Wrong Place Wrong Time

The novel begins in an autumn drizzle and ends under a clear sky. As Jen awaits Todd’s return in the opening pages, she “stares out into the October mist” (3). Rain symbolizes both mystery and the lack of insight that defines the mystery thriller genre. When the rain lifts, as it does in the closing chapter, rain suggests mystery giving way to clarity.

Rain creates an atmosphere of sadness. As Jen says, it rains a lot in Liverpool. The rain creates a sense of sorrow that complements the story of a wife who discovers how little she knows about her husband. As Jen moves back in time, it is either raining or storming, or there is a cloaking mist. When Jen digs in her past, she works her way through a scrim of rain.

Rain suggests obscured vision. Jen is accustomed to the problem-solving methodology of the law. She begins her tumble in time assuming she knows herself and her family. However, she becomes a detective who must navigate deception, lies, and misdirection, an environment complemented by the murky world of rain and mist, in which the most familiar landmarks become unreliable. When Jen first connects the name Nicola Williams to her husband and assumes he is cheating on her, the weather suggests the magnitude of her lostness: “The mist becomes drizzle becomes rain” (128).

But Jen emerges from the rain, literally and symbolically. In the last scene set in her past, “Day Minus 7230,” the January drizzle gives way to clarity: “The moon is out, the sky high and clear” (360).

When she panics over revelations about her husband and her son, Jen visits Sir Antony Gormley’s massive and controversial environmental art piece Another Place. This piece symbolizes the tenacity and courage Jen will need to face her past. She feels alone and takes refuge in the piece’s message. The artwork features 100 cast iron sculptures of lifelike humans scattered about the beach, each facing the horizon, and very much alone, like her. They assure her that she can do this on her own because she must.

The art piece, which Gormley placed on Crosby Beach in 1997, creates a sense of haunting loneliness. The statues are naked and similar in build and shape (indeed, they were each cast from Gormley’s own body). They stand in the same pose, arms at their side, facing the horizon, scattered randomly for nearly two miles. They symbolize hope. Over the decades, the statues have been exposed to challenging weather and the constant bite of salt air—and yet they stand, each on their own, determined to continue eyeing the horizon and its promise of tomorrow.

Jen stands next to one of the statues, its unblinking gaze fixed on the horizon, “looking out to see for answers” (134). Her feet sink into the sand, suggesting her apprehension as she starts to sink into her life. With the statue as her only companion, she stares at the blurred and rainy distance and hungers for the reassuring presence of another: “If only. If only she could work this through with somebody.” (133).

Much like Ebenezer Scrooge, Jen, a self-reliant workaholic, begins to realize that she needs others. The statues reassure her that if she keeps her eye on the horizon—that is, the mission to save her son—she can endure.

The topic is one that Jen, the first time she went through that night, would have easily ignored. But now, as Jen begins her time loop journey, the reference carries symbolic weight. If the physics behind the cat is complex, the metaphor is clear. Jen learns that certainty is murky. In learning the secrets of her husband, her son, and her father, Jen discovers that both people and reality are subject to interpretation. Everyone she loves, including herself, is both good and bad, a duality embodied by the cat.