A Man of Shadows (Nyquist Mystery) by Jeff Noon

Author:Jeff Noon [Noon, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780857666710
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2017-07-31T21:00:00+00:00

Private Affairs

Nyquist was standing in front of the large oil painting of figures lost to twilight, with the security guard Jacob close at hand. Patrick Bale stood a few feet away, rubbing his brow with his fingers. “I don’t understand you,” he said. Nyquist kept silent, forcing Bale to look up at him. “I’ve paid you. I’ve paid you for work that strictly speaking you didn’t even do, that is, find my daughter for me and bring her safely home. Instead, a police car brought her home to me, from a murder scene!”

Nyquist started to speak, but stopped himself.

Bale carried straight on: “I’ve given you every warning. What do I have to do?”

“Beat me up. Kill me. I don’t know.”

This statement angered Bale even further. He looked around the room before settling on the guard, who was trying to suppress a grin. “Jacob!” he shouted at the employee. “Get out of my sight. Now!”

The guard left the room.

Bale waited until the door was closed before he walked over to a cabinet and poured himself a drink. He didn’t offer one to Nyquist. He said, “You don’t know me. I don’t think anybody knows me. Not truly.”

“Maybe not. But I’d like to understand.”

“Why?”

“Because of Eleanor.”

“What of her?”

“Is there anybody you know that might want to harm her in any way?”

“No.”

“You’re the head of the most important company in Dayzone. You must have enemies.”

“Yes, but–”

“What drives you, Bale? Tell me that.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I don’t think it’s just greed…”

“Of course not. I have made my fortune ten times over and feel hardly better for it.”

“Well then?”

Bale looked to be on the edge of admitting something, but then he pulled back and said, “The family business was in the doldrums when I took over its running. They made clocks, wristwatches, fancy timepieces. A few rudimentary timelines. The monetary value was fine but it lacked, shall we say, imagination. No, what fascinated me, was time itself, our ability to capture it, and manipulate it. To no longer be its slave. And that has always been my driving force.”

Nyquist stepped a little closer. “I was talking to your wife earlier, and she mentioned something strange; that we’re reaching the limits of time.”

“Ah well, Catherine says many odd things.”

“The limits of time. I wonder what she meant by that? And what happens to us, to the city, once we step beyond that point?”

“We have everything under control.”

“And if we have another time crash, what then?”

“We have been working extensively to ensure that such an event does not happen again.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Nyquist remembered the last two crashes, when the city’s carefully constructed web of timelines had suddenly overloaded and collapsed into chaos. He shuddered at the thought: many people were frozen in place, incapable of moving from the spot; others could move but only at a dreadfully slowed rate. Nyquist had been affected in the opposite manner: his body clock had speeded up so that whole days would seem to pass in a few seconds.

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