the side of the ship. He was holding something – something big and heavy, with chains wrapped around it. One of the chains snaked down to his ankle.

Gabe looked at him, in his full Navy uniform. Despite his shaved head, which reflected the moonlight, and his old and tired eyes – he looked at Colm as his younger self. ‘Wasn’t meant to be,’ Gabe said. And he let go of the thing in his hand, a metal block as heavy as Colm’s eyelids had been. And Gabe was pulled down, over the side. Shivering icy horror in the still night. A loud splash. And then another.

Colm launched forward. ‘Gabe!’ He inhabited the air that his friend had a second before. He looked down into the sea. And he saw his friend looking up at him as he was dragged to the depths. It looked like Gabe was smiling.

And Colm MacArthur never had a good night’s sleep again.

01.01

Shirley Steadman

Chester-Le-Street, North East of England

Tuesday 9 February 2021

7.05 p.m.

‘Ooh, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes, lass?’ old Harold said, as Shirley walked up to his bed with her badge and her clipboard. Harold had been in hospital the last three times she had visited the ward, and had developed a fondness for her, as she had him. She was not actually sure what was wrong with him, despite his arm, but he always seemed to have trouble speaking. It made him out of breath, as though he’d had a lifetime of walking uphill. ‘You look younger every time I see ya.’

‘Harold,’ Shirley said, smiling and tapping her clipboard. ‘I’m barely younger than you.’

‘Mebbes, me bonny lass. But ya divant look a dey over twenny,’ he chuckled through his thick accent. Twenty years living here and she still had trouble with some words.

‘That’s enough, you,’ Shirley replied, with the air of authority she had cultivated when raising her children, and clicked her pen. ‘What’ll it be today?’

‘Hmmm . . .’ Harold pretended to muse. He would probably have been comically scratching his chin if his arm wasn’t stuck in a sling. ‘Wey a bit o’ Bowie, o’ course. Giss us the one boot the spacemen.’ His memory also wasn’t the best. But Shirley couldn’t really hold that against him – neither was hers. ‘How’s it go agen?’

Shirley nodded and wrote ‘Harold’ and ‘Space Oddity’ down on the paper on the clipboard. ‘Ground control to Major Tom?’

‘Aye, that one,’ Harold said, who then gave a quick rendition of the chorus.

Shirley smiled and let him finish. ‘Who’s it dedicated to?’ she asked.

‘Wey you, of course.’ Harold chortled.

‘Harold!’ Shirley tutted.

‘Oo alreet then. Guess it berra be ta me wife.’

‘That’s better,’ Shirley said, writing in the dedication box on the form. ‘Do you want help getting the headphones on so you can listen?’

‘Aye if ya can.’

Shirley went around the bed, careful to avoid any wires or important equipment. The small TV unit was against the back wall, discarded. She took it and swung it around over Harold’s bed. She detached the small pair of headphones, like the ones handed out on aeroplanes, and put them on Harold’s head. Then she switched the unit to radio mode and went to channel 5. ‘There you go. I’ll be on from about eight fifteen.’

‘Yer a diamond, lass,’ Harold said, winking at her.

Shirley smiled back, slightly worried that she had just seen that Harold was on a fresh IV. That hadn’t been there last week. Something was wrong with him, and it wasn’t just a broken arm.

She said her goodbyes and left the room.

The patients of Ward 14 had really outdone themselves. Usually they weren’t very receptive – the Ward was Orthopaedics and often had elderly patients or people who were really in no fit state to listen to a request on the radio. But today they had wanted a relative smorgasbord of requests. Shirley actually didn’t know how she was going to fit them all into the show, or make them flow into each other. Sure, the old favourites were being played – an elderly man with a leg suspended in a sling wanted ‘My Way’ dedicated to his wife, a young woman wanted ‘Wannabe’ by the Spice Girls for her daughter and a woman about Shirley’s age wanted Vera Lynn, which was very nice but also incredibly typecast. But there were also some oddball choices – a song about a JCB digger which she didn’t know existed, some rap by Childish Gambino (a name she had heard before but never listened to) and something by (she hoped she had written it down right) Wise Kalifer. She was sure some of these songs would have expletives in, but they had the radio edits, so it didn’t really matter.

Shirley finished her tour of the ward in the traditional way, by stopping by the nurses’ station and asking if they wanted anything played. The nurses, all now younger than her daughter, thought amongst themselves and decided on ‘I Gotta Get Out of This Place’. Shirley smiled and laughed, as though this were the first time she had heard that request, and wrote it down on her clipboard. She thanked the nurses and left the ward, making her way slowly to the lifts. She paused in front of them, her finger hovering next to the call button. She retracted her finger, remembering what Marsha had said in their embroidery group about her joints seizing up because she never did any exercise. She wasn’t going to have that, so she took the stairs instead.

Down the last corridor, a group of nurses passed her, and to her dismay, she saw a flash of ginger hair amongst them. It was Callie. She tried to keep her head down, but as they passed, their eyes met. Shirley felt the stab of guilt that always came with Callie’s gaze. Shirley hoped that Callie felt warmth come with hers. Why did they always have to meet like this? It always seemed to happen. She knew Callie worked here, but someone upstairs had to have it in for her. She used to let it ruin her night – thought that she deserved it, and in some way she still did, but she pushed the guilt down inside and forged onward.

She got back to the studio a little out of breath, her legs throbbing, promising pain tomorrow, which was almost the opposite of seizing up, so she guessed that was fine. As she input the passcode and got into the small box room, down a forgotten hospital corridor, she heard Ken Vox’s familiar voice coming from Studio One.

In the packed room, a designer/magician had managed to get a small area with chairs and a computer, a cupboard full of old vinyl records, and two soundproof studios. Shirley made her way to Studio Two, by way of clicking the kettle on. She sat down in the small space, in front of a large, expansive radio deck with hundreds of sliders and knobs – of which every hospital radio member only used about five.

She looked through the window that was between the studios into Studio One. It was empty of course. Ken Vox hadn’t been part of the Chester-Le-Street Hospital Radio team for going on two years now. He had been picked up by Metro Radio, a ‘real’ station. But, due to a loophole, the hospital was still allowed to play his old shows. So they just played them over and over, until volunteers came in to take over and do live shows.

There used to be a big team on Tuesday nights – now it was just Shirley. She didn’t particularly mind.

She flicked the computer on and started searching for the requests. Fifteen minutes and a cup of tea later, they were all sorted (Wise Kalifer appeared to correctly be Wiz Khalifa and many of the songs seemed to be rather inappropriate) and put into the computer program. She sent the playlist through to Studio One, ready for her to go on. All that was left before she went live was to find one song that wasn’t on the system but they would have on vinyl. She had forty minutes to do this, so turned the kettle on again, and went into the cupboard.

Vinyl records, stacked on shelves, lined every surface, save for the far end, which was piled up with old radio equipment. Given that the records were so thin, they were alphabetised with small scraps of paper poking out to denote a new letter. You had to pull out a record to know where you were within that letter, so there was still a fair amount of guesswork involved. Shirley started pulling out records in the C area, reaching up to the top shelf.

She was looking for a record by the rock band Charlie. She had never heard of them and the man who requested it, his neck in a brace, had delighted in giving her a small potted history. Formed in the seventies, a UK band with four members, ten albums, still going today (apparently). It was the kind of information which she wouldn’t retain – wouldn’t have, even in her memory’s heyday – but also the reason why she did this job. She loved how people could hold on so dearly to something that had never touched her life in the slightest. It was a constant reminder about how big the world really was.

After a few false records, she finally found Charlie’s title album which the system said had the song that she needed. She reached up and pulled the record out, satisfied. She rested it on a lower shelf, and pulled the next record out halfway so she knew where to put it back for later.

As she did, she stopped for a second. The next record along – Half-Past Tomorrow. Chutney and the Boys. The familiar cover art of the sphinx in Egypt but with seventies shades on – Chutney and her boys standing on it in various places, rocking out with guitars. She hadn’t seen it in a long time.

She stood back, realising that her body was shaking slightly. The memories, the ones she would never ever lose, came flooding back. Gabe as a child rocking out just like Chutney, bouncing on his bed, a broom in place of a guitar. ‘Half-Past Tomorrow’, his favourite song, playing over and over and over – ironically the only slow song on the album, and very unworthy of an upbeat routine.

Gabe.

How would things be different if . . .?

The kettle whistled.

And Shirley blinked the immovable past away.

She made a cup of tea, put the Charlie record over next to the computer in the lobby area, and realised she still had too much time. Ken Vox was gruffly talking about something, showcasing that rugged charm that had landed him a real radio job. She had time to do something that made her feel better.

She went into the cupboard again, but this time went to the back, where the stack of old equipment was piled up. She removed a box from the top, as she did almost every other week. She took it and her mug of tea into Studio Two, propped the box on the desk and opened it. Inside there was an old radio set, far bigger than anything that would be seen maybe even in the last century.

Turning it on, she hooked it up to the studio desk so she could hear it better. Immediately, a harsh static filled the studio – the kind of white noise that wasn’t possible on radios nowadays. She immediately felt an intense feeling of warmth, nostalgia and longing – the kind of feeling that almost wrenched your consciousness out of the present moment and propelled you back to happier times. In all of Shirley’s seventy years, she had never felt a noise so comforting as the static between radio stations.

She turned the knob to change the frequency and voices started fading in and out. Tyneside on 93.5, BBC Newcastle on 95.4, Metro Radio, among many more. The stations stacked up as she continued on her journey. Once she got to the end of the dial, she switched over to the AM band and started afresh. This was an altogether quieter track – AM stations were shutting down, and the ones that were around were often just different frequencies of BBC stations. But she wasn’t looking for a station – she was looking for a fine patch of static.

She found one. And she put on the sweaty pair of over-ear headphones connected to the desk. And sat back – closing her eyes.

When you had lived as long as Shirley had, you had to take comfort in the little things. And this was her little thing. Peace and quiet for the half an hour between gathering requests and the live show, where she could just sit and listen to the static and not exist for a moment. She cleared her mind – no Bob, no Deena and the kids, no Gabe – just the noise.

On the cold nights, in this studio alone, in her head, it was so easy to live in the past. Seven decades of living, seven decades of decisions, seven decades of mistakes and fumbles and poor judgement – it could crush someone. Her body was betraying her – those stairs she climbed were going to put her out of commission till (probably) next week, her bones ached and felt like glass, sometimes it hurt just to breathe. It was harder to get up in the morning, and it was harder to sleep at night. In pure evolutionary terms, she had lived too long. She had outlived her usefulness to the species. She was in overtime.

It was important to her not to live in the past. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t do just that.

‘. . . future . . .’

A voice? She opened her eyes and looked at the old radio. Something in the static? Maybe just a wobbly frequency – these old radios were temperamental.

Shirley straightened up – ignoring a twinge in her back – and looked at which frequency she was on. 66.2 AM. No radio stations anywhere near it. Maybe just imagination then.

‘. . . then . . .’

Same voice.

Shirley put on her glasses from around her neck. She ever-so-slowly turned the dial. 66.1. Nothing. 66.0. Nothing. So she turned the other way. 66.3. ‘. . . was off to the . . .’ The voice louder. More concrete. 66.4. ‘. . . in Newcastle. The hounds are running and so are we.’

66.4. That was it. A radio station off the map. Pirate. One that had never been there before.

She smiled. Pirate radio was an interesting concept. A radio station made by an individual or a small group using independent equipment to broadcast a transmission. The idea was older than she was, and that was saying something. The signal must’ve been coming from nearby – pirate radio often did. The signal was weak as it was, even with the hospital radio’s equipment which could amplify the old radio. The voice was wavering, warbled, and fluctuating in volume. The voice was also strange, as though it were being disguised, fed through a computer. Shirley’s interest was piqued.

She pressed the headphones further to her ears. ‘Looks like it’s time for the news! There’s nowhere better to come to for news about Chester-Le-Street and the local area than 66.40 Mallet AM.’

Mallet AM. What a wonderful name. And it had a news segment too. This almost seemed like a legitimate radio station. It was a great effort. Whoever was playing around was doing a good job. Was this a man or woman, lonely and bored, just having a bit of fun? Or maybe a group of children experimenting? Whoever it was, she was glad she could be here to hear it.

‘Today is the tenth of February,’ the voice continued, ‘and let’s get into it. A pretty light news day today, nothing much going on. Chester Park has been seeing a rise in dog fouling in recent weeks, so Park Manager Art Fowler has put up signs to keep dogs off various patches of grass. The sign was promptly urinated on by Fiona Smith’s dachshund Rodney. It is uncertain whether Art Fowler has noticed the staunch lambasting of rules yet – but, rest assured, we will have more as it develops.’

Shirley laughed and clapped her hands. This was just like a real news show. Such fun. It was exactly what she needed – this radio station was priceless.

‘Houses in Chester-Le-Street are being sold at a premium to try to prove to local authorities not to bulldoze several vacant properties up near the hospital. After the dark times of last year, many businesses have been affected – and the housing market is no exception. After many rushed and reportedly heated meetings at the local civic centre, MP Ralph Harver has struck a deal with private company Havanna Housings to cut costs and attract new people to the local area. It seems as though it is working now the housing market has bounced back. So much so in fact that it seems Chester-Le-Street Leisure Centre may be in jeopardy of closure and demolition.

‘Here at Mallet AM, we have reached out to Harver to see how likely it is that the Leisure Centre will suffer the same fate as many of our local recreational venues. It is clear that this would be a terrible blow to the community, especially for young families, people who work at the Leisure Centre, and avid swimmers. We will update as the situation develops.’

Shirley frowned. She hadn’t heard that Chester Baths (the local lingo for the blocky old building down between the bottom of Front Street and the park) was threatened with closure. She remembered taking the kids there, and seeing them sloshing around in the kiddie pool, with mesh butterflies hanging from the ceiling, cartoon animals with exaggerated smiles painted on the walls and the air thick with chlorine. It would be sad to see it go, if indeed the demolition came to fruition.

The host continued: ‘And, lastly, Seb Starith, the proprietor of Starith’s Bakery at the top of Front Street, suffered a nasty fall at 12.17 p.m. when he fell off his ladder while attempting to put up a new sign on the front of the bakery. He fell three feet and is reported to have bruised his coccyx. He was admitted to Chester-Le-Street Hospital for a check-up and remains there at least overnight. It is unconfirmed whether he has broken anything else, although sources say he has. Again, we will bring you more as this develops.’

This was odd. Shirley had not heard anything about this, and she was down Front Street that afternoon. No one at the embroidery group in the Parish Centre had said anything, and those women were hotbeds of gossip, especially Marsha. What was more, Shirley had walked past the bakery and not seen any commotion.

‘The bakery continues to be run by Starith’s granddaughter and she is keen to keep business to usual hours.’

Maybe that was the answer. Shirley had gone past about three-ish. Probably poor Seb had already been brought to this very hospital, and his granddaughter had already started up again. She hadn’t looked in so that was probably what had happened.

‘We will be back tomorrow at the same time with more news, but for now let’s switch gears and go in for another hour of some sultry royalty-free music. Here we go.’ And after a few seconds of silence, some crackly upbeat music came through the headphones – sickly-sweet like the music you would hear in a hotel lift.

Shirley listened for a minute or two, hoping for more but knowing the voice was gone, and then took the headphones off.

66.40 Mallet AM. What a chuckle. And a relatively professional outfit. Whoever was in charge, the one behind the microphone, really had a knack for it. He or she would be an asset on the radio team – they clearly knew their way around equipment more than most of the volunteers. A pirate radio station in this day and age – how novel. She had to remember to tell Deena when she came to visit.

She took a piece of paper and wrote the frequency down. And only then did she check her watch.

Drat! She had less than five minutes. She had been so consumed in her discovery that she had forgotten all about the show. She quickly rushed around, gathering up her request forms, the Charlie record and her cold cup of tea. She opened the door to Studio One and got comfortable in the hot seat. Ken Vox was doing his outro, and she had to be ready to fade down on him and up on her.

She ran through her usual introduction in her head. The date, the day, a humorous fun fact she had happened upon that week, and then straight into Ward 14’s finest selections. She did like to think that somewhere she might have fans – although the mere notion of constant listeners in a hospital where the clientele changed hourly, let alone weekly, was a bit ridiculous. But she still liked to think it – and this opening salvo was what her fans would expect.

She already had her fun fact lined up: Did you know that the scientific term for brain freeze is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia? She had had to recite that four or five times in the mirror to get it to stick.

So she was ready. Except . . .

She brought the computer up and checked the date.

And then a bizarre thought clicked in to place. The thing that had been wrong with the Mallet AM new segment. The voice on the pirate station had said he was reading the news for the tenth of February.

But, and this was a decidedly queer thing, it was the ninth.

01.02

Tuesday 9 February 2021

10.22 p.m.

Shirley’s bungalow was less than a mile from the hospital in between Front Street and a district of densely packed houses known locally as the Avenues. Shirley lived on the outskirts, but that was too close for Deena, who had warned her against taking the bungalow. The Avenues were known to be rough, but Shirley didn’t care. She had just needed to get out of the grand house Bob had bought in Houghton-Le-Spring, and she had ended up rattling around in alone, and downsize to a more suitable home.

When she got through the door, Moggins greeted her with a yowl and a purr. Moggins was a seven-year-old Norwegian Forest cat, white with tabby markings. Deena had got him for Shirley as a housewarming present, and represented her daughter’s constant desire to look after her. Shirley didn’t hold it against Moggins, although she had always thought of herself more of a dog person, but the intent had not been best received.

‘Hello, dear,’ she said to the cat, as it came up and rubbed against her ankles. ‘I suppose you want your supper.’ It was the only time Moggins showed any real affection for his housemate, and that was fine. Shirley appreciated the independence afforded to both of them. Refreshing after Bob.

She chuckled to herself as she took off her shoes, slipped into her moccasins and made her way down the hallway to the kitchen. Everything in the bungalow was small, short, not unlike the hospital cupboard known as the radio station. The kitchen was compact, the living room homely, the one bedroom tight, and the bathroom sufficient. The two hallways were the only spaces in which she found herself having to move far, and even then it was minuscule compared to the distance she had to trek in the old house.

And no stairs was a constant blessing, particularly when she had bruised her hip tripping and slamming into one of the kitchen counters. If she had been in the old place, Deena probably would have fretted so much she would’ve moved her whole family in. But as it happened, in this little place, she was allowed to recover herself, with Moggins as her only healthcare professional.

She turned the kitchen light on. Two sides of the room were lined with cupboards and appliances. An oven, a washing machine, a dishwasher, a sink. Nothing too fancy. The rest of the room was a small dining area, where she kept her ironing board, and a small kitchen table by the window with two chairs. It wasn’t much at all, but it was home, and it may’ve been her old ways, but she felt most comfortable in the kitchen.

She always liked doing something, and although she had succumbed of late to the allures of daytime television and the very British act of ‘putting your feet up’, she still felt most alive when ‘doing’. That was why she had so many activities on her weekly schedule – hospital radio, embroidery, and volunteering at the local RSPCA shop, punctuated with social lunches and sometimes babysitting the grandchildren. It was as though she were screaming at the man upstairs that she wasn’t quite done yet. And although she was a pensioner, and she may not do anything else vital enough to write in a history book, she could still do some good.

Shirley nodded to herself as she went into the cupboard and got out one of Moggins’ favourite sachets of food. Salmon and beef. An awful concoction in theory, but even she had to admit it smelled quite good.

Moggins jumped up on the counter as she . . .