‘Thought you’d like it. Tell Jim. And take care of yourself.’
‘I will. You too.’
‘I miss you so much.’
‘Me too.’
‘I might phone you tonight, when I go to bed. If it’s not too late.’
‘Phone anyway, even if it is.’
There was one last phone call before he knocked off for the evening, from Jimmy Pak, their civilian aide who specialised in computers. He reported that the computer had been delivered to him and he had had a preliminary look into it.
‘The good news is that I don’t think whoever took the Cyber-box has accessed it. It leaves a trace when it’s used, and the last access seems to have been four days ago when Stonax was still alive. I suppose they haven’t had time to work out the password yet.’
‘And can you stop anyone accessing it in the future?’
‘Yes, that’s not difficult. I’ve already done that. And I’ve got into his main files all right. That password wasn’t hard to figure. Most people use names and birth dates of their nearest and dearest when security isn’t a big issue. But I’ve found a whole lot of encrypted files in there, and I guess that’s the stuff you’ll want to access.’
‘Can you get in?’
‘Once I’ve got the password. I don’t suppose you have any clues to it? It would save time.’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Oh, well, never mind. I will work it out, I’ve never been beaten yet, but it will take time, that’s all. I’ll send you a print out by heading of what’s in the main body of files, in case there’s anything you’re interested in, and then concentrate on the encrypted stuff.’
‘Thanks, Jimmy. Have a good evening.’
‘Kidding? I’m just starting work. Night’s the best time for me. I sleep in the morning when people start making a noise.’
Slider put things away and locked his desk, thinking of the little shaggy-haired figure hunched over a keyboard under a pool of light from a desk lamp, clicking and mousing away through the silent hours like the shoemaker’s elves. It was an odd sort of life – but then that’s what most people thought about his.
Atherton found himself suddenly shy when he and Emily got back to his house, and she seemed a tense and ill-at-ease too. It could be the moment when what had happened so far backfired, when she felt repelled by the memory of what they had done and blamed him or herself for it. The knowledge that the relationship was on a knife-edge made him realise very clearly how important it was to him, and for once in his life he didn’t know what to do. He had developed a thousand ploys to cover every situation he normally found himself in with a woman, but he couldn’t use ploys on her. And he had never been in this situation before. He was terrified of getting it wrong, and the terror paralysed him.
Fortunately the siameses dashed into the breach, thundering into the room with competing loud remarks about the lateness of the hour and the absence of food in their dishes. Vash shinned lightly up Emily and sat on her shoulder, shouting chattily into her ear like someone talking to a deaf person, while Tig did his Wall of Death challenge, racing round the room at top speed without touching the floor. It broke the gathering ice, and Atherton offered up a silent thank you to the absent Sue for having forced him to take them on.
‘Hungry?’ he asked Emily.
‘Very,’ she said. ‘I don’t seem to have had any lunch.’
‘That often happens with police work. I read a thing about the First World War, where soldiers always said if anyone offered you food you should eat it, even if you’d just had a meal, because you never knew when the next meal was coming. I’ll see what there is in the fridge.’
She drifted into the kitchen after him, looking dead tired, and bleak around the eyes. The thing to do, he thought, was to keep her occupied. ‘Would you mind feeding the kits?’ he said. ‘Their food’s in the cupboard under the sink, in the big plastic bucket-thing.’
She did as he asked wearily and without comment, but in a moment was laughing as Tig and Vash climbed over and around her with the fluidity of ferrets, trying to get at the food before it got to the dishes. ‘They’re impossible! Look at this one, trying to jam his head into the bucket! Get out, you silly animal. Let me fill the bowl first! How much should I give them?’
‘A scoop in each bowl is fine. And if the water bowl’s empty, could you fill it from the tap, please?’
By the time she had done these things, he was ready to say, ‘How about chicken, bacon and avocado salad? The avocadoes are just about ready now.’
‘Lovely.’
‘And I’ve got a bottle of Meurseult in the fridge. Would you like a drink beforehand? I could do with a gin and tonic. Would you make them while I get the bacon on? And put some music on?’
So he kept her gently occupied, until Rachmaninov’s first symphony laid its firm opening notes down into the silence, and she came back to the kitchen door with two tumblers and offered him one. He thanked her and left the bacon to get some ice out and drop a lump into each drink. Then he paused on the brink of saying
She obviously felt it too, because she said, ‘Is it right to be like this? Food, music – a drink?’
‘You know it is,’ he said.
‘But it seems wrong to want to enjoy them. Isn’t it disrespectful? I ought to be in mourning.’
‘And you are. Aren’t you?’
She nodded. She knocked her knuckles against her chest and said, ‘It’s like a sort of sump of misery in here. I want to cry and howl, and I’m afraid to. I’m afraid to let go.’
‘That’s natural,’ he said. ‘It’s your own self defending itself. It’s too much to think about now. When the time comes that you can cope with it, you’ll do it. Your father would understand that.’
Her hand went up automatically to the locket and took hold of it: it fitted nicely into her closed palm, and Atherton imagined the smooth, warm feeling of it. Comforting.
‘Yes, he would,’ she said. ‘He was always so good about feelings. It can’t have been easy bringing up a teenage girl alone, but he coped with all the moods and floods and sulks and always managed to make me feel normal. You know?’
‘You weren’t normal?’
‘It wasn’t normal to live with your dad instead of your mum. But apart from that—’ She hesitated.
‘Anyone who is a bit out of the ordinary by definition can’t be normal. And that includes anyone who is more intelligent or more talented or more gifted than the rest.’
She looked relieved. ‘You do understand. Not that I’d say I was gifted or anything,’ she said, back-pedalling automatically, ‘but I was brighter than the other kids in the neighbourhood. And they knew it too.’
‘Kids always do. That’s why this business of not streaming never works. They always have an exact knowledge of the hierarchy, however you try to disguise it.’ He turned away to turn the bacon. ‘It just makes it harder for the bright ones, if you don’t let them be with other bright kids. They get bullied.’
‘Did you?’
‘Oh, yes. Beaten up regularly,’ he said lightly.
‘It makes you lonely,’ she said, as if commenting generally.
‘And being lonely gets you into all sorts of inappropriate relationships.’
He turned back and took up his glass again, and she said, ‘I’ve done that. Dad was so good about it. He always managed to make me see how inappropriate without setting my back up. You know how you always immediately want to do the opposite of what your parents tell you? Then, when I got a bit older, he said I should use as a rule of thumb whether I’d want to bring whoever-it-was back to meet him.’ She smiled. ‘That really narrowed the field!’
‘I bet it did,’ he said. His feelings were in such turmoil he had to turn away again, and concentrated on cutting and peeling the avocadoes. After a moment she put her glass down and took the second one and a knife and peeled along beside him. The cats finished their biscuit and sprang up on to the draining board to clean their whiskers and watch, their eyes on the chicken skin.
She said, ‘I’m not sorry about last night.’
