"But I could see into the future," Gabriel said. "How could these CTCs produce that effect? You said they go back in time."

"They do. But the now we are in is the past of the futures you perceived."

"Yes," said Gabriel, though she sounded unconvinced.

"However, by itself looking into the future isn't sufficient to prove the existence of CTCs. Psychic is such a prejudicial term, you see, people have always laid claim to the power of foresight. But if CTCs exist, then the past should be available on an equal basis. Edward hoped that by producing a neurohormone capable of opening up the past in the way that precognition opens up the future he would make a case for microscopic CTCs which would be irrefutable. There could be very few alternative explanations."

"Julia?" Greg's voice was dead, devoid of all inflection. Everyone looked at him. "What was the result of the analysis on those ampoules Eleanor gave you?"

She had some trouble forming the words, her throat had dried up as soon as she started thinking about the implications. "The laboratory said it was a themed neurohormone, sharing some characteristics with the standard precognition formula. But it's not a type they were familiar with."

"Edward succeeded in formulating a retrospection neurohormone?" Cormac asked with a feverish note of hope.

"Looks that way, doesn't it." Greg was staring at Gabriel. Julia saw she had gone quite white, her hands were trembling slightly.

"No," Morgan said. He didn't use a loud voice, but the authority he conveyed was final. He took hold of Gabriel's hand. "You're not infusing it."

"Who else can?" she answered. "My temporal ability is a proven one."

"You are proposing to use it?" Cormac asked, he blinked owlishly at Gabriel. "Why? We don't even know if it works, all Edward's records were erased."

Julia cursed under her breath. It was a perpetual mystery to her how someone as smart as Cormac could be so oblivious to the problems of life itself. "If it enables us to look into the past, we can use it to see who killed Kitchener," she told him, using the strained tone reserved for making company divisional managers wish they'd never been born.

Cormac opened his mouth to speak, then glanced at Gabriel, blushing furiously. "I… I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. This whole series of events has been extremely stressful…"

He trailed off.

"I'll infuse it," Eleanor said.

"No bloody chance!" Greg snapped.

"Why not? These themed neurohormones are designed to amplify single psi traits. Anyone with even a faintly psionic ability should be able to infuse one. And you always say I'm sensitive."

Greg's face darkened. "That's hardly a qualified objective opinion."

"What have we got to lose? If it doesn't work, there's no disaster, we simply carry on the investigation as before. If it does work, we find out who the murderer is."

It was quite peculiar; Julia was watching Greg gather himself for a tirade, desperately trying to think of some way she could defuse the situation before it degenerated into a vicious personal row. She knew from past experience just how forceful Greg could get when he was really upset. And Eleanor was just as bad. Both of them complete stubborn-heads. But something happened, because Greg suddenly gave Eleanor a perplexed, almost awestruck, stare, and sat back limply in his seat, his anger visibly draining away.

"What is it?" Eleanor asked. She was frowning at his behaviour.

"Nothing."

Which Julia didn't believe for a second.

"You mean you don't object?" Eleanor said, suspicion charging her voice.

He gave her a lame grin. "No."

"Oh."

Julia looked at Morgan for guidance, but all he could manage was a confused grimace. She couldn't think what had made Greg change his mind so abruptly. The mood swing had struck him so swiftly she was tempted to call it a revelation.

"If Gabriel's precognition is any example, we'll need to do this at Launde Abbey itself," Greg said. "You'll have a job trying to focus on the temporal displacement of a location outside your immediate area. Right, Gabriel?"

"Right."

"OK, two points. Well, three, actually. I'll use my empathic ability to monitor your attempt, or at least try to. I want you fitted with a somnolence inducer; that way if anything does go wrong I'll sense it and simply send you off to sleep until the neurohormone wears off."

"Good idea," Eleanor said. She seemed relieved Greg was taking it seriously.

"Gabriel, I'd like you there as an adviser. You too, Doctor, if it's no trouble."

"I will be happy to attend," Cormac Ranasfari said stiffly.

"Finally, we can't really exclude Vernon Langley or his team, I suggest we don't try. But I want him to bring Nicholas Beswick with him."

"Why?" Julia asked.

"You'll see tomorrow. Or at least, I think you will."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

An agitated fleece of cloud was stretched over the Chater valley the next morning, an easterly wind scattering meagre curtains of drizzle across the slopes of Launde Park. The water flowing over the bridge was down to a couple of centimetres when the EMC Ranger splashed over it. Greg drove up past the series of lakes, hopeful that this time he might remember. Disappointed once more.

Maybe Vernon would have pulled something out of the police records by now.

Eleanor sat in the passenger seat, gazing out at the desultory stone-grey drizzle. She had been silent for most of the journey, his espersense revealing the pensive timbre of her thoughts, although she was careful to keep a neutral expression on her face.

He turned off down the loop of drive towards the Abbey.

"You know exactly what I'm thinking," he said. "Which means there's no point in my saying it. So I'll say it anyway. I didn't really want you to do this, and if you want to pull out I won't stop you."

She leant over and gave him the briefest of kisses. "So why the dramatic about-face yesterday?"

"Because… Well, you'll see in a minute."

"Sounds intriguing. Is it going to make me change my mind?"

"No. Quite the opposite, actually."

She gave him another of her penetrating stares, then turned back to the window.

One thing, he was going to be bloody glad when this was over, and no messing. When the snap of intuition had hit him in Julia's study yesterday it was tough not to simply say it out loud. Then this morning he had lain on the bed with belly muscles cold and hard in anticipation as he watched her getting dressed.

She had gone through the big chest of drawers taking out a couple of blouses along with her underwear; then she'd started rummaging around the racks in the wardrobe. Three skirts were removed, and she went through the usual procedure of comparing them in the thin light coming through the window. He'd never noticed before how long it all seemed to take. In the end she had slipped into a lime-green blouse and a full-length cotton flower-print skirt, with a walnut-coloured fleece-lined sweat jacket that came down over her hips.

"Good enough for you?" she had asked tartly when she zipped the front of the jacket up.

"Sure." He hadn't realized how obvious his stare had been.

The two white vans belonging to the forensic team were parked in their usual places outside the Abbey, three police cars from Oakham and a blue Ford which had brought Gabriel and Ranasfari, were drawn up alongside. They were the last to arrive, as he'd intended.

Eleanor pulled her jacket hood up and allowed him to take her arm as they walked to the front door. The roses along the Abbey's façade looked very scraggly now, sodden and beginning to rot. A uniformed bobby standing in the porch gave a quick salute as they hurried in out of the damp.

There were a lot of people milling around in the hall, the familiar figures of the CID team; Gabriel and Ranasfari standing together along with Ranasfari's bodyguard. The physicist was in earnest conversation with Denzil Osborne. A couple of uniformed bobbies made up the complement.