We’re delighted to launch this four-part novella by Sir George Cox, a writer whose fiction carries the same precision and understatement as his public career. In The Last Time-Traveller, a chance meeting in a rural village graveyard leads to a quietly unsettling series of encounters — understated, uncanny, and steeped in the kind of ambiguity that lingers long after the final line.

Part One sets the story in motion: a narrator at loose ends meets a stranger who claims to move across time — not to change it, only to observe.

By George Cox

While drinking his coffee in the café opposite his church on a cold, wet winter’s morning, the young and recently appointed vicar sees a woman in his churchyard behaving oddly. Curious, he puts aside his comforting hot drink and goes out to ask whether she needs any help.  Welcoming his intervention, she explains that not only is she not local as he had correctly assumed but that she was born 500 years in the future and that she was desperate to track down two fellow travellers.

Having decided that she was clearly in need of help, though not of the type she suggested, he offers to do what he can, humouring her along the way – until she produces what appears to be incontrovertible evidence of knowledge of future events. Both shaken and intrigued, he decides to go along, at least for a time, with her plea for help.  It is a path that progressively draws him into a world of subterfuge and threat, as he continuously wrestles with whether he has been hooked by a sophisticated scam or given access to knowledge shared by no other person in the 21^st century.

  ___

What on earth was she doing?

The Reverend Gregory Green sat gazing out of the partly misted-up café window, nursing his cappuccino between two hands which gave him a comforting feeling of well-being, isolated from the wind-driven cold rain outside.  It was his mid-morning routine, with the ever-welcoming family-owned café conveniently sited just across the road from his church.  It was even more homely at this time of the year with its small log-burning stove in what had once been a fireplace. Along with the pub a few hundred yards along the road, the three establishments formed the heart of the village. It was a role that had been performed by the church for over six centuries, joined by the pub some three hundred years later and by the café for just the last couple of decades, the latter two establishments now largely dependent on the summer tourist trade. Even the church attracted more visitors than worshippers, despite the efforts of its energetic young vicar.

On a January morning the short high-street would normally have been deserted, even if it had not been bitterly cold and wet, which made the arrival of the woman in front of the church all the more surprising.

The vicar watched, puzzled by her actions. She appeared to be looking at a photograph or map and then looking at the church, continuously repeating the procedure, tilting her head as if trying to match the viewpoint.  Even at the height of the tourist season, it would have struck him as odd, but on a miserable January morning, it was positively bizarre.

After a time, she went through the gate as if to enter the church but veered off to the side and disappeared round the far end. He could only assume she was looking for a grave, perhaps one of some long-departed relative. He waited expecting her to re-appear round the other side, but when this did not happen, he got up and slipped his coat on.

‘I’m just popping out for a moment, Alice, don’t clear my coffee away’ he called to the pinafore-wrapped café owner behind the counter.  She gave a ‘no problem’ wave.

Walking round behind the church, he did not see the woman at first. He scanned the gravestones before spotting a movement and saw her kneeling close to the rear wall of the church, apparently probing the ground with a small trowel. She had the hood of her anorak pulled up and did not hear him approach.

‘Can I help you?

The woman looked up, startled, like a child caught doing something that they should not have been doing.

‘No, no, I’m fine thanks.’

‘I’m afraid you can’t plant anything there. We don’t allow any planting against the wall in case it damages the stonework. But there are plenty of other places around the graveyard for a token of remembrance. Perhaps, I can help you find a spot?  I’m the vicar of this church, by the way.’

He smiled to remove any sense that he was annoyed with her action.

‘Oh no, I’m not trying to plant anything…I’m actually looking for something…it’s a sort of family heirloom that I was told was buried here.’

He looked slightly surprised but responded positively.

‘How interesting. In which case, perhaps I might help?’

The woman stood up.

‘That’s very kind of you. Yes, you might be able to.’

‘Good. Well at least I can try, can’t I?’ 

He smiled. It was his facial default option when dealing with either the public or parishioners.

‘But let’s get out of this miserable weather. I was enjoying a cup of coffee across the road when I saw you. Come and join me.’

—-

‘Here we are’ he said, pulling up a chair so that she could sit facing him at his table by the window.  ‘What can I get you?’

He collected her requested latte from the counter along with a replacement for his luke-warm, half-drunk cappuccino.  He sat down, his face slipping back to its regular, well-practised smile.

‘My name by the way is Gregory.  You’re not from around here, are you?’

‘No. I’m from a long way off. A very long way.’

She smiled but did not volunteer any more information, so he chose not to press the matter. It was hardly relevant anyway.

‘So, tell me about this family heirloom you’re trying to track down? A piece of jewellery or something valuable?’

She did not answer immediately, as if weighing him up and considering what to divulge.  It gave him a chance to look at her.  She was simply but smartly dressed, wearing a plain sweater and what, as far as he could see, were designer jeans.  Her hair was fair and short, and neatly cut. He could not tell if she was wearing make-up but the thing that struck him was the quality of her skin which was completely wrinkle and blemish-free.  As a consequence, it was difficult to judge her age but he guessed it was similar to his own, mid-30s.  He glanced at her hands: similarly smooth, neat short nails and no rings.

‘I’m looking for a plain ceramic pot with a lid, about a litre in capacity, light brown in colour.’

‘Well, we don’t see too many of those around here,’ he joked rather feebly, ‘What does it contain?’

‘Maybe some papers, possibly nothing’

He looked puzzled.

‘So, what gives it the kind of value that causes you to travel a long way to search for it in the rain?’

‘It is a sort of inter-generational post-box.’

‘You mean it’s been there for centuries?’

‘No, I mean it will be there for centuries. That’s why it has to be buried by a wall that will not be moved, in a piece of land that will not be built over.’

‘What? Like a sort of letter in a bottle to be discovered by someone in the future, identity unknown. How intriguing.’

‘No, targeted towards a specific recipient.’

‘What? In, say, a couple of generations time?’

‘No, more like twenty generations.’

He felt an immediate sense of dismay.  He had been beginning to think that here was a very interesting visitor to his parish with a real problem, to whom he might offer some practical support. Instead, the woman clearly had a problem but it was not anything he could help with.

‘Oh, that’s very challenging’ he said with a smile.

She did not return it.

‘Don’t patronise me.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…’

‘Yes, you did. And I can understand it. But I have a very real practical problem that I think you might be able to help me with.  However, to enable you to do so, I am going to have to tell you things that you might find hard to believe, but if I can’t convince you, you can’t help me.

Now, are you interested on going on or not?’

He was taken aback but her bluntness. She may have been deluded but she certainly was not confused. He stared at her, trying to read her face. She simply looked straight at him displaying no trace of emotion.

‘Well, without knowing more, I can’t give an unconditional commitment. But I am interested in helping you. After all, that’s my chosen role in life.’

‘OK. I understand. In which case, I need to establish the credibility of my story. Could we meet again in, say, a couple of days’ time?’  

‘Certainly. What? Same place, same time, the day after tomorrow?

‘Suits me, but I need to leave something with you.’

She got up and took one of the greetings cards that were on sale on a rack besides the counter, paid for it with cash and returned to the table.

‘Do you have something I can write with?’

He leant her the gel pen that he always carried to do the daily crossword in his newspaper and she wrote something inside the card before sealing it in its envelope.

‘I want your word that you won’t open it before we meet and that if I don’t turn up, you will destroy it without reading the content.’

‘Sure.’

‘No, no, I want your solemn word on this.’

‘Alright. I give you my word – as a Minister of the Church.  How about that?’

‘Yes. Thank you. See you Wednesday.  And thank you for the coffee.’

—-

Two days’ later, the Reverend Green arrived at the café, clutching the still-sealed envelope, wondering whether the woman would, in fact, show up.

He sat, ignoring his newspaper with its headline of the appalling fires that had just broken out in Los Angeles, his gaze alternating between the envelope and the entrance.  He was surprised at the sense of relief that he felt when she came through the door and proceeded to unwind the long woollen scarf that she was now wearing. 

He stood up and smiled. ‘You look ready for a hot drink. Coffee, tea, hot chocolate?  What do you fancy?’

‘Thanks, a coffee would do fine.’

Apart from the two of them, the café was empty.  He pulled a chair up for her and went to the counter to order the drink, leaving the sealed envelope on the table where she could see it.’

He had planned some small talk before getting around to discovering its contents but as he sat down, she came immediately to the point.

‘Well, go ahead, open it. Remember I gave it to you two days ago.’

‘Right, sure.’

Trying not to betray any eagerness, he slipped a finger under a corner of the envelope, ripping the top open, making a show that this clearly hadn’t been done before.  The card simply said ‘Fires devastate Los Angeles.’

He looked at her; she stared at him awaiting his reaction.

‘Well, that’s an amazing trick. How on earth did you know that was about to happen? Ah! Did you swap the envelopes while I was getting the coffee?’

She gazed at him, without any hint of a smile.

‘It is not a trick, Reverend.  I gave you that envelope two days ago: a day before the fires broke out and two days before it was reported in the newspapers.  I can further tell you that the fires will go on for twenty-four days and destroy eighteen thousand buildings, and more than thirty people will lose their lives.. You can check this over the next few weeks if you still require convincing, but meanwhile we’d be losing valuable time.’

He looked at her.  She was deadly serious, clearly not just out to make an impression with what she had just demonstrated.

‘No, no, I didn’t mean to doubt you.’ He said, though it was not strictly true. ‘You clearly have an ability, a gift to foresee the future. I can see…’

‘No. I do not have a gift and one thing I cannot do is foresee the future.  Believe me, no one can. When I told you that I came from a long way away I was speaking about the future, and I am simply recounting something that I know has happened in my past.’

He did not answer but just sat there trying to comprehend what she had just said.

‘I can understand that it is difficult for you to take in but I staged that little demonstration to convince you. I have also made it clear I am here for a purpose.  I have a difficult task to fulfil.  All you have to decide is whether you going to help me.’

He sat for a moment without answering. She was clearly deadly serious; he got the sense that he was not being invited to join her on some jaunt, some fun adventure. Before he could answer, she added:

‘I need an unequivocal answer and it’s a matter of total commitment or nothing.  If it’s no, I’ll leave now and that’s the end of it.’

He would later learn that the latter was not strictly true.  Much later, he would reflect that had his answer been no, it would have had very serious consequences. As it was, his curiosity only allowed one response.

‘OK. I’m in.’

‘Good’ she said, ‘We need to go somewhere we can talk: somewhere we can be sure we can’t be overhead.’

—-

The vestry was untidy and cold.  He would have preferred to have stayed in the café but the woman clearly thought that was too public.  Not that they could be easily overheard in the café, even if any other customers came in.  Also, it had the attraction of endless decent coffee, but he guessed she did not want their discussion to be observed.

He switched the electric radiator on, supplementing the central heating which was struggling to have any significant effect, and cleared two armchairs of clutter so that they could use them. The woman seemed more relaxed and sat down with a broad smile, the first of the day.

‘Firstly, how do you prefer to be addressed?  I want to be able to talk freely to get things settled’

‘Oh, Gregory will do just fine.’

‘Good. My name’s Anna.’

He sat back in a manner he had developed since being ordained, with interlocked fingers and a hint of a smile. He felt it made him approachable, while still retaining a touch of gravitas.

‘No problem, I’m all ears.’

‘OK. Let me start by answering your question as to where I’m from. In your terminology it would be the year 2630.’

‘What? That’s nearly 600 years into the future.’

He tried not to convey the incredulity that he was feeling.  The woman was clearly someone out of the ordinary; possibly in need of counselling well beyond his capability or much more likely, she was about to try to engage him in a remarkably original and elaborate scam.  The answer would come if and when she asked for money, which he did not doubt would occur in due course.  That was almost certainly the kind of ‘help’ she was seeking.

‘And presumably it is a very different world from today?’ 

Despite his rather patronising tone, she responded with a smile.

‘Gregory, you can have no idea how different. Just think how far mankind has progressed in your era.  You went from the Wright brothers’ flight to walking on the moon in sixty-six years, that’s just two generations. You went from the first programmable computer to Artificial Intelligence in a similar length of time and while doing so, you discovered DNA, built the Internet, made huge advances in medicine and sent probes throughout the solar system.  Can you imagine what a further twenty generations of such progress is going to bring?

Even if I had the time, I couldn’t fully describe it to you.  You couldn’t take it in. Can you imagine trying to explain your world to a village cleric living in the 14^th Century?’

Pausing briefly while this sank in, she added with a mischievous grin:

‘All you’d have in common is your faith in God.’ 

At that point she smiled, not unkindly, and he grinned acknowledging the strength of her argument. The force and undeniable logic of her reply had shaken him.  If this was all building up to a scam, she had certainly done her preparation; if she was a con-artist, she was a class act. He thought carefully before posing his next question.

‘And one of the advances is that over these years you claim to have solved the challenge of time travel?’

‘No, I am not claiming anything, I am explaining the situation to you. I’ve already said I can’t waste time trying to convince you. You either want to understand it or you don’t.  Which is it?’

‘No, no, I’m sorry. It’s just a lot to take in.’

‘I can appreciate that.  I can try to spell things out as clearly as possible but I haven’t got time to keep trying to convince you. Let’s carry on but if you still doubt me, we can call things to an end and stop wasting each other’s time.’

‘OK. I’m sorry. Please go on. ’‘Right. Time travel.’ she paused ‘Time travel is not possible in the way that it has been frequently portrayed in popular fiction of your era.’

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