"Thank you, Greg."

"You haven't seen the bill yet. Walk me to the car? I might get lost otherwise; normally when I'm in buildings this size there are hordes of other people queuing to catch their trains."

She laughed. A joke. He was joking with her. Then her father came into the hall, and the sudden bud of joy was crushed as though it'd never been.

Dillan Evans was wearing jeans and a baggy brown sweater which was fraying at the end of the sleeves. He was walking with a drunkard's hesitancy, taking care that his feet only trod on the black tiles.

"Hello, Daddy," Julia said quietly.

He nodded absently at her, and looked Greg up and down with bleary eyes.

Julia felt like weeping. It was bad enough witnessing her father's state in private, having it exposed like this only exacerbated the pain.

She watched in dismay as he straightened up ponderously. "Bit old for her, aren't you?" he said to Greg.

"Daddy, don't, please," her voice had become high, strained. She caught Greg's eye, a tiny motion of her head telling him to say nothing. Please. He inclined his head discreetly, thank God.

Dillan grunted roughly. "Out of the way, don't embarrass us, keep out of sight, keep your mouth shut, never know what might come out. Want me to shut up, Julie? Is that it? Want your father to keep his dirty mouth closed. Afraid of what the old fool will say? I'm only looking after your welfare. I've got a right to meet my little girl's men friends."

"Greg is not a boyfriend, Daddy. He's someone who works for us."

"Work, eh?" A crafty expression twisted his vacant face. "Been up to see the old bastard, have you?"

"What?" Julia blurted, alarmed.

"The old bastard. Up there in the study."

"Grandpa's dead, Daddy. You watched the funeral on the channel," she enunciated with slow deliberation, as though she was explaining a particularly difficult fact to a small child.

"Oh, Julie, Julie. How you hate me, a disgrace, a failure as a father. Beneath contempt. Written off. Well I'm an Evans, too, don't forget. A mighty Evans. I see things, I listen to what's going on. I know," He started up the stairs, clinging tightly to the banister rail. His foot slipped, nearly sending him tumbling. He looked round at her mute face staring up at him. "I could have done it. If he'd given me the chance, I could've run the company. Bastard never gave me the chance. He did this to me, his own son! Not you, though, Julie; everybody loves you. He does, I do. Everybody does." The words spluttered into incoherence. He glanced round nervously, suddenly confused as to where he was, what he'd been saying. His hand pulled hard at the banister, starting himself off on the climb again. He began muttering fractured words as he went.

Julia buried her face in her hands. After a while she felt Greg's arm round her shoulder. Misery compounded as she found she was quivering silently.

"Sorry," she mumbled, lowering her hands to wipe at her eyes. Absolutely refusing to cry. Then the implications of what her father had said penetrated. "Oh, God, do you think he was the one?"

"Not deliberately, if that's what you mean," said Greg. "Maybe he let something slip. But it wouldn't do any good asking him. I doubt he'd remember. And I couldn't tell whether or not he was telling the truth."

She considered that, if Greg couldn't make sense of her father with his ability— "His mind has gone, hasn't it? I mean, really gone, destroyed."

"Julia." He held her firmly, a hand on each shoulder. "Isn't it about time you booked him into a clinic?"

"He's my father," she insisted plaintively. "He needs me."

"He's hurting you, Julia. Far too much. You can't hide that from me, remember? A clinic will care for him properly. You can visit. Hell, you can afford to build a clinic. Put it in a house like this one, he won't even realise the difference."

She studied something away to the side of his head, swallowing hard. "Maybe," she whispered.

"You should get out," he expanded blithely, changing tone, breaking the mood. "A girl like you ought to be beating off the boys with a stick. Stay up till the wee hours at disreputable parties. That sort of thing. Do you the world of good. Wilholm is grand to look at, but it isn't exactly jumping and jiving, now is it?"

"No," she smiled meekly. "I'm going away next weekend, actually. A book launch."

"A what?"

"A book launch. It's a big PR event, lasts for two days, truly swish. Naturally the Evans heir was invited."

"Good. It's a start. Now, what about a boy?"

"I know someone," she said defensively. And the thought lit that idyllic warming core of delight.

They walked out into the furnace heat of a cloudless day. The sun's glare yellowed half of the sky.

"Goodbye, Greg, and thanks again." She stood very close as he blipped the Duo's lock. Would he kiss her?

He tugged the Duo's door open and smiled affectionately, like a doting uncle. "Any time."

Oh well.

She waved at the car until the curve of the drive took it from view.

End GregTime#Three.

She'd have to edit her father out, though.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Scorching April sunlight metamorphosed the A1 into a bubbling ribbon of tar, for once reversing the rampant greenery's encroachment. Nettles and grass were sucked below the surface by sluggish eddies, consumed and fossilised within the black brimstone.

The Duo moved along the northbound carriageway with one continuous ripping sound. Greg drove automatically, trying to make sense of the case. He hadn't admitted it to Julia, but Kendric di Girolamo had him badly worried. A paradox, she'd said. And she was right. Intuition convinced him Kendric was involved with the blitz attack somewhere along the line, no faint tickle either. But why had the man allowed her to buy him out? Maybe Gabriel would know.

He drove straight through Edith Weston, on to Manton, and turned right, freewheeling down the hill towards Oakham, saving the batteries. A dense strip of rhododendron bushes planted along the side of the railway line running parallel to the road was in full bloom, tissue-thin scarlet flowers throwing off a pink haze as they basked in the rich sunlight. Greg barely registered them; he was worried by the idea of a high-placed mole hidden somewhere among Event Horizon's staff. The last thing he needed was an opposition that was being fed his own progress reports. Maybe it would be best not to keep Walshaw a hundred per cent up to date. More subterfuge, more complexity.

Dillan Evans disturbed him, as well. Not so much his state, but the fact that he could piece together his father's particular bid for immortality from the snippets of conversation he'd picked up around the manor. If Dillan Evans could, anyone could. That definitely meant interviewing all of Wilholm's staff. Another neurohormone hangover to anticipate. Or had Dillan Evans realised because he knew exactly how avaricious and egotistic his father was? That, given that the bioware's capability existed, he would inevitably spend a fortune bringing it to fruition and constructing an NN core. Either way, it left Dillan as a real monster of a loose end. No messing.

Greg had been surprised how bravely Julia handled her father. Her mind's peppy sparkle had dimmed severely in his presence, but her outward composure had been beautifully maintained. He admired that kind of dignity.

He even felt a degree of pity for Dillan. It would've been so easy to condemn him, but he couldn't find the scorn. He deserved compassion more than anything; a lost ruined man, cowering in the double shadow of his parent and child.

His sorry state made Julia all the more remarkable—or perhaps not, the best roses grew out of manure heaps. And despite being the end product of a decidedly screwed-up family, she shone like the sun. Embarrassingly so in his presence.