The Trouble With Time (27 page)

Kayla’s eyes turned towards Floss. Unbelievably fast, Jace’s right arm moved sideways from the elbow and sliced into her arm. She cried out in pain and surprise as the gun smashed into her face and fell from her hand. Jace grabbed it and leaped to his feet. Quinn swung to face him, raising his gun. For a few tense seconds they each watched the other narrowly for any hint of movement that might suggest a finger pulling a trigger. The pause lengthened.

In the end, Floss walked over and stood between them, facing Quinn. “This is silly. If either of you fire, you’ll both get hurt, maybe killed, and bleed all over Kayla’s nice cream carpet. Now I have a suggestion of my own. If you don’t agree to it, I’m going to go back in time to warn us, so we won’t be in Kayla’s flat when you arrive, but waiting in the hallway up the stairs to jump you. Or shoot you, if Jace thinks that’s better.”

Quinn said, “You forget you are standing in front of me and I have a gun pointing at you. But leaving that to one side for the moment, what’s your suggestion?”

“You both take the ammunition out of your guns and give it to me. You first, because I trust Jace to keep his word, and I’m not so sure about you. Then we’ll leave. Jace, will you do it if Quinn does too?”

More seconds trickled by. Jace said, “Okay. But make sure that after he takes out the magazine, he ejects the round still in the gun.”

“Quinn?”

“Very well.”

Slowly, eyes on Floss, half smiling, he lowered the gun, released the magazine and let it drop into his hand. He pulled the slide on the top of the gun and a bullet popped out. He plucked it from the air with casual ease, put the bullet and the magazine on to Floss’s palm and pocketed the gun. She moved a little to one side and watched Jace do the same. As he handed her the ammo, with the tail of her eye she saw Quinn’s hands move. He had got the gun out again, and there was a soft click as he slipped something into it. He had a second magazine.

“
Jace!
”

But even as she cried out Jace barrelled past her, knocking her on to all fours. The gun went off, a muted bang, and plaster burst from the ceiling. She scrambled to her feet. The two men were fighting savagely, slamming each other round the room, barging into furniture, thudding and grunting. Quinn rammed Jace into a mirrored console which exploded into fragments. Jace punched him, grabbed his arm and yanked him round fast and hard, and as he hit the wall Quinn’s gun spun out of his grasp. They crashed to the carpet grappling, Quinn’s hand groping about, shards of mirror crunching beneath them. Floss leaped forward and grabbed just as his fingers touched the gun, and dropped it in her pocket with the magazines. She watched anxiously, not certain who was winning, looking for a way to help . . . she noticed Kayla had retreated to a corner and was on her phone, talking urgently. The men knocked over a flower arrangement which rolled to the floor, water and flowers spilling everywhere unregarded. The elegant living room was a shambles. Jace’s arm went round Quinn’s neck, straining, and they both became still. Seizing her moment, Floss jumped forward and aimed a kick at Quinn’s groin with all her strength. The blow connected. He collapsed doubled up in agony, and after a moment Jace let go of him and stood up, breathing hard. His face was bleeding, but less than Quinn’s.

Standing side by side they looked on as Quinn writhed, clutching himself and groaning. The only other sound was a faint glug glug as the champagne bottle lying on the floor emptied its contents. Floss was slightly staggered by the effectiveness of her attack. She had no experience of assaulting people. Blood from the cuts on Quinn’s face made red blots on his shirt and the formerly immaculate carpet. Kayla put down her phone and ran and crouched beside him, moving bits of broken mirror away from him, picking them off his skin, careless of cutting her own fingers. Quinn seemed oblivious to anything except his pain. They watched him for a while.

Floss pulled herself together. “Now it really is time to go,” she said, seizing Jace’s arm. “She’s called the police.”

“Good.” The rage in his eyes had gone icy cold. “I can hand him over to them.”

“Don’t be crazy! You haven’t got any evidence. And it won’t matter what you tell them, this looks bad.”

A croak came from their feet. “Stay, by all means.” Quinn was still curled in a foetal position. “Attempt to incriminate me . . . and the best you can hope for is we’ll go down together . . . most likely, you’ll go down alone.” He shut his eyes again.

“You fucking lying bastard.” Jace stepped towards Quinn.

Kayla’s eyes were wild. “Don’t hurt him!”

Quinn said, “He won’t kill me . . . not in cold blood.”

“True. Maybe I’ll dump you in future London, 2185. See how you get on there.”

Quinn went to shrug and winced instead. “You know I wouldn’t survive a week.”

Kayla cried, “Jace, no! Please!”

Jace turned to her, his expression unreadable. She had smears of blood on her face, and looked distraught. He walked back to Floss and put his arm around her waist.

Floss pressed the two buttons.

Friday, 24
^th
July 2015

Back in her flat, Floss, shaking with relief, put Quinn’s gun and the ammunition on the kitchen counter. Then she made Jace, shaking with fury, stand still while she brushed him down to remove the worst of the mirror fragments. She hoovered them up, then got him to sit on a chair in the middle of the room so she could try to pick out any tiny splinters in his skin. “Well, that was fun. Not. Keep still.”

“He’ll tell the police I materialized with the TiTrav and beat him up. That’s the version that will go on record. A blameless citizen set upon by a vicious time criminal. Kayla will say the same, except she’ll tell them I’m raving. What a total fiasco.”

“We didn’t know he was going to turn up.”

“Kayla did, though.” He paused for a moment. “And he knew I was there, he had his gun out. She must have rung him when she saw it was me. She shopped me to Quinn. How can she . . .
like
a man like that?”

“He’s very charming. She must be in love with him. And he’s plausible. I thought he was nice myself.”

Jace, following his own train of thought, was not listening. “She’s a time cop. I can’t blame her. I suppose she thought she was shopping me to IEMA, telling Quinn. I wonder if he’d have killed me, if you’d agreed to give him the TiTrav and go home? I should have broken his neck.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“I might have done if you hadn’t kicked him in the balls.” He went quiet for a minute. “I didn’t mean the gun to hit her face. I hope I didn’t hurt her.”

She said soothingly, “Her face looked all right to me. That was Quinn’s blood on it. She may have cut her hands a bit on the glass, that’s all.”

“I’ll never prove I’m innocent now. Quinn’ll keep his job as Chief of Intelligence. He’s unassailable. Kayla still believes he’s honest. I can never go back. Not unless I get more proof, and I don’t see how I can do that.”

“At least the meeting with Bill went well.”

Her old boss had been delighted to see her, fascinated by her story, and enthusiastic about using her samples to counter the contraceptive virus. She’d left his home confident about his discretion, satisfied she had done all she could to use her father’s research to save humanity, and feeling a lot better. Frustrating though it was for Jace that Quinn was still on the loose, at least she had achieved her objective.

There was a silence while Floss worked and Jace brooded. “There, I think that’s the lot, unless you can feel some I’ve missed. Let me just wash the blood off.” Floss ran warm water into the sink, got out a clean facecloth and cleaned him up. She stuck Elastoplasts on the deeper cuts that were still bleeding.

She wondered what Jace would do now.

“I don’t feel like cooking. Let’s go out and have a pizza,” she said.

Quinn stayed on the carpet for a few minutes after they had left until he was reasonably certain he was not going to throw up. Then he allowed Kayla to help him to the sofa where he lay prone, locked in a private world of pain. She wanted to clean his cuts, but he waved her away. After a bit he cautiously sat up and sipped the brandy Kayla brought him. The doorbell rang – the police – and she went to let them in; a uniformed man and woman who surveyed the smashed furniture, the hole in the wall the bullet had made, the broken glass, plaster, flowers, water, wine and blood on the carpet, then looked at Quinn limp and bleeding on the sofa. They exchanged glances.

“Looks like you’ve had a bit of trouble here, sir. What happened?”

He let her tell them.

Eyes shut, he listened to Kayla’s proficient narration of the evening’s events. He could not have done it better himself, though he wouldn’t have bothered with anxious excuses concerning Jace’s sanity. The power of coherent thought slowly began to return, fighting its way through the pain. It had been excruciatingly tantalizing to see his TiTrav so near yet unobtainable on Floss’s slender wrist, and worse to watch her depart still wearing it. She seemed to be in league with Jace. How had they met? She’d read his journal, she said . . . so must have come across his name and decided on a mission of mercy. He could imagine her doing that.

Now there was an interesting woman, and how pretty she had looked while deriding him. He remembered the way her eyes had sparkled during their verbal joust, something he had not had leisure to consciously think about at the time. He felt somehow liberated by the fact that she knew the truth about him. A pity she hadn’t stuck to a war of words. He had never experienced anything like that kick, and still felt terrible ten minutes later.

He’d have had more options had Kayla not been there, or Jace . . .

The police were getting to their feet, explaining there was nothing they could do at this stage, the suspects’ chips being already in the auto report system. “Sorry we missed the fight, but chasing time-travelling perps is more your people’s line of business than ours,” the senior officer said as they left.

Kayla suggested he should stay the night so she could fuss over him, but Quinn ordered a pod and went home, after telling her to get everything, including the ruined carpet, replaced and send him the bill. He wanted to be alone to think. The spacious calm of his apartment soothed him; the panoramic view, the silence. He showered and changed his clothes, then realized he was hungry. Sitting on his own sofa eating salmon en croute with a white burgundy, aching all over – he suspected a rib was cracked – and uncharacteristically low spirited, he considered the various defeats of the last two days. The one shred of luck had been Floss not disclosing to Kayla what she had gleaned from his journal; she had not had time to spill the beans about his other women. If Kayla broke up with him, he would miss her. She suited him well, was beautiful, intelligent, good company, presentable and prepared to accept him on his own terms. He’d be unlikely to find anyone more fit for purpose.

But that aside, things had gone badly for him. Quinn was not accustomed to losing, and did not like it. Also, it seemed improbable that Jace had gone for good; he was a man with a grudge, a tough, intelligent and dogged man who had nothing to do with his time except work out ways of getting revenge. He was a human sword of Damocles hanging over Quinn’s head, a bomb that could go off at any moment and bring his life crashing down. Quinn had thought he was done for earlier that evening, when Jace’s arm had been round his neck, slowly forcing his head backwards. He had waited for his spinal column to snap; then came the obliterating pain from Floss’s kick, and Jace had let him go. On reflection, that kick might have saved his life.

Quinn finished his meal. Glancing up he noticed something white, a piece of paper, beside his computer. His immediate conviction was that Floss had visited again, and left him a message. This thought was considerably more appealing than all the others jostling in his mind. He crossed the room and picked up the note.

I’ve brought you a timely present. I wonder if you can work out where it is?

His heartbeat accelerated. The handwriting was his own.

Quinn walked through his bedroom and into the dressing room, crouched by the ottoman and felt underneath for the slit in the canvas. His fingers closed round something smooth and metallic . . . he drew it out. A TiTrav – not his old one, this was silky black, a little lighter in the hand and a different design, with the buttons to one side of a slightly larger screen. It was brand new, still with the temporary password tag attached. As he looked, its ice-blue light pulsed. A warm glow suffused his body, banishing pain and depression. Life felt good; he was back in control of his world. It occurred to him his future self must be doing well, to own more than one TiTrav. Then he thought again – by delivering this, his future self would be wiping his own timeline in favour of a new one. What had happened to him to make that a desirable option?

Unbidden, the notion crossed his mind that he could visit Floss in her own time . . . he dismissed this beguiling idea as frivolous. The first thing he needed to do was remove all threat of Jace returning. He would go back to 4
^th
September 2180, to Bunhill Fields five minutes after he had left him, and put a bullet in his brain.

Floss and Jace walked down Upper Street to Pizza Express. They sat at a small table by the window, eating pizzas, drinking Pinot Grigio and watching people pass by. Jace found he was keeping an eye out for Quinn – ridiculous. The man no longer had his TiTrav, and could only time travel under the austere auspices of IEMA; he was securely stuck in his own time. Floss was attacking her pizza as if taking part in a speed pizza-eating contest. She glanced up and noticed his eyes on her.

“Thinking you might get shot makes you really hungry. Never knew that.” Jace was feeling ravenous too, he realized. They both focused on the food for a bit.

When her plate was nearly empty, Floss said, “So what next?”

“Quinn’ll send an IEMA team after me. Not that he’ll want to, but he doesn’t have a lot of choice, what with Kayla being there, and the police called. I’m on the wanted list, I time travelled in the presence of witnesses. Not just any old witnesses, either – he’s Chief of Intelligence, she’s Head of Timecrime. It would look suspicious if he didn’t.”