The Trouble With Time by Lexi Revellian Page A

said Jace. “And he owes me.”
    “Some might say he’d already paid.”
    “Suddenly he’s your best friend?”
    Floss’s retort was stillborn as a middle-aged man took his colleague’s place, wreathed in smiles. He examined each watch through a loupe, then moved on to the other items, taking his time, jotting notes on a pad. He gave Jace a shrewd look.
    “Some very nice pieces here. I must congratulate you on your taste. The Lange & Söhne is a fine watch, very fine. I can offer you a total . . .” he scanned his list, totting it up, “. . . of two hundred and thirty-seven thousand pounds.”
    Floss was careful to keep her face expressionless. Jace said, with the confidence engendered by selling goods that had cost him absolutely nothing, “I’m thinking more along the lines of three hundred thousand.”
    There followed a few minutes’ negotiation, with Mr Hershman endeavouring to conceal his excitement and Jace so laid back he was practically horizontal. In the end Jace agreed to sell the goods for £287,500. Asked for ID, he stood sideways by a device in the wall which flashed its approval.
    “Bank transfer . . . or would you prefer cash?”
    “Cash.”
    Mr Hershman disappeared for a minute, returning with neat bundles of used banknotes held together with rubber bands. Jace counted them, which took quite a time. Floss picked up a hundred-pound note and scrutinized it, fascinated. Though surprisingly similar to the fifty-pound notes of her own day, this bore an image that could only be a middle-aged and now crowned Prince William. Winston Churchill featured on the reverse with a World War II battle scene.
    Mr Hershman had noticed her inspecting the note. “You won’t find anything wrong,” he said. “We checked them most carefully after we printed them.”
    Floss laughed politely at his small joke. Jace stashed the cash and his receipt in various pockets, summoned another pod and they set off south of the river to see Ryker. Something was niggling Floss.
    “How did you give him an ID?”
    “I gave him Quinn’s.”
    “How?”
    “I cut out his chip after I killed him. Taped it to my arm this morning.”

CHAPTER 17
Careless
    Floss stared out of the windows, trying to pick out places she knew. London was still its old self, continually changing yet remaining in essence the same; a riotous mix of architectural styles. Victorian gems, jewel-like parks and stunning new buildings mingled with dreary blocks of flats and Toytown closes left over from the last century. Most roofs were made from matt black panels. Jace told her they were solar panels, and compulsory. Windows at any rate had improved; if some were still UPVC, at least they were better designed. And the streets looked wider, more open; Floss puzzled over this then suddenly realized there were no lines of cars parked along the kerbs.
    The people, too, looked different but the same. No one was more than a little overweight, for one thing; clearly science had solved the obesity epidemic. Fashion was eclectic, as in Floss’s own time, but men were more flashily dressed than they had been for the past three hundred years – much more than the women. They were peacocks, wandering around looking like Jane Austen heroes, or cast members of Pirates of the Caribbean . Women’s garments were plain; eclipse plumage, often elegant but definitely drab.
    They reached a run of scabby unloved streets with litter and potholes. The pod turned into a cul de sac beside the railway and bumped over patched cobbles. On the left was a high fence, on the right a series of railway arches, each walled off with a ramshackle combination of bricks and mortar, windows and corrugated iron, no two alike. Between a bike repair shop and a boxing club was the only arch whose purpose was not obvious. Above the door RYKER was painted in letters so ragged they might have been graffiti.
    Jace rang the bell. They heard a deep bark which got louder. The door opened and a man stood