Alone, she sagged. She could not help herself. she locked herself in one of the toilet cubicles and gave way to the grief. The tears flooded out. Someone else came into the restroom, used another toilet, and left again. Teresa managed to stem her tears until she was alone, then once more allowed her feelings to pour out.
They were but a reminder of the real anguish, and after the flood she regained her composure with remarkable speed. Drying her eyes, she realized that what had upset her was nothing new, that she had been through all that.
She wondered if she was merely suppressing the grief again. But no, the situation was different now: she was in a position actually to do something. Grove had changed the rules.
Most of the natural light in the room came through the sloping window in the halfroof, but there was another small frosted window in the wall at the far end. Teresa eased this open, to find a restricted view. An extension of the main building was opposite the window, so it was possible to see only a narrow angle to one side. By leaning out and craning her neck, Teresa could see a short section of Welton Road. A cordon of brightorange police tape ran alongside the row of parked cars; one of these was Grove's stolen Montego. No one was close to the cars, and all the doors and windows of the Montego were closed. An armed policeman wearing a bulletproof vest was standing with his back to her, looking about him systematically. There was no other sign of activity. She knew the police here would act the same as federal agents in the same circumstances: don't touch a vehicle known or thought to carry arms or explosives.
Teresa closed the window, left the restroom and returned to the computer cubicle.
She entered her new membership number, and after a pause the program went into its startup routine.
Teresa watched the display screens flick past, and come to a rest on the screenful of main options. She rested her hand on the mouse, stared blankly at the screen, and tried to decide what to do.
Teresa recalled that she had made one decision early on: she wanted to know as little as possible about Aronwitz. He had come out of obscurity to take from her the only person who truly mattered in her life, and it had seemed to her from the outset that obscurity was where he should properly stay. Her work in the Bureau had shown her how criminals often became minor celebrities, because of media attention: some of the perpetrators she had had to deal with herself, who she knew were equipped only with viciousness, meanness, cruelty and a stunning mediocrity, briefly became notorious or perversely celebrated when they were arrested or their cases came to court. Being on the Bureau's Ten Most Wanted list, still in permanent use, was seen by many criminals as a status symbol.
She wanted Aronwitz to have no such celebrity, even in death. Her way of trying to ensure that, or at least making a start, was to close him off from her. She made a point of not finding out anything about him, of not knowing more than the barest outline of his life, of not trying to understand or forgive what he had done. She even went to great lengths to avoid finding out what he had looked like.
For a few days, while the story ran, an old Arkansas State Police mugshot of Aronwitz appeared regularly on TV and in the newspapers. Teresa never looked. If she realized it was about to be shown, she would look away, and if she opened a newspaper or magazine to find his face pictured there, she instantly blurred her vision, shied away from looking at him.
Inevitably, she could not make him disappear, and soon she had halfglimpsed him often enough to have gained an impression of him. She knew he was young or youngish, that he had fair hair, a broad forehead, eyes that were too small. But she felt she would never recognize him, or be able to describe him.
Would she ever have known that he looked like Gerry Grove?
Or, worse, that he was Gerry Grove?
How could this be? Grove was in Bulverton on the day, this day, of the shootings. Historical certainty again. lt was a fact, beyond question, in a way a scenario could never be. Scenarios were constructs, artificial recreations by programmers of events remembered or experienced or described by other people. They were full of flaws, designed to be reactive to the people who went in as participants, they were subject to crossover, had extra bits, sometimes illogical extra bits, bolted on. That Gerry Grove appeared in Andy's scenario, taking the place of Aronwitz, was a product of the scenarios, not a statement of what had really happened.
Teresa was sure of that. Completely sure.
She thought back, wishing she had not denied Aronwitz to herself She wished she had kept a file on him, brought it with her, could now look at the face she had., never seen properly.
On the Connect Memorative Principals screen, she typed in her own name and Gerry Grove's and waited to see what would happen. The computer took several minutes to produce its response. It said:
There are 16,794 hyperlink(s) connecting 'Teresa Ann Simons' to 'Gerry/Gerald Dean Grove'. Display? Yes/No.
Teresa found some Postit notes in a desktidy behind the monitor. She scribbled on one of them, This
over the words 'Gerald Dean Grove', and not entirely by accident.
She went through to the reception area, and found Paula standing by the glass door, looking out into the road. There were now five police cars outside the building, and a cordon of officers in front of the main door.
Teresa told Paula what she would like to do, and with an air of preoccupation the young woman typed on her keyboard, and produced a creditcard slip and an access number. Teresa deliberately did not ask what was going on outside; the less she knew about Grove's movements, on this day of virtuality June 3, the better.
Paula had returned to staring through the glass door as Teresa walked through into Cyberville UK, next to reception.
The place was empty, the rows of computer screens all idle.
She went to sit at one of the terminals, and typed in the access code Paula had just given her.
After a moment, a welcome screen appeared.
