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"The baby is due in seven months," she said. "I expect to have it in a London clinic. But it will definitely be born in England, Edward would have wanted that. He was a great nationalist."

The baby was news to Nicholas. He accepted the fact numbly. There ought to have been some tiny part of him which was glad, but he couldn't find it. Was that the kind of cyborg mind which enabled people to butcher their murder victims? But if he was so insensitive, why had he fallen in love with Isabel? It was most puzzling, his mind.

"How long had you and Kitchener been having an affair?" a reporter asked.

"I think I fell in love with Edward when I was eight years old. I remember seeing him on a channel science 'cast. He was so impassioned about his subject, and yet he always allowed his sense of humour to shine through. He was so much more alive than any other person. It was after that I concentrated on science subjects at school. He remained in my thoughts, an unsung mentor, an inspiration. Being invited to study at Launde Abbey was a lifetime ambition."

"He was a lot older than you, did that pose any difficulty, some tension?"

"His mind was fresher than anybody's on this planet."

"Do you know what he was working on when he was killed?"

"A stardrive, darling. A faster than light stardrive. Edward was going to give us the galaxy. He believed in human destiny, you see. It was to be his gift to all the peoples of the world, so none of us would ever be restricted and oppressed again. We could spread our wings and truly blossom amid the splendour of the night."

"It wasn't a stardrive," Nicholas said to the cell's flatscreen. Typical Rosette to go for theatrical effect.

"A working stardrive?" Even the reporter was sceptical.

"Oh, yes. He was studying the loopholes allowed for in General Relativity. With his genius and Event Horizon's money, I genuinely believe a starship could have been built. Now, though, who knows." Her face was haunted by poignancy. "I have a dream that one day our child will take up the banner of his father's work, and bring us that liberation Edward sought. Perhaps it is only an exiguous hope, but I believe, after all this, that it is a hope to which I am entitled."

"How do you feel about the murder?"

"Grief, nothing but unending black grief. The other students have all been tremendously kind and supportive, we've cried together, and we've laughed about the good times Edward gave us. You see, darling, he would have scolded us terribly if we hadn't laughed. It's the way he was. So alive, a celebration of life."

"And what about Nicholas Beswick?"

Rosette came right out of the flatscreen to stand in the cell beside him. A tall, glorious Venus; a goddess wronged and brutally vengeful. "I hope he is raped by every demon in hell."

Nicholas turned over, shuddering, and buried his head under the blanket.

He must have fallen asleep, because Lisa Collier was shaking him, her face anxious. "Are you all right?"

He blinked against the pink-white light of the biolum panel directly overhead. "Yes. Fine, thank you."

"Good. I brought you some clothes." She dropped his maroon shoulder bag on the floor by his cot. "Vernon Langley is going to start the interviews this afternoon. At least you can turn up looking respectable on the AV recording."

"Oh." Nicholas's mood damped down.

She shifted her skirt about and sat at the foot of the cot. "Now then, Nicholas, the idea of a police interview is to keep recapping the same ground until you start becoming inconsistent. That can only happen if you don't tell the truth in the first place. Which brings us to the murder, and what happened that night."

"I didn't do it."

"Nicholas, please; just hear me out. If you choose to tell the police you are guilty, we can enter a plea of temporarily diminished responsibility. Kitchener was a tetchy old man, inflicting verbal abuse for several months, you'd just found out your girlfriend was sleeping with him. You certainly had enough cause to lash out, a judge would probably be sympathetic with that, although I have to say the actual nature of the crime would probably eradicate any possibility of a light sentence."

Nicholas took a deep breath. "Mrs Collier, why will nobody listen to me? I didn't do it."

Her watery eyes were placid. The sort of gaze his mother used to rebuke him with when he was small. "Nicholas, there is a vast amount of evidence amassed against you, there is both motive and opportunity. And, Nicholas, your fingerprints were all over the knife. On top of that we have the evidence from the Mandels. I might be able to nullify their testimony, or at least blunt it slightly, the courts are still pretty hazy on interpreting psychic visions. But at the moment it adds up to a very convincing case in the prosecution's favour. I have to tell you, the way it stands the jury is going to find you guilty."

He sat perfectly still, turning the novel concept over in his mind. They, Mrs Collier, the police, the reporters, Rosette, all truly genuinely believed him guilty. Against all logic and reason, he was going to have to accept that.

"Rational discrimination," Kitchener had said once, 'that's the dividing line between savagery and civilization. We've thought ourselves up to where we are today, out of the caves and into the skyscrapers. Bodies never have mattered a toss, you are your mind."

So if you're smart, Nicholas told himself, think your way out of this, prove your innocence. Images of that night cluttered his vision again. He'd seen the girls, he'd cried on the bed, he'd heard the screaming. And that was it, the total. There was nothing new, no key out of the logic box. If he could just show he had been in his room sleeping, force them to accept that. But how?

"Will you still be my lawyer if I plead not guilty?" he asked cautiously.

The cybofax she held in her lap bobbed up and down as her hands twitched unconsciously. "Yes, Nicholas," she said slowly. "I'll still be your lawyer."

"Thank you. I want to plead not guilty."

"Nicholas, I will still be your lawyer if you admit you did it. A lot of people say they are innocent because they are too ashamed even to acknowledge their crime to their lawyer. It works against them in the long run."

"I understand. I didn't kill Edward Kitchener."

"Right." She unfolded the cybofax and touched the power stud. "Nothing like an uphill struggle."

It was the first frivolous thing he'd ever heard her say. He almost asked if she believed him, but fright that she might say no held him back. "I suppose I need an alibi," he said.

Her right eyebrow arched. "Yes. Have you got one you didn't want to mention before? We know Uri and Liz were together in his room all night. Were you with one of the other girls, secretly, Isabel or Rosette? You said Rosette did make a pass once."

"No."

"Now, don't get me wrong, I have to ask. Cecil Cameron?" The Nicholas of yesterday wouldn't have understood the question. Today he thought it was simply a logical thing to ask. "No."

"How about a channel programme, were you watching one?"

"No."

"The other students, is there a likely candidate who would frame you?"

"No. Look, I know it's not much, but Greg Mandel said I didn't do it. At least, that's what he thought after he interviewed me. Doesn't that count for something?"

"Hmm." She paused, her expression distant. "I can probably use any vacillation of opinion on his part to call his psychic ability into question. But that really isn't anything like good enough to get you off. It's the knife, you see. Have you any idea how your fingerprints did get on that knife?"

"No." And now he thought about it, really thought, the fingerprints were impossible to explain away. The murderer creeping in to his room and wrapping his hand round the handle as he slept? Unlikely, he didn't sleep that deep.