‘There you are,’ someone said.
Chloe turned, saw Daniel Rosenblaum and Jen Lovell in the doorway.
‘Let’s go into my office,’ Daniel said. ‘We need to talk.’
He asked if she wanted coffee or tea or maybe something stronger. She said that she’d drunk about a gallon of bad coffee when she’d talked to the police, and handed over the envelope containing a copy of her statement. Two pages, single-spaced. Daniel gave it to Jen, asked her to copy it to Helena.
‘I only told them the truth,’ Chloe said.
It still sounded weak.
‘If there’s a problem, Helena will deal with it,’ Daniel said. ‘She’s on your side. We all are. Ada Morange is very pleased.’
‘Ram told me. I have some other news. About Fahad Chauhan—’
But Daniel wasn’t listening.
‘Ada suggested a press conference, but I have a better idea,’ he said. He was drinking tea from a big white mug with WORLD’S BEST DAD printed on it.
‘I really don’t want to have anything to do with the press,’ Chloe said.
‘This would be a one-on-one interview. One of my friends from the production company that did my series? He works for Channel Four now. He’ll give you the questions before it starts, and you can choose which ones to answer, let me handle the rest. It will be very friendly, very relaxed. It will be great PR,’ Daniel said enthusiastically, ‘and it will give us control of the story.’
Chloe thought of Neil. She thought of Richard Lyonds’s ex battling past cameras and shouting reporters. She said, ‘Will it get the press off my back?’
‘No doubt the bottom-feeders will try to dig up some dirt, but the rest will be happy to rerun footage of the Q&A. You aren’t the main story, Chloe. The crazy accountant is. But we can definitely make good use of this. Put out our side of the story. I’ve already talked to the press, of course. When you were arrested, and a brief statement after you told me you’d been released. But they need to hear you tell your story. You need to put it out there.’
‘Just a few questions.’
‘They’ll be gentle lobs over the net, I promise. All you have to do is pat them back.’ Daniel took a noisy slurp of tea, twinkled at Chloe over the top of his mug. ‘How are you holding up?’
‘I didn’t know what I was thinking when I did it,’ she admitted. ‘I’m trying to work out what I think about it now.’
‘And?’
‘I feel like a fraud.’
‘Far from it. You’re a hero. And that’s another thing we need to talk about. Richard Lyonds is probably a lone nut who blames the Jackaroo for everything that went wrong in his life. But there are plenty of people who agree with him, inside and outside the Human Decency League. So I think that we should find a place where you can lie low for a few days. Just in case.’
‘You’re saying what? That I might be a target because I tried to save the avatar?’
Daniel nodded, suddenly very serious.
‘Have there been actual threats?’
‘So far, no more than the usual garbage from people who think we are interfering in things man was not meant to know. But it’ll get worse before it gets better. You’re still required to appear before that committee, but after that I think we should find you a nice quiet place where you can wait out the fuss. Ada Morange has offered to fly you out of the country. Or there’s the bothy my family owns in Orkney—’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘It’s very cosy, very quiet.’
‘And if any crazies find out where I am, it’ll feature a re-enactment of Straw Dogs. I have a better idea,’ Chloe said. ‘You remember Fahad Chauhan, the kid who drew all those pictures? He and his little sister were hiding out in the DP camp where that breakout occurred. Before that, it turns out, they were living in Norfolk. Martham, this little town in the middle of the Flood.’
‘I don’t think this is the time to get into that again,’ Daniel said.
‘Hear me out and you’ll see how we can kill two birds with one stone. Three years ago, Fahad’s father went up and out, to Mangala. His ticket was paid for by a construction company, Sky Edge Holdings. He was acting as a consultant on a project to build a pharmaceutical plant. Still is, I guess, because he hasn’t come back.’
Neil had passed on that information from his friend in the Foreign Office, telling her that she should keep it to herself. It wasn’t exactly against the law, he’d said, but it was against procedure. Chloe had promised that she wouldn’t tell a soul, but this was kind of an emergency…
Daniel studied her for a moment, then smiled, showing most of his big white teeth. His smile always reminded her of a picture of Red Riding Hood’s wolf in the fairy-tale collection she’d been given one Christmas.
He said, ‘You think the father sent his kids a souvenir. Some kind of artefact. And you want to go look for it.’
‘I want to check out where they used to live,’ Chloe said. ‘It’ll get me out of London, away from all the fuss. And it’s in Norfolk, way out in the Flood. Who would expect to find me there?’
‘Did you think of this just now?’
‘I was going to ask you anyway. But you can see how the two things fit together. You want me to get out of London; I want to follow up on that breakout. Fahad’s father went up and out, but his mother might still be living in Martham. She might know where Fahad and his sister are. They might even have returned home. And there might be other artefacts. The father has been gone for three years. He might have sent more than one.’
‘Or this might just be a wild-goose chase.’
‘Eddie Ackroyd’s client thinks otherwise. And even if there is nothing to it, it’ll still get me away from media attention.’
Daniel studied her. ‘It really has hooked you, hasn’t it?’
‘I think it’s something real. And didn’t you hire me because I can tell real artefacts from fakes?’
She felt her heart beat while Daniel thought about that. She told herself that if he said no, fuck it, she’d go anyway.
At last, he said, ‘I’ll have to talk with Ada Morange’s people. And if I do let you go, it will have to be after the committee reconvenes. None of us are going anywhere until then.’
‘Okay.’
‘Also, I wouldn’t feel right if you went alone—’
Jen Lovell knocked on the frame of the open door. ‘There’s a problem,’ she said, and before she could explain more two men appeared behind her. One was flourishing a piece of paper as he shouldered past, telling Daniel that he was being served with a warrant that ordered him to surrender all fragments of the avatar at once.
The man with the warrant identified himself as Chief Inspector Adam Nevers, of the Met’s Alien Technology Investigation Squad, otherwise known as the Hazard Police. Like the Breakout Assessment Team, they dealt with possible and actual threats created by contact with the Jackaroo and Elder Culture artefacts. Disruption Theory had a fairly good working relationship with BAT, which monitored cults, sects, self-styled prophets, and crazes, manias and other behavioural changes that could be traced back to contact with artefacts, algorithms and eidolons, but the Hazard Police, which tracked down illicit imports and hazardous artefacts, was more belligerent and had sweeping search-and-seizure powers.
Daniel scanned the papers and said that he had never been in possession of the items in question. Adam Nevers said, ‘If you don’t hand them over or tell me where they are, Dr Rosenblaum, we will have to search the premises.’
‘I’m afraid I must plead commercial confidentiality.’
Chloe watched the two men standing up to each other, Daniel beginning to realise that he was outgunned but refusing to back down.