'I'll take her to the library on Wednesday,' Kay-Lee concluded. 'But it would be better if you didn't ring. It might break her heart in the short-term, but in the long-term it would be better for her.' She fixed Cadel with a wintry, forbidding glare. 'I don't care how bright you are a or how pretty,' she said. 'You're still a mad b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and I want you out of her life.'

'But a '

'Now p.i.s.s off.'

THIRTY-TWO.

Cadel walked back to the station. When he reached it, he ducked into the toilets, changed his clothes, then caught a train to his local stop.

All the time, his mind was working furiously.

There were so many things to do; he found the prospect overwhelming. First off, he had to locate some photographs. That would be easy. Then he would have to post them a that would be harder. Then he would have to think of an excuse for trying to dodge the Fuhrer's surveillance team: an almost impossible task. And then . . .

Then he would have to find out who he had really been living with for the past twelve years.

He felt as if he was standing on shaky ground a as if the support beneath his feet was about to collapse. Who were the Piggotts? Were they really agents of Dr Darkkon? Had everything been an elaborate charade: had the secrets he'd kept from them, the lies he'd told, been designed to trick him instead of the Piggotts? It didn't bear thinking of.

The alternative, of course, was that the Piggotts were government agents. Dr Vee, too. Cadel decided that, if they were, it would be better. He would rather blame the government for his last twelve years than Dr Darkkon. If he had to believe that Dr Darkkon had chosen the Piggotts, out of all the people in the world, to take care of him a well, it was the ultimate betrayal.

Walking home from the station, Cadel tried to convince himself that the government-agent scenario made sense. Suppose an agency like Interpol had decided to lure Dr Darkkon into exposing himself? Suppose they had taken Cadel away, and set him up with a family of government agents, in the hope that Dr Darkkon would eventually try to make contact? Suppose they had installed Dr Vee at the Axis Inst.i.tute to monitor the activities of the staff there?

And suppose they had told Kay-Lee about Partner Post simply to protect her from Cadel's dad? If it was a secret operation, they might have used a false name for Cadel.

Cadel clung to this possibility. Contemplating any other was too horrible a it gave him a nasty feeling in the gut. He didn't like the timing of recent events, especially Dr Darkkon's word of advice about women. Moreover, if the police or the government were worried about Kay-Lee, why hadn't they warned her off a long time ago? These were important issues. Nevertheless, Cadel was beginning to have second thoughts about his father's guilt. Had he jumped to conclusions? Was he being unfair? There was nothing scientific about gut feelings.

Besides, he couldn't be sure about anything yet. Not until Sonja had identified the two policemen.

When he arrived home, Cadel headed straight for the Piggotts' security system, which he neatly disabled. (He had been doing this on a regular basis since he was six, so no one was likely to think it out of the ordinary.) Having ensured that he was safe from prying eyes, he cut Dr Vee's picture out of his Axis course handbook and removed a family snapshot from one of the photo alb.u.ms. Then he sealed both in a pale grey envelope addressed to Kay-Lee. Finding a stamp wasn't hard. Stamps were kept in the spare change bowl on top of the fridge. But getting to a postbox a that would be difficult, without arousing the suspicions of anyone stationed near the house with a pair of binoculars.

As he was pondering his options, Lanna arrived home. The sound of her raised voice made Cadel's blood run cold. He bolted into his room before she could catch him, wondering how long it would take her to discover that the security system wasn't working. A while, probably. She wasn't very clued into things like that.

Or was she?

'Cadel!'

'I'm here!' He was proud of his voice, which didn't wobble one bit.

Clack, clack, clack. He could hear her approaching in her noisy high heels. The door creaked open and she poked her head into his room.

She didn't look any different. Somehow, he had expected that there would be a change in her face.

'How was your day?' she asked. 'What have you been doing?'

'Oh, computer stuff.' He had never been very forthcoming with her, so his short response didn't come as a surprise.

'Well, I've got a dinner appointment this evening, but I'll be back by ten,' she said, glancing at her watch. 'What do you fancy to eat? I could make you some chops.'

'Pizza, please.'

'Oh, Cadel. You should eat something healthy, once in a while.'

'Vegetarian pizza, please,' Cadel said firmly. He had had an idea.

'Well, all right,' Mrs Piggott sighed. 'I don't have the energy to argue. You can take care of it yourself, I suppose?'

'I think I can probably manage,' Cadel muttered. While Mrs Piggott flitted around the house, ironing clothes and swigging white wine and looking for her fanciest shoes, Cadel sat at his computer, thinking. He couldn't be sure that it hadn't been invaded. He thought it unlikely, but he couldn't be absolutely sure. So how could he start chasing down the real Stuart Piggott without alerting whoever might be tracking his electronic movements? For all he knew, there might be people in a van outside, monitoring his computer's electromagnetic emissions with a sophisticated radio receiver: a Dynamic Science A-110b, for instance. The police were capable of that. Even the Virus might have managed it. And as for the Fuhrer a well, nothing would be beyond the Fuhrer.

If he was going to unmask the real Stuart Piggott, it might be best to start his search at home.

'All right,' Lanna declared, sticking her head into Cadel's room again. Her hair was slicked back, and she was wearing far too much make-up. 'I'm going now, but I'll be back soon. Have you ordered the pizza?'

'I'm just going to.'

'Have a salad as well, will you, Cadel? There's a bag of lettuce in the fridge. And don't forget to set the security alarm before you go to bed.'

Cadel nodded, all the while thinking: What security alarm? He waited until he heard the front door close and the noise of the car's engine fade. Then he waited a little longer, just in case Lanna had to return for a forgotten bottle of wine or something. Finally, he got up and consulted the telephone directory, deliberately rejecting the Piggotts' usual pizza delivery service for another one, chosen at random.

You couldn't be too careful a not in this house. He was aware of that, at long last.

The pizza arrived in thirty minutes. By that time Cadel was already in Stuart's office, rifling through desk drawers. There was nothing of importance in any of them a just mobile phone brochures, hole-punchers, Post-It notepads, electrical cords, ink cartridges and unused fountain pens. The filing cabinets looked more promising, but there was a lot of very dull stuff to get through, including files full of phone bills, insurance doc.u.ments, bank statements and tradesmen's quotes. He was starting on his second drawer when he heard the doorbell ring, and he went to answer it.

A young guy in a leather jacket was standing there, unzipping a red vinyl pizza-bag. He looked tired.

'Oh, great,' said Cadel. 'Come in. I'll get the money.'

It had to look natural. That was the thought uppermost in Cadel's brain: it had to look natural from the outside. By plunging back into the kitchen, Cadel managed to lure the pizza-delivery man into the house, where they were both safe from prying eyes. 'Just bung it down on the little table, will you?' he called, knowing that, to do so, the pizza-delivery man would have to cross the Piggotts' anteroom diagonally, thereby becoming invisible from the front door.

It was dead s.p.a.ce, that particular location a ideal for Cadel's purposes.

'Here,' he said, trapping his quarry in a corner as he counted out bills. 'It's twenty-two for the pizza, right?'

'Yeah,' came the weary reply.

'Okay. There you go.' Cadel lowered his voice. 'Listen,' he added, gazing up into the scrubby, flat-eyed face that hovered above his own. 'If I gave you another twenty, could you post a letter for me? After you've finished delivering the rest of your pizzas?'

The pizza-delivery man surveyed Cadel without expression.

'It's not a bomb, or anything,' Cadel whispered, glancing over his shoulder. 'It's a letter to my girlfriend. I'm not supposed to be seeing her. I'm grounded a '

'Yeah, whatever.' The man didn't sound interested. He held out his hand, waiting.

Cadel was surprised.

'Oh, great. Thanks.' He plucked the letter from his pocket, along with another twenty-dollar bill. 'You don't mind?'

The man shrugged. 'People ask me to get beer, cigarettes, you name it,' he muttered. 'It's no big deal.'

Cadel was relieved. He paid over his money and tucked his letter into the vinyl pizza bag.

'Can you do it tonight?' he asked.

'No sweat,' came the reply.

'There's a post office up at the shops. You can park right outside, at this hour a '

'I'm on it.' The pizza-delivery man gave Cadel a mock salute, and headed for the door. 'Enjoy your pizza.'

Cadel didn't wait around to watch his receding back. It would have looked suspicious. He simply shut the door and retired to the kitchen with his pizza, hoping he had done the right thing. For all he knew, the letter might end up in a garbage bin somewhere. But he couldn't, at present, see that he'd had any alternative. The opportunity had arisen, and he'd taken advantage of it.

Now he would have to wait.

The pizza wasn't as good as the ones they usually ordered. Cadel ate about half of it, idly flicking through cable channels as he did so. Then he washed his hands thoroughly a it wouldn't do to get pizza-grease all over Stuart's electricity bills a and returned to his unfinished task. The time, he noted, was half past seven. He still had an hour or two before Lanna came back.

Some of Stuart's filing-cabinet drawers were locked, but the locks were easy to pick. At the age of nine, Cadel had become briefly infatuated with locks; he had studied the locksmith's art with his usual avid concentration, even beginning (though not completing) a rather suspicious long-distance locksmith's course that operated out of a post-office box address. While he had never finished his apprenticeship, he had certainly learned enough to open the drawers of Stuart's filing cabinet. What he found, however, was disappointing. In a file marked 'Cadel', he discovered his own school reports, immunisation certificates, concerned letters from teachers, IQ test results and so forth. There was also a set of doc.u.ments relating to Cadel's adoption and a couple of lung x-rays taken during Cadel's most recent bouts of bronchitis.

Finally, there was his birth certificate. Cadel hadn't examined it for years a not since Thaddeus's entry into his life a and he saw now what he hadn't seen before. The doc.u.ment was an obvious fake. In his Forgery cla.s.s, Cadel had learned many things about the detection of forgeries. He had learned about carbon 14 dating techniques. He had learned about the way a scanning auger microscope could be used to measure the migration of ions from ink to paper. In this case, however, he didn't need any fancy equipment to tell him that the birth certificate was a forgery. The ink didn't even have a proper shine to it. Cadel himself had done a better job forging a birth certificate for a fict.i.tious young woman called Ariel Schaap. (It was now hidden in the lining of his winter jacket.) A very clumsy attempt, he thought. Couldn't they have done better than this? And then he wondered who 'they' might possibly be. His father's agents? The government's? Interpol's? Impossible to say a yet. He had to find more evidence. Apart from the 'Cadel' file, Stuart's locked drawers contained only Microsoft handbooks, old tax returns, pa.s.sports and superannuation brochures. It was incredibly frustrating. There was nothing suspicious about it at all a except the very absence of anything personal. Possibly Stuart kept all his degree certificates at work, but what about letters of reference? College pennants? Postcards? Snapshots? School records? What about a marriage certificate? Cadel couldn't find a marriage certificate anywhere. Nor could he find any birth certificates for either of the Piggotts.

After a while he gave up and tried Lanna's studio. This room was as messy as Stuart's was neat. There were fabric samples everywhere, piled up on the drafting table, hanging out of drawers, dangling from hooks, spilling from in-trays. Pages torn from magazines were pinned all over the walls, and stacks of brochures about bathroom fittings, floor coverings, window treatments and kitchen appliances almost covered the floor. It was the sort of room that repels entry. Cadel had never advanced more than a few steps into it because he would have had to climb over half a dozen things to do so.

This time, however, he was determined. Very, very carefully, so as not to dislodge anything, he picked his way into the centre of the room and stood contemplating it. Apart from the drafting table, it contained a desk, a couple of filing cabinets and another steel-grey cabinet with long, narrow drawers designed for blueprints, or something similar. All of these furnishings were bulging with stuff: not one of the drawers would close properly. Cadel checked his watch (eight-fifteen!) and wondered, with despair, where he was going to start. He wouldn't have to worry about leaving a mess. The room was so messy, more disarray wouldn't be noticed. But how was he going to sift through all this rubbish? How was he going to find anything of interest in all these piles of stupid decorating tips?

And then he noticed something.

The dust.

Everything was covered in a layer of dust. He couldn't touch a manila folder or a paint leaflet without leaving an obvious mark a something that wouldn't have been so peculiar if it wasn't for the fact that Lanna's appointment diary, on the desk, was also covered in dust. As was the blotter. And the telephone. And the b.u.t.ton on her desk lamp.

It was as if no one had been in this room for weeks a even months. Yet Lanna had worked in it for some time only the day before. Or so she'd said.

Cadel sneezed. The dust was like a trap; he couldn't touch anything for fear of disturbing it. Clearly, Mrs Ang hadn't even attempted to clean this room. (How could she, when it was barely possible to reach the desk?) Equally clearly, Lanna hadn't done anything with these fabric swatches and toilet brochures for a long, long time a if ever. Had Cadel not studiously avoided everything to do with the Piggotts and their tedious work, he would have noticed that something didn't add up.

He realised suddenly that he was gasping for breath, and turned on his heel. The Piggotts' bedroom was next door. It was enormous, and had the impersonal, colour-coordinated atmosphere of an expensive hotel room. There were about five hundred pillows piled on the bed, each a different shade of maroon or charcoal; the bed itself was elevated on its very own platform; there were recessed lights and a carved screen and a cashmere throw tossed carefully over a Louis IV chair upholstered in suede. The bedside cabinets supported nothing at all a not even a book or a gla.s.s of water.

Cadel knew, however, that the dressing room was as messy as Lanna's office. While she liked to have a clean, 'uncluttered' bedroom, she couldn't achieve the effect without stuffing a lot of junk into her dressing room and bathroom. The bedside cabinets were also full up. Cadel went through them carefully with shaking hands. He had a funny feeling that he was getting closer to whatever it was he'd been searching for. He found tissues, empty lipsticks, medicines, a wheat pillow, an essential oil burner, an eye-mask, a suede brush, an English-French dictionary, an extension cord, a broken watch and a camera battery. In the dressing-room he looked through every bag, shoe and pocket, but uncovered only a dirty handkerchief, a sticky tube of lip-salve and half a packet of mints. The sc.r.a.ps of paper scattered about were for the most part unrevealing: one was a screwed-up cinema ticket, one a brief shopping list, one a Grace Bros label.

And then he spotted something on the floor of the wardrobe, tucked away in a corner: another slip of paper, squashed and soiled. Smoothing it out, Cadel saw that it was half a ripped credit card receipt. He was about to throw it away when his gaze was caught by the card number.

Cadel knew all of the Piggotts' seven credit card numbers. And this, he realised, wasn't one of them.

THIRTY-THREE.

'Cadel!'

Cadel jumped. Mrs Piggott! It was only twenty past nine and she was home already!

He stuffed the receipt into his pocket, and threw himself out of her room just in time. She caught him in the hallway.

'What have you done to the alarm system?' she demanded, hands on hips.

'Uh a '

'I've told you before, Cadel, that system is out of bounds!'

'Maybe it's broken.' Cadel tried his trademark innocent look, but Lanna wasn't fooled.

'Get in there,' she ordered, 'and put it back on!'

'But a '

'Now!'

He did as he was told. There was no reason not to. He had found what he was looking for a a genuine clue.

Of course, it might be a red herring. As Cadel rerouted electronic signals in the stuffy little circuitry room, he considered the possibility that this discarded receipt belonged to someone else. But if that were the case, why did the Piggotts' even have it? He couldn't help being suspicious.

So he would check that number. He would pursue it through the usual electronic routes, but not with his usual computer. He would have to employ another one, without arousing the suspicions of whoever was watching him.

Bit of a tall order, really.

In bed that night, Cadel racked his brain for a solution to the problem. It kept him too busy to think about anything else, and he fell asleep before he could resolve his dilemma. Then, at five-thirty, he woke up shivering. His head ached and his stomach heaved. Something was wrong: he was sick, really sick. After staggering to the bathroom for an aspirin, he fell back into bed and didn't move again until Lanna checked on him at eight-thirty.

'Cadel?' she said. 'I'm going now.'

He grunted.

'Cadel? Haven't you got any cla.s.ses today?' Then she took a step nearer, and caught her breath. 'Oh my G.o.d,' she exclaimed. 'Are you sick? Cadel? Oh my G.o.d.'

She put her hand on his forehead.

'Doesn't feel like a temperature,' she fussed. 'What's wrong, exactly?'

'My head hurts.'