He noticed Julia's face had gone blank, focusing inwards. Must be using her nodes, running their arguments through analysis, battling the pros and cons against each other, trying to reach the conclusions ahead of them. In a way it was a power similar to Gabriel's.

"We're going through the Crays now," said Walshaw. "Although I don't know what the hell you did to one of them, it crashed one of our lightware crunchers when we plugged it in, bloody thing is so much rubbish now. The other two Crays are clean, although it'll take time to make sure there aren't any concealed wipe instructions buried in them."

"What have you got so far?" Greg asked.

"Ellis had quite an extraordinary accumulation of data, everything from minutely detailed personal dossiers through to industrial templates. Trivia and ultra-hush all jumbled together. It's going to take some sifting, even with the lightware crunchers hooked in."

"What did you mean, Ellis should've left a lead?" Julia asked.

"Standard practice," Greg explained. "If you're plugging into those kind of deals you cover your back. Benign blackmail, to make sure your partners don't get any funny ideas afterwards. There'll be a record of all the burns he arranged as Wolf; money, clients, the names of his hotrod team; data he bought and sold as Medeor, names, companies. Every damning byte. And it'll be somewhere where it can be found after he's dead. In the Crays, the Hitachi terminal's memory core, his cybofax, public data core on a time delay, hell, even an envelope left with a lawyer."

"Nothing else?" Julia asked.

"Pardon?"

"You don't think there's anything else important in the Crays?"

For some reason her slightly querulous attitude made him aware of how immensely tired he was. He was travelling on buzz energy, had been for hours, and it was running out fast now they'd got Katerina back.

"I wouldn't know. I expect they're a goldmine of illegal circuit activity."

"That's all?" Julia was leaning forward, studying his face intently. He had the uncomfortable impression he was being judged. Crime unknown. And, frankly, he didn't give a shit.

"All I can think of, yeah."

Dr. Taylor stepped out of the lift, accompanied by Victor who was carrying her case. She was a young woman wearing a plain cerise trouser suit, her dark hair French-pleated. She had a quick word with Morgan Walshaw and went into his office. Julia started to follow, but the security chief laid a light restraining hand on her arm. For a moment she looked like she'd rebel, then nodded meekly. Victor closed the door softly after he'd gone through.

"Thank you for bringing Kats back to me, Greg," Julia said, abruptly all humble contrition.

Greg gave up trying to find motives for her oscillating moods. She was on an emotional rollercoaster; depressed by Katerina, frightened by Kendric, trusting in him, Gabriel, and Walshaw to deliver her from evil. Poor kid.