Chapter 35: The Oncoming Glare

Troy might have been taller than Barnaby with the longer stride to match it, but he was almost jogging to remain at the chief inspector's side. When he arrived at his desk a quarter past eight, he had first thought that the man didn't notice him walking by. But when he finally settled himself into his chair and shuffled through the mess on his desk to set everything in order for the day—a mess he had not left the previous day—the word had come, almost a low growl. "Troy."

The sojourn in his chair had not lasted long. While Barnaby said nothing as he picked up his coffee cup and stamped out of the room, Troy did not wait for a command to scramble to his feet and follow. Several seconds had passed and he kept waiting for something, but there was only nothing. "I'm sorry, sir—"

"You should be."

"I don't know what you want me to say—"

"I don't want you to say something—I want to make sure that never happens again!" Barnaby shouted, rushing forward with loud footsteps as Troy felt his face go pink and then red. "You cannot be unreachable like that!"

Most days, Troy would have hurried to catch his superior. This morning...he was content to allow Barnaby a few feet of clearance in the corridor with its searing fluorescent bulbs. "Couldn't be helped—"

"Yes—it can!" The older man spun around, the almost empty coffee cup sloshing its last remaining dregs onto the laminate beneath their feet; Troy found himself even more grateful for the gap between them, as the coffee missed his suit by at least a foot. "Tape the charger to your hand if you have to—don't forget it until the last minute!"

"Yes, sir. But you know, it just—"

"Oh, it just happens sometimes, does it?"

With Barnaby now staring at him, Troy had to look away; he fixed his eyes on the cream colored flooring, trying not to let any thoughts from the last few hours drift back into his mind.

"Well?"

"Well...yes? Occasionally..." Troy said quietly. But was even occasionally too much?

He didn't recognize the noise that woke him, at least for a moment. It was shrill, almost unbearable, refusing to end...and it was right by his head. Like the phone. But, it's off, Troy thought, just lifting his face from the pillow as he turned over. The sudden rush of air over his skin was enough to persuade him to half open his eyes—to the ringing phone on the bedside table. The landline.

Reaching for it, he almost knocked the whole machine to the floor. Instead, it dropped onto the table and Troy dragged the handset to his ear. With his mouth still half-pressed to the pillow, he managed a muffled, "'Ello?"

"Troy."

His eyes were now wide open, though not looking at much; the blinds were closed, leaving his bedroom dim, the saliva dried to his cheek unnoticed. "Sir?"

"Yes."

His head was too heavy to lift, even to read the clock behind the phone. God, I need more sleep. "Sir, what time is it?"

"Time that you were here."

There was no escaping it now, so Troy pushed himself onto his elbow, trying to move as little as possible. But as the cold air enveloped his entire upper body, all he wanted to do was hide under the sheets and quilt again. "It's not quite seven, sir—"

"There has been a—development."

Troy finally collapsed back to the mattress. Development? What— Oh, god. But—what—who? Not— "Overnight?" he asked, rolling towards his bedside table and switching on the lamp, driving the shadows into the far corners and drawing a muffled groan from beside him.

"Most of us are not awake through the night"—Troy couldn't stop his hand now as it drifted away, to the other half of the bed—"though I can't speak for you."

"No, sir—"

"But last night, when I assume you were off carousing—"

"I don't know what you mean—"

"Or whatever you were off doing—you cannot ignore your mobile like that!"

Ignore? Troy thought. I didn't ignore— As he turned away from the table, taking the cordless handset with him, Troy winced, quickly glancing at his arm. A newly minted bruise was spreading across the skin just below his shoulder: purple and black splotches, with a black outline all around, feathering outwards. What the hell? But, then again, he had woken only one time through the night, when a groggy but well-placed hand smacked him.

"Do you understand that, Troy?"

"Yes, sir." But, god, that had to be what it looked like—and what Barnaby had to believe. The alternative...well, it was a little more than unthinkable. How could he tell his boss—Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby!—"Yes, sir, I slept with your daughter last night, if you were wondering why I didn't answer the phone. And I enjoyed every moment." Might as well sign his own death warrant.

"Do you?"

Troy hardly thought before he spoke. "It was the—the battery, sir."

"The battery?"

"Forgot to charge it, night before last—went dead on me, sir." Troy wasn't even paying attention to what he said, instead just closing his eyes, determined not to look anywhere. "And forgot to turn it back on, after I had it on the go—"

He heard something slam on the other end of the line. "Enough claptrap, Troy."

"I—"

"Whatever the reason, I need you here. Now."

Troy's eyes opened. I don't need this. "Now?"

"Half an hour should be enough, I think."

He swallowed heavily, sliding his hand forward across the mussed sheets. "Sir, I just woke up—"

"At your desk, Troy. Thirty minutes." Then—the clatter of a phone slamming onto its cradle, the abrupt sound stinging his ear—nothing. Silence.

Troy thrust his arm into the air, trying to toss the handset back where it belonged. It might have made it, though there was certainly a crash, like he had overshot and everything was now splayed out on the floor, ready to spew out a dial tone and drill into his skull yet some more. All his energy was gone, and he collapsed again, just wanting to turn back to her, to fall asleep once more—

But her eyes opened, half-hidden by hair thrown every which way after...well, many things. "Who was that?" Cully asked.

"Well, not for you anymore!" Barnaby snapped, tightening his grip on his mug. "Leave that charger where you can find it in your sleep."

Sleep? Troy thought. Haven't had much of that lately. "Well—"

Barnaby strode past him back to the squad room, his desire for coffee apparently forgotten. "Could have used your eyes—or at least some notes—last night."

How many times do I have to say it? Troy wondered as he again scrambled to keep up, though the chief inspector easily outstripped his pace. "Sir, I'm sorry—"

"And I see you took twice as long to get here as I told you," Barnaby said, already back at his desk, the empty mug sitting in a tiny ring of coffee, digging through a stack of papers.

"It's only just gone eight."

"I rang you at seven. Thirty minutes, that's what I said. What happened to the other thirty minutes?"

Troy swallowed, no answer coming to mind. "What happened?"

Barnaby released a breath, the sort Troy recognized from when the man was frustrated during an interrogation. And perhaps that was what this was, the chief inspector struggling to drag the truth out of him, prepared to bait him at every turn if it would help. Not that it would happen.

"What—"

"Gavin, who was it?"

"Who do you think?"

"You're joking."

"I wish I was."

She shook her head as she ran her fingers along his jaw. "He wouldn't."

"Wants me there in thirty minutes."

"Well, it could be worse."

"Cully, how could it possibly be worse?" He called while...That thought was enough to force him to sit up at last and properly face the cool early morning air in his bedroom.

"He could be knocking on the door—"

"Don't—"

"With a warrant."

"Don't give him any ideas."

"I was joking."

"He can listen through walls sometimes, I think."

"He's not on the other side of the wall."

"I didn't say how many."

"Gavin!"

Best to leave it alone, Troy knew. The more he thought about it, the more likely it would spill out of his mouth. "Uh—traffic—sir," he managed, almost choking on the words.

Barnaby threw a couple sheets of paper into a new pile. "At seven in the morning?"

"Quarter to eight, sir—"

"At seven in the morning?"

"An accident—"

"Must have been quite the major one, holding you up so long."

"Um..." What is he playing at?

"Though I haven't heard a word about it."

Troy's face dropped; if he looked the man in the eye, would the truth or his evasiveness show? "Well—"

A few more papers clipped together in the top left corner landed on the stack. "So, Troy, the next time you're out until ghastly hours doing god knows what and oversleep—"

Now, Troy did look up. The man's words were almost insulting, but if that was what he thought... "Sir, I didn't—"

"Yes, oversleep—come up with a better excuse."

The tension and quiet fear began to abate. If Barnaby would offer him that excuse as a lifeline and possibly even believe it, then there was no reason to make him think otherwise. "Yes, sir," Troy said quietly.

"Now that we have all that settled," Barnaby continued, throwing even more papers into the pile, the last few nearly toppling it, "best to get down to work."

Even as he stared at the small mountain of papers soon to move to his own desk, Troy felt his stomach rumbling. He had dashed out the door without even a cup of tea, not that Cully hadn't offered to make a cup for each of them before they left for the Causton Playhouse. "If you don't mind, sir, I'll just nip down—"

"If you're heading away from your desk," Barnaby said, finally settling into his chair and pushing his coffee mug forward, "there's just time to bring back two coffees—and one had best be black, with no sugar."

Troy swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. The desire for food was reaching a nauseating need—he had eaten neither breakfast this morning nor dinner the night before—but if the storm had already begun to calm, to fade away from the surface... "Anything else?" he asked. If it saved his neck, Troy was willing to wait until lunch.

"No, thank you." Barnaby reached for his reading glasses, just setting them on the end of his nose as he began to peruse the first page before him. "I've already managed a proper breakfast."

It was sorely tempting to dawdle in the hall, to pause to say hello to the other officers. Every moment in transit was a moment away from Barnaby and perhaps if the chief inspector had a few minutes to himself, his anger would continue to abate. The calmer the man was, the less likely he was to snap, the less likely he was to pick away at the excuses Troy had blurted out on the fly.

That journey ended with just a minute or so beside the coffee pot, refilling Barnaby's mug and filling a mug halfway for himself. He dumped several spoonfuls of sugar into the dark brew and topped his cup up with plenty of whitener, desperate for anything to give him some energy. Coffee was better than nothing—even if it would bring its own pain with the first taste—but it was only a short walk to the canteen, and his hunger was such that he could devour a plate of toast and bacon in just a few seconds. Yet...why take that risk? No use in setting the man off.

When the returned to the squad room, Troy gave the chief inspector his coffee before taking his seat at his desk, gently setting it beside the man's hand. Though his gaze never shifted from the photocopies, Barnaby quietly said, "Thank you, Troy." He was about to head to his own desk and his own work when Barnaby added, "And now, you can turn your eyes to these."

Troy gulped down a few mouthfuls of his sweet milky coffee, closing his eyes as the hot brew scorched his tongue and his stomach recoiled as he expected. But Barnaby's words were calmer with just a touch of irritation, unlike before. Every little helps, he thought, turning around. "What are they, sir?"

Barnaby held out the stack of papers. "Photocopies of the bailiff's files on Adam Keyne. Can't seem to fault him for his business dealings, bailiff or not." After Troy took the stack, the chief inspector dropped his notebook on top. "Just in case you've forgotten anything."

The first photocopy was almost gibberish, line after line of handwritten notes that Troy could hardly decipher. "Is—is this even English?"

"Not all of us can have handwriting as nice as yours." Troy looked up, but he held his tongue as Barnaby continued: "I've already had a couple goes at them—informative enough when you take the time to read them—but you...might see something new."

After taking his seat—and downing the rest of his still steaming coffee in seconds, the acid still burning in his stomach—Troy turned to the second page, then the third before riffling through the remainder. All except for the first page were typed, but each was almost smudged, as though the glass had never been cleaned. And what words were easily visible were somewhat smeared, like whoever had operated the machine had pulled the original away before the copier was finished with it. "They're barely legible."

Barnaby glanced up. "About as good as our copier here."

"That's hardly a competition, sir."

The older man's eyes narrowed and his mouth twisted into a scowl. "Just read," he muttered before returning to whatever he was looking over.

"Yes—" Troy began, but he let the remainder of his standard "Yes, sir" die on his tongue. It was best to just keep quiet and do as he was told.

The bailiff's notes consisted primarily of bank statement summaries, sworn affidavits from creditors, lists of assets. The man had been mortgaged up to his ears, Troy soon saw, like he was hoping something would finally turn around and change his fortunes. If the data he was looking at from the last several years was correct, nothing ever had.

The creditors' names soon ran together into a single mass of letters, a string of consonants and vowels that made no sense as a dull throb settled into his head. One read-through did nothing, and a second go at the notes did little more. After his third round examining the pages, the only conclusion Troy had drawn was that Adam Keyne had no sense of responsibility with money—his own, his wife's, or a creditor's—and that Liz Keyne had never seriously attempted to reign him in.

As troubling as the growing headache was, an ache was spreading through his arm as well. He had seen the bruise in the early morning, the patch of skin already mottled purple and blue. Dressing had been painful: each time Troy lifted his arm—putting on his undershirt, his dress shirt, his jacket, knotting his tie—he had winced, just to quickly forget it was there until it declared its existence yet again. Pressing his hand to it, he nearly hissed; in a few hours he would probably become accustomed to it, but not yet.

Perhaps half an hour went by, Troy passing the time rereading those papers time and again, sometimes glancing through his own notes for any data they had on Adam and Liz Keyne. But what little he had jotted down—in handwriting much neater than this bailiff's, Troy observed with a small grin—had nothing to do with the disaster Keyne had made of his life.

Was there really much of a point in even pursuing this, he wondered. After all, a bailiff was already a legal force to be reckoned with, so why would he ever consider—

"Do you have some idea of what is going on now, Troy?"

Troy jerked his head up, Barnaby's voice completely unexpected. "Ah—some, sir."

The chief inspector was standing, pulling on his suit coat, his reading glasses nowhere to be seen. "Well, that's a start," he said quietly, adjusting the collar around his neck. "Well, come on! And bring those copies!"

Barnaby was already out of the squad room before Troy could scramble out of his chair, just remembering to grab his notebook and one of his pens from the still neat collection in addition to the documentation of Adam Keyne's disastrous finances. But, with his longer legs, it only took him a minute or so to catch up; his prior reservations had faded as the case began to consume his mind.

"Where are we going, sir?"

Barnaby tsked quietly with a shake of his head. "Where do you think?"

Could be a lot of places, Troy thought. He wanted nothing more than to say that, but still, like so many times already today, he stopped himself. But, if it was meant to be obvious... "Could be—well—Liz Keyne?"

"Thank you, Troy, for your brilliant deduction."

Troy swallowed, more on edge than ever. What would it be like sitting in the car with Barnaby, hardly any space between them and nowhere for that uneasiness to go? Would it simply erupt into the open, bubble—

He hissed through his teeth, clenching his eyes for a moment. That spot on his left arm was throbbing again, and Troy touched his fingers to it gently once more, just trying to rub out the worst of the ache. The pressure helped, some. God, what had she done?

As Barnaby opened that last door, finally releasing them from the CID building itself into the open sun, Troy saw the curious look come across his face. "You hurt yourself?"

Troy yanked his arm back to his side, the pain flaring up again. "What?" he asked, hoping the burn he felt was not visible on his face.

"Your arm"—Barnaby nodded at it—"is it bothering you?"

"Um, not really."

"Are you sure?"

"Just got—just hit it against the door frame. Nothing, really."

The chief inspector went through the door first, leaving him to follow as quickly as possible. "Which is it?"

As Troy struggled to catch up, he asked, "Sir?"

"Someone hit you or did you hit yourself?"

"I never—"

"You started to."

Well, you wouldn't want the truth, would you? "It was me, sir," he said, settling into the same pace as Barnaby. "Just wasn't watching where I was going."

"Ah...Just watch where you're going once we get on the road."

As Troy dug the car keys from his pocket, he drew a deep breath. It was going to be a very long day.