She took a sip as his other arm slipped around her waist, hand coming to rest on her buttock. "You're right, not bad." For a moment she thought he was going to dump the meal and urge her into the bedroom. He always got turned on by the sight of her in a wet swimming costume. And there was plenty of time before she was due behind the bar at the Wheatsheaf. But then she looked closely at his face, and wrinkled her nose up. "God, you look awful."

"Thank you."

"Sorry… but, what have you been up to?"

"Do me one favour," he implored.

"What?"

"Just don't tell me I look like I've seen a ghost."

"I don't like it," Eleanor murmured.

It was long past midnight, the time for honest talk. They were lying on top of the big bed, the duvet crumpled up somewhere on the floor. The heat from making love beneath it would have been intolerable. As it was, they'd left the window full open, curtains wide to let the balmy night air flow around their bodies.

A quarter-moon was riding high in the sky, bathing the room with a spectral phosphorescence. She stretched out on her side beside him, her hands pillowing her head.

"Why not?" There was a certain tenseness in his voice.

"Just don't," she said.

"Female intuition?"

"Something like that."

He wet the tip of his forefinger and began to trace a line from her shoulder to the flare of her hips, innocently curious. "I'm supposed to be the one with the hyper-senses."

"You want logic? OK. It's too big. You're a one-man band, they're warring armies. They're out to kill each other, Greg. That security man, Walshaw, said as much. This giga-conductor stuff, it pushes the stakes too high. You don't know who the other side is, you don't know who to watch out for. There are an awful lot of kombinates who will suffer because of the giga-conductor. Any one of them could decide they don't want you interfering."

"Firstly, I share Julia's conviction that Kendric di Girolamo is involved somewhere, the mole is his plant. So at least I know one direction of attack which I should be guarding myself from. And secondly, I'm not convinced that it is the giga-conductor which is the root cause of the blitz. Erasing Philip Evans's memories wouldn't halt its introduction, not with the Ministry of Defence pushing it. He's important, but not that important, no matter what he likes to think. I suppose it's partially conceit. By maintaining that Event Horizon can't do without him, he's justifying the expense of the NN core. I'm not so sure. Julia has inherited his drive, more if anything; and she's bright, she learns fast. She's just very young, that's all. No crime. The company won't fail with her in charge."

"A personal vendetta extended to wiping a Turing personality program? Come on, nobody's that obsessive."