"What you ought to ask is why did MacLennan kill Clarissa Wynne? That's the real question. After he murdered her he had to get rid of Kitchener; it was inevitable. He was covering himself to protect that cushy number he's wound up with."
"The neurohormone!" Julia exclaimed, quietly pleased she could keep up with Gabriel.
WELL DONE, SNOWY
Morgan flicked an ironic glance at the camera.
Gabriel suddenly leant forward, resting her elbows on the table, fixing Teddy with an intent stare. "MacLennan must have been worried that once Kitchener perfected the retrospective neurohormone he would look into the past and see him murdering Clarissa. That's why poor old Nicholas Beswick was also ordered to destroy the bioware which produced the neurohormone, and wipe the Abbey's Bendix. To eliminate any possibility of anybody looking back. Lucky he missed those ampoules. I don't suppose MacLennan could think of every contingency."
"I couldn't have seen that far back," Eleanor said. "A week was a hell of an effort. Eleven years would have been utterly impossible."
"Yes," Gabriel said. "I never used to look more than a couple of days into the future when I had my gland. That was partly psychological, admittedly. But… well, with Kitchener working on it, who knows what might have been accomplished in the end."
"I think I've found the reason why she was murdered," Philip said.
"Yeah?" Greg perked up. "Go on."
"Ten years ago there was a paper published on the possibilities of laser paradigms applied to education. The first of its kind. It was co-authored by James MacLennan and Clarissa Wynne."
"Ten years?" Morgan asked. "We confirmed that World Bank loan was eleven years ago."
"Published posthumously," Greg said. "That's why MacLennan killed her. I'll give you good odds that Clarissa did the real breakthrough work on paradigms while she was at Launde. And MacLennan was sharp enough to realize the possibilities. He was very keen to stress that when I talked to him. Once they are perfected, paradigms will be worth a fortune. He reckoned the entire penal system would have be rebuilt from the ground up, and not just in this country. I suppose it would be the same for schools and universities as well, paradigms could replace lessons and lectures. And he's leading the project. He'll get all the fame and the glory, not to mention a share of the royalties. And it should have been her in charge of Berkeley's team."
"Ah!" Julia cried. She grinned at the curious faces. "Grandpa, that financial profile we assembled on Diessenburg Mercantile should still be in our finance division memory core. Access it, and run a check for me. See how much money Diessenburg Mercantile is loaning the Berkeley company."
"You all hear that?" Philip's voice boomed. "Now that is a true Evans. Laser sharp. My granddaughter."
There were times—like now—when she wished the NN core was only loaded with a simple Turing management program.
"Got it," Philip said. "The Berkeley company has borrowed eight hundred million Eurofrancs from Diessenburg Mercantile. There are extension options covering another two and a half billion, but they're all subject to some kind of clause. Dunno what, it's classified, board members only."
"MacLennan succeeding with the laser paradigms?" Morgan suggested.
"Very probable," Philip agreed.
"Three and a half billion," Julia said, ruminating out loud. "That's more than Diessenburg loaned us before Prior's Fen."
"How much would it cost to build and operate an entire continent's educational and penal services?" Greg asked.
"A lot," she said. "And Karl Hildebrandt is on holiday. Unavailable for two months. I asked his office yesterday after you said you wanted to meet him."
"We can't really blame them," Morgan said. "They were just protecting their investment. Natural corporate reflex."
Julia didn't approve of that attitude at all. "That doesn't take away the fact that MacLennan is a double murderer, nor that an innocent man is in jail because of him."
"You'll have a terrible job trying to establish degrees of complicity," Morgan said. "I doubt Karl will ever reappear anywhere under English jurisdiction. The Diessenburg Mercantile directors will disclaim any knowledge of the affair. And if the bank does allow any of them to come into our courts to testify, you can be sure they will be genuinely ignorant so that Greg here won't be able to implicate them."
"Maybe," Greg said. "But at least we've got MacLennan nailed."
"Yes," Morgan said. "I'll get on to the Home Office, they'll have MacLennan arrested first thing tomorrow morning."
"I'd like the Oakham police to handle the actual arrest," Greg said. "They need the credit. I'll rap with Langley, explain what actually happened. And we'd better have a premier-grade programmer on hand to serve the data warrant. I'd hate anything to happen to that paradigm now."
"Right." Morgan loaded a note into his cybofax.
Greg climbed to his feet, stretching laboriously.
Julia stood and tugged her windcheater jacket from the back of the chair. "Thanks again for helping, Teddy."
He took a last swig from his beer bottle, and gave her a shrewd look. "No problem, gal, does me good to get out and about, keep my hand in. But you leave off Greg once this case is over, hear me? He's a fucking orange farmer now. Nothing else."
"I hear you, Teddy." She blew him a kiss.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It was midnight when Greg and Eleanor reached the farm. Fog had given way to a steady rain, the darkness was total. Greg could hear the wind rustling the tops of the new saplings on either side of the driveway. The EMC Ranger's tyres splashed through long trickles of water as Eleanor let it roll slowly down the slope.
He ran a hand through his greasy hair. What he wanted was a shower, a drink, and bed. Worst of all, he wanted to go to bed to sleep. Arms and belly muscles were stiff and sore from hanging under the Westland ghost wing.
Surprisingly, given all the aches, plus a persistent post-mission edginess, he still felt easier than he had for a week. He grinned at his weak reflection in the side window. I knew Nicholas didn't do it.
"What's so funny?" Eleanor asked.
"Nothing. Tell you, I'm just glad it's over."
"Me too."
"Yeah. Thanks for understanding."
"Make the most of it. Next time, I'll stomp my foot and say no."
"Good," he said, with feeling. "You'd better go and see Mrs Beswick tomorrow, give her the good news. I expect I'll be having quite a busy day. Christ, and Vernon was upset about the murder being complicated before."
"He'll survive. Like you said, they'll get a lot of credit for wrapping this up."
"Yeah." There's justice. But at least it will make life in Oakham more tolerable for everybody.
Beyond the window's reflection, Maurice Knebel's mirage rippled unsteadily on the edge of reality. Greg knew his last memory of the ex-detective would take a long time to dissipate. Knebel had closed his eyes tightly, teeth clamping down on his lower lip, whimpering softly as Greg aimed the stun-shot at him. In the background Teddy had muttered snidely about using the Uzi instead.
Then there was the trip back to the warehouse. Walton's minacious streets crowding in on him, plaguing him with the prospect of running into some kind of hazard now the mission was over—the oldest squaddie fear in the book.
The EMC Ranger's headlight beams tracked across the side of the barn, unnaturally bright under the cloud-blocked sky. They touched the house briefly, a flash of moth-grey stone.
Greg began searching round with his hand, lifting the stun-shot from the back seat. He slung it over his shoulder. Bloody good job Langley can't see me now, he thought. He had always been dubious of Greg's real motivations, the underground politics behind his assignment to the case. Seeing him in full combat gear would confirm every black paranoid suspicion about Julia's undue influence.