The Trouble With Time Read Online Free PDF

of the arched ceiling remained. Everything else had been put back the way it had been when they arrived. This must have taken Ryker hours. For the first time Jace understood that a visit from his team caused quite a lot of inconvenience to the person visited, even if no arrest followed.
    Ryker returned with two mugs of tea, pushed one towards Jace and continued with his story.
    “Pete went to turn it on to show me it worked, but I stopped him. He didn’t know they come with a tracker. He said he’d already turned it on for a couple of minutes. I told him not to go back home, IEMA would be looking for him right now. Poor bugger, he went white as a sheet. I took the tracker out for him –”
    “It’s not possible to remove the tracker.”
    Ryker shrugged. “That’s what your engineers think. And I unlocked it and put in a new password. I said he could leave the TiTrav with me, but he didn’t want to. I said I’d put the deal through as quick as I could, and try to get him a bit more money to cover the identity change he was going to need. I told him I had a contact who could set him up with a chip, no problem, but he wasn’t happy. He was afraid they’d watch Saffy to get to him. It spoiled his plan.”
    “So was that the last time you saw him?”
    “Yes. Not the last time I heard from him, though. He rang me a few hours later, told me the deal was off, he’d had to give the TiTrav to a man who’d put the frighteners on him, threatened to hack his arm off and take it if he didn’t. I said, couldn’t you have bargained with him, got at least something out of it for yourself, and he said no. That was the end of his dream for him and Saffy. The one time he got lucky, that was how it ended, poor sod.” Ryker drained his tea and put the mug down. “Then you shot him.”
    “I didn’t shoot him.”
    “One of you lot did.”
    “Who was the man who took the TiTrav?”
    “Can’t tell you that. Pete didn’t know him.”
    “Did he say what he looked like? His age? Anything?”
    “No.”
    “Where did McGuire get the TiTrav?”
    “No idea.”
    “Who was your buyer?”
    Ryker gave him a hard look. “You don’t need to know that. I’ve told you what you came here for. Now nail the bastard.”

CHAPTER 7
Jace’s nightmare
    Shit . The more Jace thought about it, the more uncertain he became about what to do next. His observations, and the unsubstantiated assertions – he couldn’t call them facts – he’d collected from Saffron and Ryker seemed to point to Quinn’s guilt. But it was all circumstantial, and Ryker was hardly a reliable witness – plus he’d refuse to give evidence.
    So what should he do? His instinct was to have it out with Quinn, because the idea that he had stolen a TiTrav and committed murder to conceal it was simply preposterous. Quinn had been something of a role model for Jace. He had a formidable intellect and charisma in spades, dominating any company he was in with his presence and wit. He carried off the latest Regency-influenced fashions he favoured with aplomb, and ran his department with an amiable manner and absolute authority.
    Probably the man was innocent, and, after laughing at Jace’s gullibility, would be able to offer some perfectly reasonable explanation. But if he was gamekeeper turned poacher, the stakes were stratospheric, and a suspicious Jace would be a problem to be neutralized. Like McGuire . . .
    Another option: Jace could put the matter into the hands of one of Quinn’s superiors at IEMA. Quinn headed the department, so it would have to be someone outside it. Two problems; he didn’t know any of the higher management personally, so wasn’t sure whom to approach. And to convince them he would need to tell them Ryker’s story, and he had told Ryker he wouldn’t do that. Timecrime carried a mandatory minimum sentence of fifteen years. If he was vague about his source – pretend a stranger had contacted him anonymously out of the blue – the allegations