A moment passed, then Morrisette started talking. Her tone was abrupt and demanding. ‘It’s me. Call me if something urgent crops up, you said. Well, it just has. Get back to me asap. Trust me, Vinod, you don’t want to leave me hanging on this.’

She ended the call and slammed the phone back in the cradle, stood simmering for a few seconds, then looked at Wada as if she’d forgotten she was there.

‘Where did you get the stick, Wada?’

‘I told you. A Quartizon employee.’

‘Name?’

‘I have an informal non-disclosure agreement with him. Or her.’

‘I bet you do.’

‘The contents of the stick are genuine.’

‘Like you’d know. But I know. It’s genuine all right. How would you describe Nishizaki? I’ve never actually met him.’

‘Neither have I.’

‘But you’ve investigated him. So, give me some words. Ruthless?’

‘Yes.’

‘Treacherous?’

‘I think so.’

‘Greedy?’

‘Probably.’

‘Don’t worry about probably. What they’ve done with Emergence clinches the point. It’s greed on a grand scale. With treachery and ruthlessness thrown in.’

‘Please explain it to me, Dr Morrisette.’

‘And break my NDA? It’s tempting. It’s very tempting.’ Her phone began to ring at that moment. She looked down at it. ‘That’ll be Hardekar. Tell you what, Wada. Listen to this conversation and I reckon you’ll get the gist. Take a seat, why don’t you?’

As Wada sat down at the kitchen table, Morrisette pressed a button on the phone to answer the call, but left it in its cradle, triggering the loudspeaker function.

‘That you, Vinod?’ Vinod. There was something familiar about the name, but Wada couldn’t place it.

‘Yes, Michaela.’ The voice was cultured and slightly Asian, probably Indian, as the name Vinod suggested. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘As number-crunching consultant on the Emergence project, I suspect you know there’s a problem.’

‘I’m not with you.’

‘Probably lucky for you. How’d the auction go?’

‘Very smoothly, thank you. If it’s your bonus you’re concerned about, there’s likely to have been some delay because of the banking shutdown over Easter, but I can fairly say you’ll be pleasantly surprised when—’

‘I’m going to get a bigger pay-off than I was bargaining for. Is that what you’re saying, Vinod?’

‘In essence, yes. Much bigger.’

‘A frenzy of competitive bidding, was there?’

‘You could say so … without exaggerating.’

‘I’ll bet. And then, of course, there were more lots than there rightly should have been, weren’t there?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I’ve got the catalogue file, Vinod. The real catalogue file. The enhanced catalogue file.’

‘There was only one catalogue, Michaela.’

‘Oh yeah? And who wrote it?’

‘I’m not absolutely sure I—’

‘Cut the crap, Vinod. Who do you work for? Who do I work for? Who does Driscoll work for?’

‘Well, ultimately, we all answer to Mr Nishizaki.’