The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (29 page)

Olivia watched him silently.

He breathed out. His fingers uncurled. He lowered his eyes. “I…” He couldn’t find words to complete the thought. He couldn’t find words at all.

“The really mad thing, Christopher, honestly, is that I do care. A little bit. It’s a very new and strange experience for me. But I find that you can be a curiously contagious person, and you care so
damned
much about absolutely everything.” She sighed and raised a hand to her forehead, pressing her middle and forefinger to her temple. “I need you here. With me. On
this
case.” She looked directly into his eyes. “Francis Livingstone is not Fernand Spencer, Christopher.”

Chris flinched. “I know that,” he muttered.

“Grief is a hell of a thing,” Olivia said gently. “And for what it’s worth, I apologize―
again
, which is also very unlike me―for whatever role I had in compounding this for you.” She sighed and reached into her reticule. When her hand emerged, a few notes were clutched in her billfold. “I’m headed back to the office. I have something I need to do that you’ll only be in the way for. Why don’t you treat yourself to a fine luncheon.”

He stared at the notes. “Olivia,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Get a bottle of scotch, then. Buy a new waistcoat. Go see a fancy barber. I don’t care. Thirty royals isn’t going to save anyone’s life, I am perfectly aware, but you are wreaking absolute
hell
on my mood. I would like to at least
attempt
to buy your happiness. Or at least relief from your abject misery.”

He took the notes.

She smiled and straightened her tie. “There,” she said. “Not so hard, is it?”

“No,” Chris agreed, slipping the bills into his waistcoat pocket. Not so hard at all. He already knew exactly what he was going to do with the money.

He was not so sure that thirty royals wouldn’t save anyone’s life.

issus Clutterbuck was not in her customary spot. That was fine. The old secretary was one less person who would talk.

Chris made his way down the familiar hallway, the floorboards merely squeaking rather than groaning under his weight. He threw the latch to Rayner Kolston’s office and walked in without knocking.

What would he even say if he had to introduce himself?

For the first time ever, he was in this room without Olivia, without Missus Clutterbuck having announced them, and without Kolston having had time to prepare a leisurely pose. Instead of the customary artful laziness, he found the sumfinder with his smart little derby sitting on the desk beside him and his long nose buried deep in a book. His pen flew over the page. He didn’t seem to even notice the intrusion. Chris watched, entranced, as numbers tumbled from his mind, through his pen, and onto the page in lightning fast movement. The equations parted like warm butter before the creditor’s proficiency.

Chris had seen Fernand work like this only once. There had been many a time when, as a younger boy, he’d asked his old protector and friend to multiply two long numbers together to be amazed at the fast response, but this fast and furious computing? Where a sumfinder fell backwards into a swirling river of numbers and let themselves be carried away, flowing effortlessly between stacks of data? Fernand had considered it a private sort of thing. He described it being very much like becoming truly lost in music until each note became its own crystalized entity, building on the one before it, a colony of perfect citizens coming together to become something whole and living and beautiful that William and Agnes Cartwright could tear up the rug to.

I can’t dance,
Chris realized.
I’m going to a grand ball and I can’t dance.
He had to fight down a strained laugh. His life was an utter disaster.

“Mister Kolston,” he breathed.

Kolston’s chin snapped up and his eyes were almost feral as he met Chris’s. He actually bared his teeth for a moment, and Chris took a step back. The sumfinder’s eyes narrowed. He looked Chris up and down, and then glanced from side to side. “What the fuck?” he demanded. No slick charm in his voice. This was the Rayner Kolston who’d had a reneged client brutally killed to send a message.

“I need your help,” Chris said.

Kolston’s expression did not change. Chris noted his subtle, slow movements and heard a drawer on his desk slide open. Gods, he certainly hoped he wasn’t reaching for a gun. “Liv with you?”

“No,” Chris murmured. He didn’t break eye contact, though he wanted to. He felt that looking away would end in getting shot. This seemed like less of a clever idea by the moment. “It’s just me. She doesn’t even know I’m here.”

“How abouts you tell me what you want, boy,” Kolston said slowly, and there was the telltale sign of a safety being released before bright yellow light spread up Kolston’s arm and illuminated the side of his face. There was an armed stormpistol behind that desk, for absolute certain.

Chris held up his hands, showing he didn’t mean any harm. “Mister Kolston, please,” he said. “I mean absolutely no threat to you.”

Kolston sighed and shook his head, full of feigned regret. “See,” he said, “I asked you a question, and it seems to me like that isn’t the
answer
.” He lifted his arm and pointed the barrel of the pistol right at Chris.

Chris was mostly sure he was bluffing. Kolston was obviously… fond of Olivia, and he had to know that Olivia was, in turn, somewhat endeared to Chris. It would be extremely bad for Kolston on so many levels if he punched a hole in a Deathsniffer’s assistant.

Being mostly sure did not help a great deal. Having a gun pointed at you was always a sobering experience. His knees shook a bit.
Listen to what I have to say,
he tried, pressing his will toward Kolston.
Put down the gun.

No reaction.

Chris spread his fingers helplessly. “You’re investigating the Livingstone case,” he said.

“Liv is investigating the Livingstone case. I’m just fishing up details when she needs them.”

Chris nodded. “It so happens that I might need details.”

Kolston raised an eyebrow. Something flickered in his dark eyes. Interest? Maybe. Interest was very good. “I’ve handed it all over to Liv.”

“You’ve handed anything that can be used as evidence in a potential trial over to L―Olivia,” Chris corrected. “Am I right about that?”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, it isn’t.” Chris tried to gather his thoughts. “Olivia says that the quality of the forged documents is the biggest hurdle in helping Livingstone with any of the information you’ve managed to gather. Is that correct?”

Kolston nodded slowly. The barrel of the gun fell a bit.

“How does she know that?”

Kolston paused, and then cracked a smile. “Clever boy. Right. I may have bartered my way into getting a glimpse of some of them with my own eyes. To give Liv an idea of the current she was swimming against.” He chuckled to himself. “A
mighty
one, as it turned out.”

Chris nodded. He phrased his next question carefully. “Does the ink run on the documents?”

“Huh.” Kolston studied Chris, and, finally, clicked the safety back on the stormpistol. The bright yellow nimbus faded to a pale butter coloured glow. He set the pistol on his desk. “All right. You’re asking if the forgeries were weaved or written. I don’t get how it’s relevant, but it’s an interesting question.” He looked at Chris. “It’s the first forgery test anyone does. Ink checks out on all of them. No wordweaving. Every one was done by a normal bloke with a normal pen.”

A little surge of victory thrummed in his chest. “That’s what I want,” he said.

“A pen?” Kolston chuckled.

Chris nodded. “Yes.”

Kolston’s laughter stilled. He peered at Chris. “Why?” And then his gaze went flat and he shrugged and held out the one he was holding. “You know what? I don’t care. Thanks for a waste of time, kid. Take your pen and scram.”

“No, that is, I want a pen that was used in a forgery. In a Livingstone forgery. I don’t need to know who held it, or when, or even what they wrote. Just―if I can get the pen that was used,
just
the pen, I might actually be able to do something.”

Kolston’s pen was moving back and forward between his fingers as he visibly mused over this information. “Just a pen?”

“Just a pen,” Chris echoed. Come on.
Come on
. No reaction.

“It’s possible. Maybe. Could be.” Kolston tilted his head. Chris wondered if he was translating this all into numbers so that he could decide what he was going to do in his native language. “Wouldn’t be easy.”

“I know,” Chris said quickly. “I brought compensation.” Kolston went tense when he reached into his waistcoat, but relaxed when Chris pulled out the handful of notes Olivia had given him. He laid them on the desk and watched while Kolston picked them up and rifled through them. The avaricious smile on the sumfinder’s face faded into annoyance as he counted the sum out, and he looked back up at Chris with a flat glare. “Pull the other one,” he spat. “It’s got bells on.”

“I―”

“Thirty royals? You’d better be funning right now, mate.”

“You give Olivia information all the time for fivers!” Chris protested, his face heating.

Kolston barked out a laugh. “Sorry, kid, but you
really
ain’t got Liv’s unique
charms
going for you to make up the other, oh,
ninety-nine point nine percent
of my fee!”

Chris struggled with the math until Kolston sighed. “Five thousand. Upfront. Then another ten if I can manage to get a hold of the pen.”

“Fif―fifteen
thousand
?” Chris demanded. His head actually spun at the number and he reached for something to steady him. His hand clawed at the open air. “That’s an
absurd
amount of money!”

“It’s a pretty
absurd
request, there, pretty boy,” Kolston countered.

“If you help me with this, Olivia―she’ll be happy!”

“If I get fifteen big ones,
I’ll
be happy. And I’ll buy Liv something nice. Make her happy, too. Fifteen.”

“I can’t…” Chris closed his eyes tight. Once again, he struggled through some math. He really did not have a head for numbers. “I can do… three thousand,” he said, and he kissed Rosemary’s birthday pony good-bye.

“Twelve. Three before, nine after. And you can rest assured I ain’t going a roy lower than that, mate. You’re already robbing me.”

Chris opened his eyes. He stared at Kolston helplessly. “I can’t afford that,” he whispered. Pleaded.

“All right.” Kolston shrugged. He settled back in his chair and tipped Chris his derby, an echo of the motion he’d made as he’d sauntered out of Olivia’s office that morning. “Fair enough. Leave the thirty for what I’ve given you so far, and get your arse out of here.”

Dammit! If he could just get that bloody pen, he could actually do this. He knew it. He closed his fists. “All right,” he agreed. “Twelve, but I’ll need to get the nine to you over a period of…”

Kolston snorted. “I ain’t lending nine bags to someone’s secretary. I know how that ends. Sorry, mate.”

That’s what it always came down to, didn’t it? He was just a wordweaver. He had nothing at all to offer.

Unless he did.