"Yes. They questioned you for over two hours. Don't blame yourself, Greg. Interrogations these days are like punching out a data request in a memory core, the answers pop out quick and clean. There's no way anyone can hold out. You should know that."

"Sure. Thanks." The only hope left now was Morgan Walshaw, and anything Ellis might've left behind. "Did I tell them that Walshaw and the Event Horizon security programmers were sifting through the files in Ellis's Crays?"

Gabriel screwed her face up. "I think so, yes."

"Did it kick anything loose? I mean were they worried about anything he might find?"

"Not especially."

"Bugger." He'd banked everything on Ellis wreaking a silent posthumous vengeance. A folly whose magnitude was now painfully obvious. Even if Ellis had been told exactly who he was working for, he wouldn't have known about this tower hideaway in Wisbech. Need-to-know was an elementary precaution, and Armstrong certainly wouldn't have overlooked anything to do with his personal security. Hindsight must surely be the most useless function of the human brain, torturing yourself over the unalterable past.

Gabriel shifted her knees. "One item which really got them stirred up was the Merlin," she said.

"What about it?"

"Armstrong and Kendric weren't the ones who meddled with it."

"Who did?"

A smile ghosted her lips. "That's what they wanted to know. They asked you three times if you were sure there had been a rogue shutdown instruction squirted up to it."

"I bet I was convincing."

"You were. Armstrong ordered his people to confirm it'd happened; apparently Event Horizon haven't announced the breakdown publicly yet. He said they must make an effort to find out who it was. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, all that crap. Kendric seemed to think it could be one of the rival kombinates."

"Kendric's probably right," Greg said. "So when does Armstrong expect the answers to his enquiries?"

"I guess tomorrow morning, there's nothing going on right now. If there are any queries they'll have another session with you. If not it'll be straight into the mud."

"No doubt with Toby helping me on my way after his own fashion. Where is he now?"

Gabriel inclined her head. "Kendric's mob are camped out in the basement. Lord and Lady Muck themselves are still upstairs. Maybe Armstrong's got a guest suite."

"Yeah. That Kendric, I'd never have figured on him being plugged into Armstrong and the PSP."

"You think someone like him is going to let a little question of ideology stand in his way when he's been offered the kind of profits which giga-conductor licensing is going to rake in?"

"No," Greg said. "But I'm wondering if Armstrong might just have let himself in for more than he's realised."

"In what way?"