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    "Shit."

    "So maybe I did exactly what Philip Broomhall thinks I did. Gave the boy confidence enough to look at his situation and make a desperate move to change everything. Just enough of a boost to drop him into deep, deep trouble. Think how scared he must be."

    "At least you gave him some confidence," said Carol. "Maybe more than you think."

    "Which means you accept it's my fault?"

    "Would it help you if I did?"

    "Oh, sod off."

    "You've lived in London too long, girlfriend. You and me both."

    Suzanne rubbed her face, using her imagination to push troubling mental images – a frowning disciplinary board, a terse letter revoking her licence – off into the distance: in view but tractable.

    "You ever going back?" she asked Carol.

    "Not likely. You seen Brand's antics in Geneva?"

    "Uh, no." Suzanne had not browsed the news. "What's he done now?"

    "Refused to sit near the other two prime ministers. Least he didn't call 'em godless Commies this time."

    Brand and the others were supposed to be a triumvirate, three prime ministers, one serving as president for the tripartite commonwealth of the US. But Brand was the voice of mid-America, his worldview myopic and threatening, so that Left and Right Coast commentators now called their country the Theoretically United States or worse.

    "He's such a – oh." Suzanne's phone was sounding
dit-dit-dit, dit-dit-dit
. "Oh, no."

    Other customers were glancing over, because this was the police ringtone, sounding only on receipt of an official call.

    "Answer it, hon."

    "Yes." She thumbed the phone. "Dr Suzanne Duchesne. Can I help you, officer?"

    A lean-faced man, real not virtual, showed in the small screen.

    "It would be better in person, Dr Duchesne. If you could accompany me to the station, please."

    "Accompany you?"

    "I'm outside the coffee shop, on the corner. It's more discreet that way."

    Not with that ringtone, but never mind, because if she didn't obey she could be arrested on suspicion of being unhelpful to a police officer. The law had been passed after an online referendum – with knife-holders wielding four votes each – a hardline decision that was consistent with normal trends. Even before the Blade Acts, higher knife crime meant lower crime overall (perhaps for the same reason that American towns with 100% gun ownership suffered zero burglaries, an observation that continued to cause shudders), a fact whose implications came into focus when the blade generation grew up.

    "I'll be right there, officer."

    "And I'm coming with you," said Carol.

    "There's no need."

    "Sure there is. Have you any idea how dull my day was till now?"

    "I'm scared."

    "And it's OK because–" Carol clasped Suzanne's upper arm – "it will work out all right."

    A small boost but that was fine, with Suzanne needing all the help she could get.

 

    "If you could keep your palms on the arms, please." The nameless officer sat across from her. "It gives clearer readings that way."

    "Readings? Oh."

    There was a wallscreen directly behind her, set to display the scanner output, assuming this worked like the movies.

    "You saw Richard Broomhall the day before yesterday, Doctor, is that right?"

    "Yes. 11 o'clock. His father wanted him to lose the hoplophobic behaviours he'd been exhibiting."

    "The son's afraid of knives?"

    "Right," said Suzanne. "He was and probably still is, because we didn't get into specific behaviour change in that session."

    "And what did take place during the session?"

    "My phone has the full recording." She started to reach for it.

    "Hands on the armrests, please."

    "Sorry. Um… I questioned Richard about his life and goals."

    "He's fourteen, is that right?"

    "Yes. You could call it the age when the adult personality begins to emerge. It's a delicate time, so the final part of operant change is what we call an 'ecology check'. For example, if I cured someone of a fear of heights, I wouldn't want them dangling one-handed off a roof."

    "And a fourteen year-old running away from home is appropriate?"

    "Of course not. It's terrible. That's sort of my point. I didn't notice any precursors to that shift, and I did check."

    "All right." The officer was stone-faced. "Did Richard give any indication of people he might know in London? Any places he might go?"

    "No indication. If you review the session recording, you'll–"

    "Thank you, I will. Any family member he might visit, anywhere?"

    "From what Richard said, there's just him and his widower father. Plus staff at the family home."

    "You've been there?"

    "Uh, no. I met Philip Broomhall in Victoria," she said. "Just the once. And the only time I met Richard was during that session."

    "In Elliptical House," said the officer.

    "Yes, that's right."

    "What about the driver?"

    "Lexa?"

    "You know her?"

    "Not before, er, beforehand. Is she under suspicion?"

    "Is there any reason she ought to be?"

    "I don't… Let me think." Closing her eyes, Suzanne was able to picture Lexa in the consulting room, her expression as she broke the news. "She wasn't lying, I'm almost sure of it. She was scared for Richard's sake, as I am."

    "You can tell if someone is lying, Doctor?"

    "Not really. If someone stares up and to their right, that may indicate visual imagination, but not necessarily falsehood. Some people navigate their memories by mental imagery. The other common mistake, made by people with too little training, is to assume that signs of stress, like hand-wringing or crossing ankles, mean someone is lying. It only means the person is stressed."

    There had been far too many miscarriages of justice, innocent people pressurised by the interrogating officers, forced into giving false confessions, because officers misinterpreted stress or visualisation signals as guilt. Suzanne had been an expert witness in a retrial – an innocent man walking free after seven years in a cell – and the officer probably knew that already.

    "Are you stressed right now?" he asked.

    "Of course I am. If I could give you any hint about where Richard might be, then I would. He was under pressure at school, and I don't know the specifics, because I'd intended to follow up on that in the next session. You might look for evidence of bullying, probably from peers."

    "Meaning possibly from teachers?"

    "Possibly, but there was no evidence for that. But you need to know where he's headed, not what he's running from, and I can't help. You must know more about homeless kids on the street than I do. Where would he go?"

    The officer looked over Suzanne's shoulder, presumably reading the screen.

    "Is there anything else you can think of, Doctor?"

    "No, I'm sorry. And I've thought about it, over and over again."

    "I'm sure you have. If you could hand over your phone, please."

    "My…? Oh. Sure."

    She put it on the table, just as he slid a handset toward to her.

    "This is your replacement, from us. You can keep it."

    "Really? It looks expensive."

    "That's all right. It will register to you by the time you've left the building. Any cached files will be copied during the procedure."

    "But my contact list and–"

    "It's all online." The officer waved his hand. "Cloud computing, the web all around us. Only the most recent changes are in the handset, in cache, and we'll make sure they're copied to you."

    "Well…" She picked up the new phone, its TCC logo embossed in gold on black: Ty
ndall Cloud Communica
tions.
"Thank you."

    "Thanks for your help, Dr Duchesne." He popped her old phone into a clear plastic bag and sealed it. "Nice talking with you."

    "Yes. I hope you find Richard."

    The door clicked open.

    "We'll do our best, Doctor. Mind how you go."

There were fire-eaters and clowns on stilts, jugglers and acrobats clowns performing flick-flack somersaults across the cobblestones. The piazza of Covent Garden was busy, usual for a summer evening. Suzanne and Carol watched the performers, flames and movement serving as distraction for the eyes, while thought followed its own path, however dark.

    "At least I got a new phone out of it."

    "While they do forensics on the old."

    "I don't even know what's on it. The officer said it's all out in the clouds, the data."

    "Probably records all your sexual encounters." Carol nudged her. "So when was the last time you got laid?"

    Despite her age and her training, Suzanne's cheeks warmed. "You are a bad person, Dr Klugmann."

    "And you've not yet answered my question, Dr Duchesne. So are you going to answer me now or in a couple of minutes?"

    "No. You want smut, check your own phone."

    "You think there's room on one itty-bitty handset for all my sensual encounters?"

    "Probably not."

    One of the jugglers dropped his clubs, apparently by accident as another cartwheeled across him; but when the second juggler was standing, everyone could see that he now had the clubs arcing through the air. Onlookers clapped, as the duo began to toss clubs between them.

    "For your sake, hon, we need to do something about this investigation."

    "What do you mean?" Suzanne forgot the performers. "The investigation?"

    "If CCTV was going to provide a quick result, they'd have found Richard already. So it's not happening, is it?"

    "You're not suggesting we track him down ourselves?"

    "Right." Carol slapped her belly. Everything jiggled, voluptuous and rippling. "Running around the streets is so what I do."

    Men glanced in her direction.

    "Broomhall needs to hire someone," Carol went on. "A specialist, working full-time on finding Richard. And you see that blonde guy over there?"

    "Uh–"

    "You think he's staring at my breasts?"

    "Of course he is. But you can't tell Broomhall to hire an investigator."

    "He's rich, so he can afford it."

    "But–"

    "And after I've talked to him he'll be pleased to have thought of the idea for himself. Because that's what he'll think has happened."

    "You're marvellous." Suzanne squeezed Carol's upper arm. "Thank you."

    "It's still early."

    "And you've a blonde guy to seduce, which you won't while I'm hanging around."

    "There's another nice-looking man over there. We could double d–"

    "Good night, Carol."

    "'Night, sweetie. We'll catch up tomorrow."

    "Catch yourself a good one tonight."

    "Count on it."

    Suzanne watched as Carol moved among the spectators, exuding charisma and sex, gaze fastened on her prey.

    "Be good."

    She turned and crossed the cobblestones, heading for the Tube.

 

The first night was awful. Then things got worse.

    The world was cold, that was the obvious thing. During the sweltering daytime, Richard's white shirt had been enough; but evening had been a warning, and when darkness fell, he was in trouble. Plus, a white shirt stands out in shadows. Why hadn't anyone told him that?

    
Because it never mattered before.

    In the real world, where fear came from Father shouting and the stink of whisky on his breath, or being alone in a house with eight or ten people, depending on which staff were on duty… in that world, the colour of your clothes didn't mark you out, transform you into a target. Now he was alone in a city of five million people, all of them bigger and more violent than him; but the thing was, he could go anywhere, not trapped inside school boundaries with a maniac like Zajac intending to kill him.

    A year ago, he was trailing his father into Selfridges and found his gaze hooked by a dirty blanket on the ground. On it, a young girl-woman slumped, a stained medical dressing on her hand, her features delicate beneath grime, and redness in her eyes that spoke of recent tears. Father had not stopped, so neither did he; but inside, riding up on the escalator, he'd said: "Did you see that girl?"

    "What girl?"

    "Outside by the doorway. Begging, I guess."

    "No, nothing worth noticing."

    Later, at home over dinner, he'd tried to ask about her again, explaining about the blanket and the gauze bandage. Father had explained that he hadn't seen a girl as such, but he might have glimpsed a beggar, an example of a generic type; and that her kind were an infestation, and would Richard pass the chocolate sauce, and how were the crêpes tonight?

    Today, a few people had asked if Richard had any spare change. Mostly he'd walked past. But now, a youth of his own age with weeping sores on neck and forearm was standing in front of him, asking the same thing:
Spare any change?
Richard reached into his pocket, thinking he could pay phone-to-phone, maybe get to an ATM… but the only thing he found was a used tissue. No phone meant no bank account, meant everything was gone. Bumping through the crowds in Leicester Square, that was when it must have happened.