"Yeah. She owns it."

"No shit? Heard Kendric on about her…" Suzi began typing on a keyboard. "Remember the file code," she muttered, and consulted a cybofax. "Here we go."

One of the small screens changed to a scene on the Mirriam's broad afterdeck. Greg squinted down at it. Kendric was sitting on one of the plastic recliners, dressed in an open-neck shirt and tailored shorts, drinking from a tall cut-crystal glass. The man with him was in a suit, his collar undone, tie hanging loose. He looked to be in his late forties, a flat bulldog face with red skin.

"Here," said Suzi. She handed Greg an earpiece.

"… missing out badly," the man in the suit was saying, in a faint Scottish brogue. "Our Party is damn near down, Kendric, it cannot last long. Terrible thing, food's short, there's no gear, no methane for the farms. People are going to the spivs like never before. There's a hell of a turnover in silver right now. If you could just have a wee word with young Julia Evans, come to an arrangement wi' her till the Party goes down. I can ship it out by the tonne."

"Impossible," Kendric said flatly. His face was dangerously hard. "That frigid bitch and I have severed all our business contacts. There will be no resumption."

"Tis a lot o' money, Kendric."

"Ride it out. I'm closing some deals that will make the black currency market utterly trivial. And I certainly shall not forget your forbearance."

The man in the suit shook his head sadly, and took a drink from his glass.

The image froze. "Didn't mean much at the time," said Suzi. She pecked at the keyboard again.

This time it was evening. A gauzy layer of cumulus cloud glowed copper above the Mirriam. There was a crowd of about fifteen people drinking on the afterdeck, the women in low-cut cocktail dresses; men in suits or blazers. Laughter, clamorous conversation, and the chink of glasses filled the earpiece.

Kendric was standing at the stern with two other men. One tall and slim with thinning blond hair, the second a handsome African in brightly coloured northern tribal robes.

"You have got to provide the house with alternative investments, Kendric," said the blond-haired man. "And fast."

"I've acquired some options in a Pacific Rim portfolio," the African said earnestly. "They'll give you a sixteen to seventeen per cent return, guaranteed minimum."

"No," Kendric said.

"You won't find anything better. Not short-term."

"I'm sorry. I know how hard you worked to put them together. But no."

"You should've hung on, Kendric," said the blond man, "We could've squared it with the family over Siebruk."

Kendric's handsome features darkened. "That deranged little shit, Evans. Buying a fucking bank! I've never heard of anything so… so—" He clutched at the polished brass tiff-rail. "God damn that bitch!"

The blond man turned to look out over the marina.

"Look," said the African. "The family is going to insist on an equivalent viability from the money released by pulling out of the Event Horizon backing consortium."

Kendric didn't respond.

"The family—" began the blond man.

"Put them off," Kendric snapped. He caught himself, and rested a companionable hand on the blond man's shoulder. "Six months, Clancy. If I haven't come through by then, I'll step down from the family board anyway. OK?"

Greg considered the faces on the screen. The two financiers' obvious concern. Kendric's driving anger. And intuition was totally spurious. A cornered animal had no choice in the way; it reacted. "Have you got a record of all the visitors?" he asked.

Suzi tapped the sensor array with possessive pride. "No sweat. Day or night, anyone on or off gets tagged. We've got infrared and low level, for night work. Not that we need them, that baby is lit up like a football pitch after dark. And we've got an antenna rigged to intercept Mirriam's local calls. But there's nothing we can do about her satellite uplinks. Trouble is, the local calls have all been the big zero so far, social gabbing and ordering booze, that kind of crap."

Greg grunted and wiped some of the sweat off his forehead.

"Good. If I know who he's been seeing, I might be able to get a clearer idea of exactly what he's planning."

"You figuring on doing an extra-parliamentary number against him?"

"Insufficient data."

She bent back and dragged a koolcan of orange from the heap at her feet. "I'd like in if it happens." She twisted the tab ninety degrees.

Greg watched frost forming over the can with something akin to lust. "No promises. As I said, this is big league. Black-hat spooks with viral wasps and funny midnight accidents."

Suzi pulled the tab and gulped down the icy stream of bubbling orange, burping loudly. "Figures."

"So what happens in the afternoon?"

"She—Hermione, right? — goes shopping, maybe does lunch with a load of airhead cows just like her. Evening, they party; sometimes on one of the other yachts, mostly on theirs, 'bout twenty-five came to it last night. Then after midnight they take off for the Blue Ball. That's a casino in New Eastfield. Hottest spot in town, people say. We tailed them for you, but no fucking way could we get past the bouncers. They pack up around three or four and come straight back. Spoke to a couple of the casino's waitresses, though. They reckoned Kendric and Hermione usually pick up a girl at the Blue Ball, bring her back to Mirriam to provide themselves with some fun. These waitresses, a friend of theirs let herself get talked into going along with them once. Bad scene, Greg, no sadism, but she was really put through her paces. Kendric and Hermione screwed her brains out. Then she got kicked off the next morning. Apparently, they all do. One-nighters; fuck and forget."

"What about the crew?"

Suzi grinned knowingly. "Just in case you're thinking of visiting, right? There's nine real crew, sailor types, including the captain. On top of that you've got seven assorted staff, cooks, maids, and such. Then there's six bodyguards, mean-looking bastards. Oh, here," she leaned over him, tiny pointed breasts squashing against his cheek, damp and salty. He detected a glint of amusement in her mind. She scrabbled amongst the gear modules and came back with a memox crystal. "This has got all the visitors' faces and times they turned up. We managed to get names for a few of them."

One of the flatscreens switched to the Mirriam's blueprints. "There are always at least four people left on board," Suzi said, pointing at it. "We think we've got their cabins assigned, but you can never be sure."

Names had been superimposed over the various cabins.

"Great. Where did you get the specs from?" Greg asked.

"Son snatched them. Mirriam's hull was built in Finland, but she was fitted out up in Tyneside. Apparently the English are still unbeatable when it comes to quality handicrafts."

Greg squirted the memox crystal data into his cybofax, and began skipping through the faces. The images were good, high definition, most seemed to be staring straight into the lens. Morgan Walshaw should be able to assemble profiles on them.

"Oh yeah," Suzi muttered. "They've got themselves a permanent doxy on board, too. She don't do much; too flicking stoned the whole time by the look of her. That Kendric, ménage a quatre every night, some stud, huh?"

Greg flipped through the index until he came to the girl; she'd been given a number, but no name. Her face appeared on the cybofax's little screen.

"That's some looker," Suzi said, craning over his shoulder. "Wouldn't mind her for myself."

"Has she been on board the whole time?"

"Yeah, since we've been watching, anyway. Why, you know her?"

"Yes. Her name is Katerina Cawthorp."

SO WHY I***FYRNST… +! IS IULIR'SSSS FRIEND SHCKED UUUUP WITH KENDRIC DE GIROLAMO???