And he laughed.

FIFTEEN.

Cadel's next cla.s.s was with Brendan Graham. It was held in Brendan's office, on the first floor of the seminary building, so Cadel didn't have to pa.s.s through any security scanners to get there.

Brendan's office enchanted Cadel. When he poked his head around the door, he was confronted by a room in which the walls were plastered with calculations. There were computer printouts of number sequences, hand-written algorithms on sc.r.a.p paper, and pages torn from printed textbooks. Even the ceiling was covered with balance sheets.

Three people were sitting in the room. One was Brendan himself, recognisable because of his red hair and chalky, freckled face. Beside him sat a stiff, elderly man in a grey suit, and a plump, glossy woman who confused Cadel. Although she was very well groomed, with lots of shimmering make-up and flashing jewellery, her eyes had a lost, slightly fretful look, as if she was wandering around, ragged and starving, in a scene of utter devastation.

'Uh a h.e.l.lo,' said Cadel. 'I'm Cadel Darkkon.'

No one said anything.

'I'm a I'm new?' he stammered. 'I've got a cla.s.s here?'

'Oh.' Brendan frowned. 'You're the addition.'

'I guess so.'

'Come in.'

Cadel did as he was told. He was aware that, owing to the small size of the inst.i.tute, many of its elective subjects were taught to composite cla.s.ses made up of students from different years. Thaddeus had told him that he would be sharing his Embezzlement cla.s.s with one second-year undergraduate and one student in the final year of his degree.

'Douglas Prindle,' Thaddeus had declared, 'is an old accountant with lots of experience and nothing to show for it. He's very embittered. Nursing a grudge. Wants to enrich his remaining years and ruin a few clients in the process. Brendan seems to think he has a lot of potential. Phoebe Christos . . .' Thaddeus had shrugged. 'Well, she's your standard bottomless pit. Banking background. Has to have her designer clothes and her fancy cosmetics and her trips to Paris. Brendan says, if she can keep out of gaol long enough to finish her degree, she'll be a handy little mole for us to have. Well placed in the banking system.'

Cadel decided that the grey-suited man and the plump woman must be Douglas and Phoebe. They weren't introduced. Brendan simply waved Cadel into a spare seat and said: 'Know much about accounting?'

'Uh a no. Not really,' Cadel replied.

'Thaddeus says you're good with numbers. Top marks in mathematics.'

'Well, I guess so.'

'Accounting is different. In this cla.s.s, we're not trying to find numbers. We're trying to hide them. We're trying to disguise them. Fake numbers. Hidden numbers. That's what it's all about.' Brendan's rapid-fire voice was rather toneless. 'Do you know anything about tax law?'

'No,' Cadel admitted.

'Bank procedures?'

'A bit. Mostly credit cards.'

'Then you'd better do some background reading.' Brendan got up, went to a filing cabinet and dragged a large book from the stack of publications that teetered on top of it. He poked around in the cabinet's bottom drawer and pulled out another book. Finally, he plucked a slimmer, smaller volume from the papers on his desk and added it to the pile. All the chosen books were photocopied, bound with ring-binders and covered with sheets of stiff, transparent plastic. Each bore a code as its t.i.tle: TL1:#1a-42e, or >4:base1-27.

'Okay, that's most of what you need to know about tax law,' Brendan declared, dropping the largest book into Cadel's arms. 'Practical loopholes, basically. Things to remember. This is a procedural handbook that covers most financial inst.i.tutions in Australia, though not in too much detail, of course.' The second book joined the first. 'And this is your basic accounting textbook, nothing fancy, though I've added an appendix on offsh.o.r.e instruments. You know a tax havens. Offsh.o.r.e instruments are very important.' Brendan surrendered the smallest book, while Cadel felt his heart sink. The weight of his load was some indication of the work that lay ahead.

'There's no point staying,' Brendan went on, dropping back into his chair, 'unless you've got a grip on the stuff in these texts. Thaddeus says you're a genius, so you shouldn't have any trouble. Go away, read them, and come back. When's your next cla.s.s?'

'Thursday,' Cadel muttered.

'Come back on Thursday.' Brendan didn't seem to think any further explanation was required. His tone was monotonous, his expression rather blank. Douglas and Phoebe rolled their eyes at each other when the word 'genius' was mentioned, but Brendan seemed to regard it as an unremarkable term.

'If you've got any questions,' he continued, 'I'm usually here. Do you know anything about computers?'

'Lots,' Cadel retorted.

'That'll help. It's mostly computers, these days, especially with foreign exchange and account processing. But we'll cover that a bit later.' Having provided Cadel with all the information due to him, Brendan appeared to forget that he even existed. As Cadel sat open-mouthed, the red-haired lecturer resumed his interrupted conversation with Douglas. They had been talking about something called 'abnormal items' before Cadel had interrupted them.

'So what you're saying is that you've got a $54 million write-off of future tax benefits on foreign losses,' Brendan mused, restoring a stapled doc.u.ment to his lap and studying it closely, 'which was recognised as an a.s.set last year, is that right?'

'In a nutsh.e.l.l,' said Douglas.

'But now you're not sure about the recovery.'

'Right.'

'I don't know. I agree it's got potential, but what's your doc.u.mentation like?'

Cadel realised that he wasn't wanted. Phoebe was staring at him with raised eyebrows, as if wondering why he was still there.

Quietly, he got up and slipped from the room.

Cadel's next cla.s.s was with the lawyer, Dr Deal. But it was scheduled for eleven, and he had some reading to do before then. If it had been a sunny day he would have taken his reading out to the lawn. Since it was wet, however, he went down to the library, where he took his enormous load of Embezzlement texts over to one of the tables. He sat down and began to leaf despondently through the book on basic accounting. As far as he could see, it looked fairly straightforward, but awfully dull. Net interest income is simply the difference between interest income and interest expense, he read.

'h.e.l.lo,' said a m.u.f.fled voice.

Cadel looked up. He saw Gazo Kovacs standing in front of him.

'h.e.l.lo,' he replied.

'You're Cadel Darkkon.'

'Yes.'

'I'm Gazo Kovacs.'

'I know.'

Gazo dragged out a chair and sat down. He moved rather awkwardly, with a great rustling of man-made fibres. Through the transparent plastic of his headpiece, his face was thin and spotty, with big, pale, watery eyes.

'I'm super grateful to your dad,' he said, his accent heavy with c.o.c.kney vowels. 'Your dad finks I've got potential.' He p.r.o.nounced the last word carefully, as if he wasn't very familiar with it. 'He brought me all the way from England. He paid for the trip.'

'I know,' Cadel answered.

'Gave me a room upstairs, and I get all me food. But I afta work hard.' Gazo leaned forward, suddenly. 'What's he like, your dad? I never met 'im.'

'That's because he's in gaol.'

'I know. Dr Roth told me. Have you met 'im?'

'I've spoken to him.'

'What's he like?'

Cadel regarded the s.p.a.ceman figure across the table. Thaddeus had been correct; Gazo clearly was not very bright. But even more strangely, he didn't seem very dangerous, either. Unless his dopey, puppy-like demeanour was just an act.

'My dad's really smart,' Cadel rejoined, cautiously.

'I know! He's the smartest guy in the whole world! That's why they put 'im in gaol. So he wouldn't become President of the United Nations.'

Astonished, Cadel stared at Gazo. 'What did you say you were studying?' he asked.

'I'm studying to be a super-hero. I've got powers, and your dad says I should learn to channel 'em.'

'Yes, I know. The stench.' Cadel waved this information aside. 'But what else are you studying?'

'Um...' Gazo began to count the subjects off on his clumsy gloved hands. 'Law, Forgery, Disguise . . .'

All the core first-year subjects, in other words. Cadel wondered how Gazo was going to cope. It didn't seem likely that he would pa.s.s even the simplest subject. That stench of his, Cadel thought, must be pretty amazing.

'You're real smart, too,' Gazo went on. 'Just like your dad. How old are you?'

'Fourteen,' Cadel lied.

'Wow! You must be a genius. I wish I was a genius.' With a glance at Cadel's pile of books, Gazo added: 'I can read, but I dunno if . . . what I mean is, it's gunna be hard for me.'

'You'll be all right,' said Cadel, though he didn't really mean it. He had learned to be supportive and rea.s.suring at Crampton College, when he was researching social interaction. Being nice, he had discovered, usually paid off when you were collecting information and hunting down gossip. Now he often found himself being sympathetic automatically. Even when he didn't care at all.

Gazo responded with a grin so big that Cadel could see it through the foggy plastic panel. 'Thanks,' said Gazo. 'I hope I'll be all right. I don't want to let your dad down, not after what he's done for me.'

Cadel grunted.

'So what do you finka the others?' Gazo continued. 'The Bludgeon, and them? They're not too friendly, are they?'

Cadel peered at his companion in genuine disbelief. Surely the silly sod couldn't really be so clueless?

'They're not here to be friendly, Gazo,' he pointed out. 'If they wanted to be friendly they would have gone somewhere else.'

'I s'pose so.' Gazo nodded solemnly. Then he perked up again. 'But we can be friends, eh? I mean, you and me?'

Cadel blinked. He glanced around, but there was no one else in the library. He wondered what Thaddeus's advice might be. Was Gazo a tiresome, thick-skinned idiot who would prove impossible to shake off, or would he be a useful person to have on side?

Cadel chose to take a chance.

'Okay,' he murmured. 'We can be friends.'

Another big grin from Gazo. 'I can look after you,' he promised. 'I'm a lot older than you are, and I've got this power. You ain't got no power, eh?'

'Only mindpower,' Cadel retorted.

'Then I can look after you, because you're so little. That's what I want to do anyway, when I finish me course. Look after people. People like your dad, who want to make the world a better place.'

'Really?' said Cadel.

'I won't afta wear this suit, when I learn to channel me power. I'll have a proper costume, like Spider-Man. Maybe somefink green. And I'd give meself a name, like that Bludgeon bloke did. Maybe Aromo? Or the Stench? What do you fink?'

Cadel said nothing. He didn't know what to say. He was beginning to feel sorry for Gazo, who seemed to be way out of his depth.

'Okay. Well, I s'pose I'd better let you study,' Gazo said awkwardly, and he laughed. 'You look like you've got a lotta work to do. What's it for, anyway?'

'Embezzlement,' Cadel replied.

'Oh. Right.' Something about Gazo's voice made Cadel wonder if he even knew what 'embezzlement' meant. 'So will you be at Dr Deal's cla.s.s?'

'Yes.'

'So I'll see you there, then?'

'Yes.'

'Okay. Great. Well, bye!'

'Goodbye.'

Cadel watched Gazo leave the library. Only when the lift doors had closed did Cadel shift his blank, laser-like gaze, focusing it on the book in front of him. He sat quite still, reading with great concentration, until it was time to attend Dr Deal's cla.s.s. Then he packed the Embezzlement texts into his backpack and dragged them up to the ground floor.

Here he found all the first-year students once again, milling about outside Lecture Room One. It was like a replay of the nine-o'clock session, only this time Gazo waved at Cadel, and Gemini pounced on him, cooing.

'There he is,' crooned Jem. 'h.e.l.lo, Cadel.'

'Careful, Jem, you'll break him,' said Niobe. 'So Thaddeus says you're off limits, Cadel? What a shame. I guess that means you won't be coming to visit us in our room. Because you're off limits.'

'I guess we won't be allowed to sit with you in the canteen, either,' Jem sighed. 'What a pity.'

Cadel flushed and the twins squealed with laughter.

'Oh, he's so cute! Look at him!'

'I want to put him in my purse!'

'You can't, Ni, he's off limits.'