‘We can’t assume there’s a link,’ Silas says, ‘but Dr Varma had also highlighted the line about the addicts’ minds remaining normal. And there was another article open on his laptop.’ Strover looks up. Silas knows she’s wondering if he left any fingerprints on Dr Varma’s screen, but she’s too polite to ask. He didn’t. ‘It was about locked-in syndrome,’ he continues. ‘Those patients who appear to be in a persistent vegetative state but are in fact fully conscious. They’re also frozen, in a sense, unable to move their bodies – except for one part. Their eyes.’

Strover glances down again at the frozen addicts story on her iPad.

‘As I say, there might not be a connection.’ He pauses. For once in his life he’s not sure if he wants to join the dots, but he knows he must, however shocking the final picture might prove to be. ‘If Dr Varma’s notes are anything to go by, Kate’s P3 results were extraordinary, suggesting an almost complete recovery. Apparently, this P3 wave is an involuntary response in the brain when you recognise someone – and it’s much more pronounced in a super recogniser. Kate was shown hundreds of images in rapid succession – at least ten a second – and her brain made a spot. “Jeff.” She’s clearly got her old recognition skills back. Her eyes are working again.’

He can see Strover’s still not sure where he’s heading with this, how it relates to the bigger picture: Rob being framed by Gilmour. She looks tired. They both are.

‘What’s Rob’s latest project?’ he asks, keen for Strover to see the pattern emerge for herself, know what it feels like.

‘Facial-recognition software,’ she says.

‘What else is he into?’

‘Medtech, fitness gadgets, drone deliveries, charity art shows.’

‘And?’

Strover’s done a lot of digging into Rob’s business empire. She closes a window on her iPad and opens another file. ‘Direct neural interface technology,’ she reads. ‘Man and machine.’

She looks up at him, eyes widening, the horror dawning on her face.

‘In this case a P3 spike in the human brain, and recognition software,’ Silas says. ‘And if that brain belongs to a super recogniser, so much the better. The more the merrier, wherever you can find them, but only the best. Nottingham, Dublin, Hamburg, Paris, Swindon…’

99

Jake

‘I’ll call you again when I get near the coast,’ Jake says, checking the rearview mirror of the rental car he’s just picked up at Brest Bretagne airport.

‘Be careful,’ Bex says, still tearful. He’s rung her several times since breaking the news to her about Dr Varma, first from his Eurostar train and then while he was waiting for his flight from Paris to Brest. She’s taken Dr Varma’s death badly and is worried what that means for Kate. For him too.

‘DI Hart’s alerted Europol about Gilmour Martin,’ Jake says.