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an interview and everything Pendennis had told Louise was in the public domain?

    "New search," he asked. "All areas. John Bruce and Louise Callander."

    He waited, feeling stupid. Shouldn't this have been his first search? Had he lost the ability to see the obvious?

    The search took in the whole net: the holocasts, the web, the groups, the boards, homespace. Several hundred hits; but nothing linking the astronaut John Bruce to his Oxfordshire sweetheart.

    Which was a relief.

    He tried Pendennis next. There was something familiar about that name.

    "New search. Peter Pendennis. Upper Heywood."

    A list of titles filled the viewing area. Angel-faced killer gets life. The Butcher sent down. Butcher guilty.

    Nick stared at the list. Now he remembered. He'd been out of the country at the time but had caught some of the Spanish-language holocasts. It had been big news world-wide. For a month or two.

    He selected the first entry to refresh his memory. Back came the friendly news anchor.

    "The angel-faced killer, Peter Pendennis, was sentenced to life imprisonment today for the murder of eleven people."

    Eleven people in two months. Nick listened to the litany, watched the images of each victim flash and fade. Wedding pictures, holiday snaps, smiling moments from happier times.

    Then the horror. Cold words delivered off camera while pictures of grim-faced policemen stood guard outside people's homes. Five houses around Oxford broken into, the owners drugged, killed and dissected.

    Tearful neighbours came into shot, friends, family members—ashen-faced accounts of how the bodies had been discovered. Not bodies, corrected one of the witnesses, pieces. Then he broke down.

    Nick swallowed hard. Pieces. Strewn over carpeted floors. No attempt to hide or conceal, just left where they fell like cuts of meat. Except for their noses, which were always missing—bitten off, presumed eaten.

    Nick looked away. This was the man he was going to see?

    Did Louise know? Should he tell her?

    He looked at his phone.

    What if she pulled out?
    * * *

    Anders Ziegler was standing by the window staring out at the car park. They'd be arriving soon.

    Big mistake.

    But what else could he have done?

    Twice he'd rung to cancel and twice he'd changed his mind in mid-call. What if there was a higher dimensional component to Peter's condition? Could he risk not finding out? Could he risk discovering later—maybe many years later—that he'd had the answer within his grasp but had turned the opportunity down because of theoretical differences?

    Straw grabbing. The day was going to be a disaster and everyone knew it. Bazley had washed his hands of the whole affair and Security were obsessed with the equipment Stubbs was bringing with him. Not only had they insisted on a detailed specification of each item coming in but they were going to scan the lot for drugs and explosives.

    "Why's he need all those tripods?" the Chief Warder had asked. "Bet they're hollow. You know how much contraband you can fit in one of those extendable legs?"

    He did now.

    The day couldn't end soon enough.

     

    Louise watched as Nick set up the last of his equipment, completing the circle of tripods and black boxes. It was the same room she'd been taken to before. A bleak room with what looked like a dentist's chair at its centre. Except this chair had straps.

    She shivered. Everything about this room was cold. The bare white walls, the concrete floor. It felt like a larder. One of those old farmhouse cold rooms, lined with slate and facing north to keep the food fresh.

    And the atmosphere didn't help. The two men weren't speaking. Ziegler kept looking towards the door and checking his watch while Nick stomped around his equipment and glared.

    And any second now a lunatic was going to walk into the room.

    Could the day get any better?

    Louise looked towards the door. Perhaps she should just leave? Reschedule for another day, another year . . .

    The door