LIGHT

'Thanks for everything.'

Neena smiled uncertainly back.

'By the way,' Evie Cray said, 'we want your fucking husband too.'

She reached into her purse, but Ed already had the HiLite Autoloader out, which he held close enough to her face so that the muzzle just touched her under the left eye, indenting the flesh there. 'Keep your hand in the bag, Evie,' he advised. 'And don't do anything.' He looked her up and down. 'Unless this is a cultivar you're ru

'You'll never know, dipshit,' she said.

She said: 'Kill him, Bella.'

Ed found himself looking across the top of her head into the muzzle of Bella Cray's big Chambers pistol. He shrugged.

'Kill me, Bella,' he said.

Tig Vesicle observed this standoff for a moment, backing away quietly. He still had hold of Neena's hand. 'Goodbye, Ed,' he said. He turned away and ran off down the street. At first he had to pull Neena along, but soon she seemed to wake up, and began to run in earnest. They were like some kind of tall, awkward bird. The snow whirled round them, half-obscuring their poorly articulated limbs and curious ru

'Hey,' he said absent-mindedly. 'Go deep, you guys.'

'Dipshit,' said Evie Cray.

There was a loud bang as the gun in her purse went off. The purse exploded and a Chambers bolt hummed off down the street. Ed jumped in surprise and shot Evie in the side of the face. She went rigid and backed into her sister's hand, so that Bella shot her too, in the back of the head. Ed let Evie fall, stepped away and got the HiLite under Bella's chin.

'I hope it was a cultivar, Bella,' he said. Then he warned her: 'Drop the pistol unless you're ru

Bella looked down at her sister's body, then at Ed.

'You fucking cunt,' she said. She let the pistol fall. 'You won't be safe anywhere now. You won't be safe anywhere ever again.'

'Not a cultivar, then,' said Ed. He shrugged. 'Sorry.'

He waited until he was sure that Tig and Neena Vesicle had escaped. Then he collected up all the weapons and rain off down Straint in the opposite direction to the one they had taken. He had no idea where he was going, and the snow was already turning to rain. Behind him he could hear Bella Cray screaming for the gun-punks. When he looked back she was trying to get her sister to sit up. The remains of Evie's head flopped backwards like a bit of wet rag in the streetlight. Point-blank, he thought. Shot right in the eyes.

SIXTEEN

The Venture Capital

The day he got back to London, Michael Kearney closed the Chiswick house and moved into A

There wasn't much to move, which was lucky because A

Kearney had pla

'It's as if we're married again,' A

When Kearney got out of the bathroom, she had made poached eggs and stale toast, also stale croissants. It was 9 a.m. and the table was carefully set with place mats and lighted candles. Generally, though, she seemed better. She signed up for yoga classes at Waterman's Arts Centre. She stopped writing notes to herself, though she left the old ones pi

It was a raw Monday afternoon. Rain had emptied the streets east of Tottenham Court Road.

The research suite-an a

After a moment he called, 'Brian?'

He pressed the buzzer again, then held it down with his thumb. No answer. He went back to street level and peered through the railings. This time he couldn't see anyone moving, and all he could hear was the sound of the ventilators.

'Brian?'

After a moment, he assumed he had been mistaken. The lab was empty. Kearney turned up the collar of his leather jacket and walked off in the direction of Centre Point. He hadn't got to the end of the street when he thought of phoning Tate at home. Tate's wife picked up. 'Absolutely not here,' she said. 'I'm glad to say. He was out before we woke up.' She thought for a moment, then added dryly: 'If he came home at all last night. When you see him tell him I'm taking the kids back to Baltimore. I mean that.' Kearney stared at the phone, trying to remember what she was called or what she looked like. 'Well,' she said, 'in fact I don't mean it. But I will soon.' When he didn't answer she said sharply, 'Michael?'

Kearney thought her name was Elizabeth, but people called her Beth. 'Sorry,' he said. 'Beth.'

'You see?' said Tate's wife. 'You're all the same. Why don't you just bang on the fucking door until he wakes up?' Then she said: 'Do you think he's got a woman in there? I'd be relieved. It would be such human behaviour.'

Kearney said, 'Look, hang on, I-'

He had turned round just in time to see Tate come up the steps from the suite, pause for a moment to look both ways, then cross the street and walk off at a rapid pace towards Gower Street. 'Brian!' called Kearney. The phone picked up the tone of his voice and began squawking urgently at him. He broke the co

Tate showed no sign of hearing. He stuck his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. By now it was raining heavily. 'Tate!' shouted Kearney. Tate looked over his shoulder, startled, then began to run. By the time they reached Bloomsbury Square, which was where Kearney caught up with him, they were both breathing heavily. Kearney grasped Tate by the shoulders of his grey snowboarder jacket and swung him round. Tate made a kind of sobbing gasp.

'Leave me alone,' he said, and stood there suddenly defeated with water pouring down his face.

Kearney let him go.

'I don't understand,' he said. 'What's the matter?'