The white cat was crying too. As Kearney watched, it turned its thin, savage little head towards him, and its tears poured out into the room like points of light. They flowed and flowed until the cat itself began to dissolve and spill off Brian Tate’s shoulder like a slow glittering liquid onto the floor, while Tate rocked himself to and fro and made a noise like:

“Er er er.”

He was melting too.

An hour later they were sitting in the brightest place they could find open in the centre of London, a pick-up bar at the Cambridge Circus end of Old Compton Street. It wasn’t much of a place, but it was as far away as they could get from the cold endless suburbs and those streets of decent, bulky stockbroker homes with one lighted room visible between laurels and rhododendrons. The bar did food—mainly odds and ends of tapas—and Kearney had tried to get Anna to eat something, but she had only looked at the menu and shuddered. Neither of them was speaking, just staring out into the street outside, enjoying the warmth and the music and the feeling of being with people. Soho was still awake. Couples, mostly gay, were hurrying past the window arm in arm, laughing and talking animatedly. There was some human warmth to be had by holding your glass steady in both hands and watching that.

Eventually Anna finished her drink and said:

“I don’t want to know what happened back there.”

Kearney shrugged. “I’m not sure it was actually happening like that anyway,” he lied. “I think it was some sort of illusion.”

“What are we going to do?”

Kearney had been waiting for her to ask this. He found the pocket drive he had taken from Tate, weighed it in his hand for a moment then put it on the table between them, where it lay gleaming softly in the coloured light, a nicely designed object not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes. Titanium has a look to it, he thought. Today’s popular metal. He said:

“Take this. If I don’t come back, get it to Sony. Tell them it’s from Tate and they’ll know what to do with it.”

“But that stuff,” she said. “That stuff is in there.”

“I don’t think it has anything to do with the data,” Kearney said. “I think Tate is wrong about that. I think it’s me this thing wants, and I think it’s the same thing that’s wanted me all along. It’s just found a new way of talking to me.”

She shook her head and pushed the drive back towards him.

“I’m not letting you go anyway,” she said. “Where can you go? What can you do?”

Kearney kissed her and smiled at her.

“There are some things I can still try,” he said. “I’ve saved them until last.”

“But—”

He slid back his stool and got up.