The Clock's Chain

[ IV ]

The Clock's Chain
Chapter 4

Robbert Faulkner unfolds his pocket map and spread it all over the wooden table. He glances to the guy in front of him and wonders did he even have any idea where the last stop is when he said that? His hand begins to click the pen again and again; Ray Norringthon is so hard to read.

"What?" He noticed Robbert's curious glare on him. "Is there something in my face?"

"Erhm," Robbert clears his throat even though he feels fine, just trying to find the right words to say. "Do you have any clue- anything at all- where are we going now?"

The sound of the moving train is all they can hear for a moment. Both of them are lost in thought, guessing each other's mind. Although the scenery outside the window is there for them to enjoy, no one really cares about it.

"To be honest," Ray was the first one to talk. "I don't know where we are heading either." He rests his shoulder back and exhales some air. At least now they know they have someone to find. Someone to find-

Robbert nearly had a heart attack when Ray suddenly slammed the map on the table instead.

"God! What's wrong with you?!" He picks up his red pen that fell when Ray slammed the table. Really, he screams silently, don't do something out of the blue!

"I know. I think know who's behind this all. And thus we need to find him at all costs," said Ray with a rather scary expression. He grips onto Aaron's pocket watch and shows it to Robbert. "We need to find someone who made this."

Reaching the watch slowly, Robbert can't help but to examine the crafting on its silver lid. "Wow. This is a quite eccentric watch, isn't it? Where the hell did you get this?"

"Huh?"

"What do you mean 'huh'?" asked Robbert; raising his eyebrows a bit. "I'm asking you where did you get an old-fashioned pocket watch like this nowadays?" He keeps his amazed expression as he open the lid carefully.

"It's Aaron's," answered Ray confusedly. He thought that Robbert would be more familiar with this watch since he works on the same section as Aaron did. Plus, he never saw Aaron went out without this watch.

Ray's words stopped Robbert's movement instantly. "This watch? This eye-catching pocket watch was Aaron's?!" Somehow the fact makes the watch on his hand more valuable.

"Is. Not was, " Ray corrected the word. "It's still Aaron's."

"Well, it's practically yours now," joked Robbert; feeling weird saying Aaron's dead. Because his death has left more than one mystery. And everyone in the investigation department has their hands full of cases, not to mention that Aaron was really smart; he helped a lot while he was the chief.

"So," Robbert Faulkner stops himself from recalling how fast the investigation would go with Aaron here. "What's so special, I mean this watch itself is quite extraordinary, but what makes it more important?"

Ray takes out the worn-out journal from his backpack. "Remember Aaron's entry about a pocket watch? With its initial 'T.P'?"

"No way." Robbert's black eyes quickly widen. "This T.P guy is the one who made this clock and set this all up? The one who send the Levetrior Express tickets to both of us?!"

"We couldn't jump into conclusion yet, but my intuition says so." Ray rests his shoulders to the back seat and starts to search for another Aaron's journal entry about this pocket watch. According to what's written in the journal, Aaron already met a clockmaker with an initial T.P but the man he met didn't claim to made the watch.