‘And I know she’s going to keep phoning and phoning me/ he said, ‘until I give her the answer she wants, which 1 can’t do. There isn’t even any point in changing my number at home, because she would only started phoning me here. And that would be a nightmare.’
‘It must be very difficult for her,’ said Fry.
‘What about me? It’s difficult for me, too. Isn’t there anything you could do about it? Couldn’t you have a word with her? It’s getting to be a real nuisance.’
‘OK, I’ll mention it, sir.’
Dearden sighed. ‘Yeah. A fat lot of good it will do.’
‘And Neil Granger?’
‘Neil again? What about him?’
‘Are you still in contact with him?’
‘Not really/
‘When did you speak to him last?’
Dearden shrugged. ‘It’d be a few months ago. I was visiting my parents, and I called in the Quiet Shepherd in Withens for a quick drink on the way back. Neil was in there, with some of his relations. The Oxleys, you know. So we didn’t say much to each other. It was just “hi”. There was no conversation/
‘And neither of you mentioned Emma, I suppose?’
‘No/ said Dearden. ‘Neither of us mentioned Emma/
‘This software you’re developing . .
‘It’s highly confidential at the moment/
‘Can you give me a clue?’
‘Well, imagine this. The human brain can run routines and recurrent actions, just like a computer does. But occasionally, you get minor damage to the frontal lobes of the brain, which is the system governing attention. Then actions can still be triggered automatically, but out of sequence, or can’t be stopped. The psychologists say it’s the penalty we pay for being able to automatize our actions/
Fry looked at Murfin, warning him not to laugh. She hoped that Alex Dearden wasn’t actually a robot but could be stopped at the appropriate moment.
‘It’s a bit like having a dodgy auto-pilot,’ he said. ‘For the
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psychologists, it helps them to understand human fallibility. From our point of view, it helps us to design the technology to allow for human error. It’s why computer programs won’t let you close a document without deciding whether you want to save it or not/ he said. ‘But we’re going to take that concept a whole lot further. A whole lot further. I really can’t tell you any more than that.’
‘Or you’d have to kill me?’ said Fry.
‘Sorry?’
‘Never mind.’
When they got out of Eden Valley Software Solutions, Gavin Murfin stopped in the car park and pretended to spit out the imaginary gum he’d been chewing. He trod it into the tarmac and ground the toe of his shoe on it until he was satisfied.
‘Feel better now?’ said Fry.
‘Not until I get a piece of that pie inside me.’
‘Not in my car, you don’t, Gavin.’
‘I’ll be careful of the crumbs, honest.’ ‘Do you know how much it cost me to get this car valeted?’
‘Look, I’ll not even take it out of the bag.’
‘No.’
Murfin’s face crumpled, and he sighed deeply. ‘Where to next, then?’
‘We need to speak to Neil Granger, but I tried to phone him, and he’s not at home.’
‘Does that mean we call it a day then?’
‘Yes. Until tomorrow.’
“Tomorrow? It’s Sunday tomorrow, Diane.’
‘A good day for a drive to Withens, then.’
Murfin sniffed. There’s no good day for a drive to Withens.’
Ben Cooper had his hand on the gate, and had been about to lift the latch. But he stopped at the sound of the voice. A man stood near the end house of Waterloo Terrace, watching Cooper carefully. He had been standing quite still, so that Cooper, who had been more interested in the state of the gardens, hadn’t even noticed him. The man was wearing a dark suit and a white shirt, but no tie, and his suit trousers were tucked into black Wellington boots. Cooper guessed him to be in his fifties. He had a balding head and some strands of sandy hair that stood up at his temples and moved in the breeze. But his hair was the only thing about
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him that moved. Even his eyes were quite still, fixed firmly on Cooper. His hands were hanging hy his sides, and he carried no weapon of any kind, yet still managed to convey a clear threat.
Cooper felt slightly nervous as he reached for his warrant card, worried that the movement might be taken the wrong way. Maybe he was becoming paranoid, but he had begun to feel that there were other pairs of eyes watching him, too, from somewhere.
