“My mother’s a control freak, my dad was an old hippie, my brother’s gay, my sister Equality is a wild child. We’re Caribbean but not at all old school. Anyway, it’s about time someone was over-attentive to you. I know how hard you work.”
“That’s because I don’t have a social life.”
“Maybe it’s the other way around.”
A comfortable silence descended between them. “Ready for another turn?” asked Longbright. They had circumnavigated the perimeter fence bordering ADAPT’s second-stage site three times in the past two hours.
“Go on, then, last one,” said DuCaine.
The rain was descending in misty swathes across the ripped-up fields behind the railway line. Dozens of seagulls stood motionless in the rain beside the natural ponds that had formed in the soil dips. The perimeter fence was illuminated by tall neon lamps that created corridors of silver needles. It was still difficult to believe that such a desolate spot had sprung up in the heart of the city.
Longbright pulled her cap down harder, but the rain was running down her neck. “We could do this faster if we took one side each and met back in the middle,” she said. “There’s no-one around.”
DuCaine agreed. They set off in opposite directions. The mud sucked at Longbright’s boots as she trudged around the steel fence. In the distance, the clock tower of St Pancras rose in spectral splendour. Soon that Gothic monument would be joined by modern equivalents as a new town rose from the shifting wet clay of the hillside.
She came to a sudden stop. The stag-man was standing on the path no more than twenty metres away from her.
Although he still wore his leather boots and ragged fur jacket, he was no longer trying to assume the appearance of a wild beast. The headdress of blade-antlers had been replaced with a brown balaclava and cap. His face was smeared with mud. He reminded Longbright of a primitive forest hunter, especially since his right fist contained a large knife with a serrated blade.
Wary of confronting him, she remained calm enough to make a visual analysis. He was muscular, between twenty-five and thirty-two. His boots raised him to an imposing height. His eyes gave less away than she’d expected, but there was something in his posture that recalled John May’s description of Xander Toth.
He was waiting for her to make a move.
If she called DuCaine, how long would he take to skirt the perimeter fence and reach her? She pulled out her cell phone to make the call, but to make sure she had a record, snapped a quick photograph first. At that instant he lunged at her, lowering his body like a sprinter leaving the starting blocks. She jumped back, then ran.
“Liberty, I’m heading west around the fence, he’s right behind me.” The phone crackled and she heard no clear answer. She had already lost ground. The stag-man was close behind and gaining.
Her shoes were slipping in the mud. She grabbed at the security fence and swung around its corner, running hard as he swung out at her arm, the weapon reverberating against the wires. A feral grunt sounded close behind her, and another, each expulsion of breath matching hers as they pounded beside the fence.
“You okay?” he asked. “You’ve been cut. I saw him swing at you. I’m glad you didn’t turn around and see how close he was.”
“He’s stuck inside.” Longbright bent down, hands on knees, panting. “Blimey, he nicked my jacket. If we can get backup we can keep him in there.”
“No backup,” DuCaine replied. “Can’t call in the Met.”
“Then how do we stop him from getting out?”
“You know how wide the site is. There must be over a dozen other exits. You think it was Toth?”
“We have no proof. Raymond says we’ll need a warrant to search his apartment unless we can prove that we’re preventing a breach of the peace, and he doesn’t think we have evidence for that. I’m happy to go with a gut feeling, but he’s insisting on doing everything by the book. I’m sure he thinks we’re being monitored. At least I got a photo of our stag-man.” She held up her mobile.
“That’s something. Let’s get it to Dan and see what he can find.”
“Damn, if I could have just made an ID, I’d have had him.”
“No,” said DuCaine, “he nearly had you.”
¦
Rufus Abu was waiting for John May in St Pancras station’s champagne bar. He was under the minimum legal age to be served alcohol, so a waitress had given him an orange juice, to which he had added some Bentink’s gin from a small silver flask.
“Hey, my man.” Rufus touched May’s fingers in a complex salute and waited for him to sit. Rufus was a computer hacker without a base who did not take kindly to being described as ‘homeless’, for he regarded the whole of London as his home. He had just entered his teenage years, but showed no sign of growing any taller. With the mind of a university professor and the body of a child, his disconcerting mix of intelligence and innocence gave him an edge no bedroom-bound hacker could beat. He left no signature in the electronic ether and managed to pass beneath the city’s surveillance radar. He could usually only be lured into the visible world with gifts of illegal software, but had agreed to answer May’s call-sign because he owed the detective a favour. May had cleared him after a breach in CID on-line security had tagged his name with suspect status, resulting in the police looking for someone they still regarded as a runaway child. But Rufus kept moving on, like the zigzag blur of a nighttime taillight, lost in the rainy static of the night.
It comforted May to know he was out there somewhere, watching and listening. Sometimes when he was at his computer at a late hour, he would pick up a faint vapour trail left by Rufus. Other times, odd events revealed the hacker’s mark: a flash mob in Liverpool Street station, where six hundred home-going commuters were persuaded to stage a climate protest via their on-line cell phones; an ugly Trafalgar Square demonstration that turned instantly docile after the receipt of a single text message. Spontaneity and unpredictability were his style, but those were the qualities that made him hard to find.
“How are you doing, Rufus?” asked May.
“Young, gifted and back.” Rufus had an IQ of above 170 and a fondness for cheesy old school slang. “Not for long, though. With the plurality of CCTV around here I can give you five minutes between sweeps, then I’m ghosted. How’s life in the statistic majority?”
“We got disbanded.”
“Yeah, I tracked that. IMHO, you had a good run, man. You’re gonna reboot, right?”
“Well, we have a short lease on new premises; it’s pretty much make or break. But I’m sure you’re already aware of that.”
“I keep you tagged. We configured a handshake long ago, you and I, so I look out for you.”
“That’s comforting to know.”
“Besides, I’m still waiting for you to matchcom me with the dominatrix Longbright.”
May was shocked. “Rufus, she’s old enough to be – ”
“She appeals to my oedipal streak. Don’t sweat it, I’m hooking you.” Rufus’s weak spot was sensitivity about his age. He hated the idea of being mistaken for a child, with a child’s mind. “So, I heard you put out an ICQ. What can I do for the PCU?” He pushed back in his chair and sipped his gin-and-orange. His super-white sneakers did not touch the platform floor.
“There’s a company called ADAPT Group. Architectural design, planning and construction. I need a list of employee names from their system.”
“What, you can’t get some Trilobyte processor to handle that, you need an expert?”
“I’m afraid so, yes,” May admitted. “ADAPT is very protective about its workforce details, and we currently have no access to programs that will get us in. I’m assuming it will be a piece of cake for you. I need the information fast. Will you do it?”
“Hell, this doesn’t even count as a favour. I’ll have something for you tomorrow.” When Rufus laughed it was
