“You'd be the greatest physicist of your generation,” Paul McCabe said. “Or any generation, I think.” He set the tea mug down on the table without so much as rippling the surface. He slapped his hands decisively on his thighs. “Well, I'd best be going. Just to say, this is a dreadful time, dreadful, and everyone at the department wishes you all the best, the very best. It's not knowing, that's the worst bit. The worst. I'm sure it'll all work out all right, Everett.” He stood up, straightened the coat he had not taken off. “Thank you, Laura. If there's anything any of us can do to help…”

Paul McCabe turned at the front door. Behind him the rain slashed in silver horizontals. The evening's evil weather had deepened.

“Oh yes, Everett one last thing. Your dad, did he give you anything recently?”

“Like what?”

“Like a memory stick, or a data DVD, or even a file transfer?”

“I don't think so.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure.” Everett felt Laura behind him. The cold wind from the street got under the Christmas cards, lifted them, sent them fluttering to the ground.

“Well, as long as you're sure.” Paul McCabe turned up the collar of his coat. “Oof. Dirty old night. Everett, if you do get something from your father, would you be so good as to let me know? It may not make any sense to you, but it might to us. It could help. You will let me know, won't you? Thanks. Good night, Laura.”

He pulled the door hard against the wind.

“Well, what was that about?” Laura asked. “I always thought he was a strange little man.”

That's what that was about, Everett thought. Those last two questions. The rest was just polite games.

The visitor had left almost all his tea.

How Everett had missed the ping from the drop box: he had been trying to identify Paul McCabe's soft voice at the front door. He hadn't used it much recently anyway: file swapping at school had gone quiet since Aaron Leigh got a threatening letter from Viacom's lawyers. But there was the button bouncing up and down on the tool bar at the bottom of the screen. A file was waiting. A touch took Everett to his drop box on a server in Iceland.

“Everett!” Laura had this way of putting an emphasis on the end of his name and going up in tone when she wanted him to know she was exasperated. Everette. “Lights out. School day tomorrow.”