There was a knocked-through lounge to their right and a kitchen straight ahead beyond a narrow staircase. Wada brought up the rear as they headed into the smart but small kitchen, where Morrisette put the milk in the fridge and faced Wada across a bare table, arms akimbo.

‘OK, Wada. Say your piece.’

‘Emergence was launched last Wednesday. Did you know that?’

‘I knew it was imminent.’

‘It was a massive sale of options to buy parcels of land in Iceland, Greenland, Canada and maybe elsewhere too. Yes?’

‘Sounds like you know all about it.’

‘Quartizon used you to research the … what? The climate in the areas concerned?’

‘There’s a non-disclosure agreement attached to my contract with Quartizon. I can’t answer a question like that.’

‘Do you have a specialism … within climatology?’

‘I do.’

‘It cannot be a breach of your agreement to say what it is.’

‘OK. I specialize in future climatology. The sort of weather we’re all going to have to face down the line. You know? Fifty years from now. A hundred. Two hundred.’

The relevance of that was immediately obvious to Wada. ‘You researched what the climate would – will – be like for the parcels of land in the period covered by the options.’

‘Did I?’

‘It seems to me … you must have done.’

‘Well?’ Morrisette grabbed a towel and mopped her face. ‘Am I contradicting you?’

‘Can we look at the contents of the stick on your computer?’

‘Before we do that, I think I need to know where you’re coming from. What’s your interest in Emergence?’

‘I work for a private detective in Tokyo who was hired to investigate the business methods of Hiroji Nishizaki, founder and chairman of the Nishizaki Corporation, which has a fifty per cent stake in—’

‘Quartizon. Yeah, I know. Well, I didn’t know the exact percentage, but there you go. Who hired your boss?’

‘That truly does not matter. What matters is that Nishizaki is …’

‘Yeah? What is he?’

‘A crook, Dr Morrisette. That is what he is. A big-time crook.’

‘Says who?’

‘Just look at what is on the stick and see if there is something wrong with it. I can translate the contents for you. It is all in Japanese, of course.’

Morrisette smiled. ‘No need. Quartizon supplied me with a Japanese translation program as soon as we started working together.’

‘OK. Good.’

‘So, there’s zero chance of you stiffing me on the translation.’

‘I am not trying to trick you.’

‘Like you’d say if you were. Give me the stick.’

Wada handed it over. Morrisette stalked past her into the hall and took a smart left into the living room. There was a PC set up on the dining table. She slipped a pair of circular-framed glasses on to her nose, clicked the mouse to restart the PC, loaded the stick and sat down in front of the screen.