"Yeah. I take it you have drawn up a list of people who disliked Kitchener? From what I remember, he was a prickly character."
"There are a few academics who have clashed with him publicly," Nevin said cautiously. "But I don't think a grudge over different physics theories would extend to this. Everyone acknowledged he was a genius, they made allowances for his behaviour."
Greg looked round at the stony faces circling him. He had entertained the notion, absurdly guileless now, he realized, that he would be welcomed by a team who would be delighted to have his psi faculty at their disposal. He wasn't expecting to be taken out for beers and a meal afterwards, but at least that way he could have approached the case with some enthusiasm. All Langley's dispirited squad could offer was a long uphill yomp.
"Did any of you know that Kitchener was working on a research project for Event Horizon?" he asked.
The reaction was more or less what he expected; flashes of disgust, quickly hidden, tight faces, hard eyes. Langley dropped his head into his hands, fingertips massaging his temple.
"Oh shit," he said thickly. "Greg and Eleanor Mandel, who had Julia Evans as their bridesmaid. How stupid of me. She had you sent here. And there I was thinking that it was just the Home Office panicking for a quick arrest."
"Did you know about the contract?" Eleanor asked waspishly. Her face had reddened under her tan.
"No, we didn't," Langley replied, equally truculent.
Greg touched her shoulder, trying to reassure her. She flashed him a grateful smile. "Well, I suggest that corporate rivalry is now a motive for you to consider," he said. "Does that make any of the students a likely candidate?"
"No, of course not." Langley was struggling to come to terms with Event Horizon's involvement. Greg guessed he was trying to work how this would affect his career prospects. Maybe a quiet word when the rest of the CID wasn't looking on would help smooth the way. It certainly couldn't make, the situation any worse.
"Does Event Horizon have any idea who might have murdered Kitchener? Which rival would benefit from having him snuffed by a tekmerc?" Langley asked.
"No. No idea."
"They don't know? Or they don't want us to know?" Paterson asked.
"That'll do," Langley said quickly.
She gave Greg and Eleanor a sullen glare, then turned and went back to her desk.
"What sort of research was Kitchener doing for Event Horizon?" Jon Nevin asked.
"Something to do with spatial interstices," Greg said. Julia hadn't managed to explain much about it to him. He didn't think she entirely understood it herself.
"What are they?"
"I'm not entirely sure. Small black holes from what I gather. It all goes a long way over my head."
"Are they worth much?" Langley asked.
"They might be eventually. Apparently you can use them to travel to other stars."
This time the silence stretched out painfully. The detectives clearly didn't know what to make of the idea.
Join the club, Greg thought.
"All right, Mandel," Langley said. "What is it you wish to advise me to do now? Because I'm buggered if I know where to go from here."
Greg paused, attempting to put his thoughts in some kind of logical sequence. Most of the training he'd received in preparation for Mindstar had been data correlation exercises.
"Firstly, I want to visit Launde Abbey, have a look round. Then I want to interview the students. Where are they?"
"We're still holding them."
"After four days?"
"Their lawyers advised them to co-operate. For the moment, anyway. It wouldn't look good if they start throwing their legal rights around too much. But we had to agree that six days is the maximum limit, after that we'll either have to apply to a magistrate for them to be taken into police custody or let them go."
"OK. I want to see their statements before I meet them. And the forensic and pathology reports as well, please."
"All right, we'll assign you an authority code so you can access the files on this case. And I'll take you out to Launde myself."
CHAPTER FIVE
Three more uniformed bobbies had been drafted in to help keep the channel crews back from the police station gate. Ribbons of sweat stained the spines of their white shirts as they shouted and pushed at the incursive horde. Eleanor drove out into the road, and turned hard right, heading down towards the railway station. The way to do it, she discovered, was imagine the road to be empty, and just drive. Reporters and camera operators nipped out of the way sharpish.
She had been right about them tracking down Greg's personal data profile, though.
"Mr Mandel, is it true you're helping the police with the Kitchener murder?"
"You don't farm sheep, Greg, what are you here for?"
"Did Julia Evans send you?"
"Is it true you used to serve in Mindstar?"
"Eleanor, where are you going?"
"Come on, Greg, say something."
"Can we have a statement?"
She passed the last of them level with the fast-food caravans, and pressed her foot down. The hectic shouts faded away. A smell of fried onions and spicy meat blew into the EMC Ranger through the dashboard vents.
"Christ," she murmured. When she lived on the kibbutz she had often accompanied her father and the other men when they took the hounds out hunting. She had seen what happened to foxes, wild cats, and even other dogs when the hounds ran them down. They would keep on worrying the bloody carcass until there was nothing left but shreds. The press, she reflected sagely, had an identical behaviour pattern. For the first time she began to feel sorry for Langley, having to conduct his inquiry with them braying relentlessly on his heels.
If she had known about them as well as the way the police would treat her and Greg, she might well have played the part of shrewish wife and told him no. Too late now.
A quick check in the rear-view mirror showed her the police Panda car carrying Vernon Langley and Jon Nevin was following them. Langley had assigned Amanda Paterson to accompany her and Greg in the EMC Ranger. Eleanor wasn't quite sure who was supposed to be chastised by the arrangement. Amanda was sitting in the rear of the big car, hands folded across her lap, a sullen expression on her face as she watched the detached houses of Station Road whizz past.
So defensive, Eleanor thought, as if the Kitchener inquiry was some shabby secret she was guarding. And now the barbarians were hammering on the gate, demanding access.
"You OK?" Greg asked.
"Sure."
He held her gaze for a moment. "How about you, Amanda?" he asked.
Startled, the woman looked up. "Yes, fine, thank you."
"Have they been like that the whole time?" Eleanor asked her.
"Yes." She paused. "It hasn't helped when we went round the villages collecting statements. They often got the residents' stories before we did." Her mouth tightened. "They shouldn't have done that."
Eleanor drove over the level crossing and took the Braunston road. The clouds were darkening overhead, a uniform neutral veil. It would rain soon, she knew, a thunderstorm. Weather sense was something everybody cultivated these days.
Greg inclined his head fractionally towards her, then flipped open his cybofax and started to run through the statements he'd loaded into the memory. Grey-green data trundled down the small LCD screen, rearranging itself each time he muttered an instruction.
Devious man, she thought, holding back a smile. Among his other qualities. She could read him so easily, something she'd been able to do right from the start; and vice versa, of course, him with his gland. Greg always said she had psychic traits, although he didn't want her to take the psi-assessment tests. Not putting his foot down, they didn't have that kind of relationship, but heavily opposed to her having a gland. He was more protective about it than anything else, wanting to spare her the ordeal. Several Mindstar veterans had proved incapable of making the psychological adjustment necessary to cope with their expanded psi ability.