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Or had Pendennis already done that? Was that why he'd left the body? To lure Nick away so he could wipe all the data?

Shit! Shit! Shit!

The door opened. A man—plain clothes, early forties, sharp-featured—stepped inside. He reminded Nick of an old school teacher he'd once had. It was the glasses and the way he stared—a long, silent, appraising look as though he was looking deep into your soul and judging it flawed.

"DCI Marsh," said the man. "Are you ready to give a statement?"

Nick was more than ready. He waited for the lapel recorder to flash red then reeled off the events from the moment he entered the Hall that evening.

"Are you the owner of this property?"

"No, I'm from the University. We've been using the Hall."

"What for?"

Ah. This was not going in a good direction. One sniff of the word 'paranormal' and he'd be labelled a crackpot. The general public hadn't absorbed the huge advances that had been made in the last two years. Higher Dimensional Theory to them was still SHIFT and space travel. They didn't realise the extent of its application.

"Research," he said, hoping the interview could move elsewhere.

"Into what?"

"Astropsychology."

"Which is what in layman's terms?"

"The study of higher dimensional theory and its application to psychology."

There was a pause. If Marsh asked for an explanation of HDT he'd refer him to a textbook.

"Where does Framlingham Hall fit into that?"

Marsh was definitely like Nick's old teacher. He could never be deflected either.

"Look, I'm doing 'blue sky' research. I take an idea and run with it wherever it leads. This house is supposed to be haunted. I've been monitoring some of the rooms to see if there's a higher dimensional explanation."

He recognised the look. It may have been fleeting, but it was there. Who can trust a witness who sees ghosts for a living?

"And before you ask, I wasn't monitoring that room. You'll find my equipment in the room next door."

"Convenient. Did you recognise the victim?"

"No."

"You've never seen him before?"

"Never. Look, have you seen Louise Callander yet? Is she all right?"

"She is now. After two of my officers spent ten minutes reassuring her that Pendennis was still locked up."

"He is?"

Nick couldn't believe it. How . . .

And then another thought. Would Upper Heywood lie to protect their reputation? Stall the police until they'd got their stories straight? Or had someone sneaked Peter back in?

"Are you sure?" he asked. "Has anyone actually seen him?"

"We don't need to. Peter Pendennis is not part of this investigation."

"But it's his MO. The nose, everything."

Marsh shook his head. "The vic's too clean. Pendennis leaves his saliva over every body part. He licks them. This one's clean."

Nick swallowed. That was information he'd have been happier not knowing.

"And the body's intact," Marsh continued. "Peter likes to cut his up."

"He was interrupted."

The detective shook his head again. "That never bothered him before. That's how we caught him. We found him sitting on a basement floor with a severed head in his hands." He looked into the distance and clenched his fists. "He had its nose in his mouth, can you believe that? And he just looked at us. Didn't try to run or anything. Just looked up as though what was happening was the most normal thing in the world. And all the time his cheeks were going in and out as he sucked on that wretched girl's nose."

"Sucked?"

None of the holocasts had mentioned that. A stray synapse fired somewhere in Nick's brain. A connection. Something he'd read a long time ago. Rituals—Egyptian? Polynesian?—something to do with sucking the spirits of the dead out through their noses.

"And killers don't change their MO," said Marsh.

"Killers with MPD might. He's got twelve personalities so why not have twelve different MOs."

"You seem to know a lot about Peter Pendennis."

Back came the appraising stare.

"I was at Upper Heywood this afternoon. I saw him."

Marsh narrowed his eyes. "Do you often visit Mr. Pendennis?"

"No." Where was this going?

"My officers said you had a camera with you when you found the body. Were you taking pictures?"

"No! I was using it to see by. It's got night vision capabilities."

"Why not switch on a light?"

"I didn't want to risk losing the manifestation."

"You didn't want to risk losing the manifestation."

Marsh sounded like a cross-examining barrister echoing Nick's testimony to an incredulous jury. Nick squirmed. Okay, so all the other HDT researchers were out there doing sensible things with their imagers like helping develop stronger, lighter, cheaper alloys. And, yes, he was having fun, pointing his imagers at anything and everything he could think of. But that's what real scientists were supposed to do—to shine light where no one had ever thought to look before, to push, probe and question.

There was a knock at the door. A young man leaned into the room. "Sorry to disturb you, sir, but we've got an ID on the vic."

"Sergeant Kelly enters the room," said Marsh for the benefit of the recording. "Close the door, Mike. What have you got?"

The sergeant closed the door and read from a note pad. "Name's Vince Culley, twenty-nine, local man with two previous convictions for burglary. Petty, opportunist stuff. Probably after the cameras downstairs. They're easy to spot from outside."

A burglar? Nick hadn't considered his imagers a target. Though, thinking about it, he should have.

"So, if the cameras are downstairs," asked Marsh, "why was his body found up here?"

"The window was open in the room I found him in," said Nick. "It still is."

The sergeant shook his head. "Unlikely point of entry for our Vince. He's strictly a ground floor, brick-through-the-window type of crim. And we found a broken pane in a door at the back."

"So," said Marsh, eyeing Nick like a predator about to strike. "He breaks in downstairs to steal the cameras. You catch him at it. There's a chase."

Nick started to remonstrate. Marsh ignored him, raising his voice to drown out Nick's objections.

"You trap him in the room opposite. There's a fight. You hit him too hard, panic, then try to make it look like Pendennis. Is that how it happened?"

"Where's the blood?" Nick shouted, holding out his hands, showing his nails, gesturing to his clothes. "Whoever cut off his ears must be covered in the stuff."

"We'll check the bathrooms," said Marsh. "And the bins. If you cleaned yourself up we'll know."

An hour later was Nick was formally arrested and taken to the station at Summertown where he was scanned, DNA swabbed and had his fingernails cleaned. Then he was given a virtual lawyer, who explained his rights and talked him through the procedures. Don't say anything, don't sign anything and don't let them search your property. Probably the wisest words he'd heard all day.

A succession of detectives took it in turns to interview him. Nick sat through it all, biting his tongue. He'd tried the co-operative route and look where that had got him.

He was released at 9:00 am the next day without charge. No apology, no explanation, just a grudging, 'you can go,' from the desk sergeant.

Once outside, he called Louise. Had the police really spoken to her yesterday? They'd spun so many stories at him the previous night he didn't know what to believe.

The dial tone rang endlessly. Where the hell was she? He left another message then called a taxi. He'd pick up his van from the Hall then drive to Louise's.

The cold bit through his clothes. He wasn't dressed for being outside. He folded his arms and tried to squeeze some warmth into his chest. The taxi arrived, he climbed inside.

"Framlingham Hall," he said. "And turn the heater up as far as it'll go."

Streets flashed by. Inside, Nick rubbed his hands and replayed scenarios. What the hell was happening? Was Pendennis on the loose or paying a copycat? Some sick scheme to re-open his case?

And had the police impounded Nick's equipment? Had he lost all the data from the night before?

The taxi slowed as the Hall came into view. There was a police car blocking the entrance, a tape strung across the drive.

"Drive past," said Nick. "I'll get out around the corner."

The taxi dropped Nick off a block away. He cut down a side street and over to an alley that led to the back of Hall. There was a door in the long stone wall that ringed the Hall grounds. Nick slipped inside, out of sight of the police at the main entrance, and ran across the rough grass towards the back of the house.

Great, the grass was wet. He looked down at his trousers—soaked from the knees down. So much for looking inconspicuous. He made his way to the back door by the kitchen. The police had said Culley had broken a pane in the back door. Would anyone have fixed it overnight?

No one had. He stood by the door and listened. It didn't sound like anyone was inside. He slipped a hand through the broken pane, turned the key in the lock and gently opened the door.

He stepped through, closed the door behind him and tip-toed to the front of the house. Still no sounds of life within the Hall. He paused at the bottom of the stairs, looking up, senses on high alert. The police must have gone, left a couple of officers to sit outside to keep the onlookers away.

Damn! He noticed the empty windowsill. He'd left one of the imagers there last night.

He ran to the front room. How much had they taken?

An array of imagers, monitors and processors filled one corner of the room. Were they all there? He counted them; walking around, checking they hadn't been damaged or reset. Only the one imager was missing.

He rummaged through one of the boxes looking for a blank data cube, found one and quickly inserted it into the main processor. The download began. He glanced to the window. Anyone walking by would see him. Were the two officers supposed to patrol the grounds?

He tapped his fingers on the top of the unit. Come on! A few more seconds . . .

The data cube ejected. He thrust it into a pocket. And stopped.

Curiosity. He was here, the data was here, the monitors were here. Okay, the data hadn't been fully processed yet. But the imager data would have been merged, enough for a composite picture. Could he wait another hour?

He ran to the side of the window, squatted down, peered back towards the gate. The police car was still there, nothing moving.

He checked his watch. Five minutes. That's all he'd risk.

He called up the files, sifted through the ones he could use and ran the programs. A composite scan of Pendennis's brain appeared on the screen. It was staggering. He viewed it from every plane, zooming in and out, flipping and rotating. Colours flared and sparked. He'd need more time to calibrate the results and run comparisons but the initial results . . .

So much mass. What was it—three, four times, the amount of higher dimensional matter you'd expect? Though what was normal? They'd sampled such an infinitesimal section of the human population, who could say what the normal ranges were?

But what a sight! It looked like the brain had been ripped in several places and then expanded. Was that evidence of additional matter—an outside source for the extra material—or was it part of the brain's natural healing process? An accretion of new matter like new bone being created at a fracture site?

He definitely needed John Bruce's brain scans. Had they arrived yet?

He rang the University computer, dialled into his office and checked his mail. Nothing from SHIFT. Maybe his usual contact was on holiday? He rang off and called up his home computer. He'd resend the request and tag on a couple of extra addresses. One of his contacts at SHIFT had to be at work.

There was a sound in the distance. Outside. Nick ducked down, tapped in the confirmation and sent the request to SHIFT. Time to leave. He could finish processing the data at home. He grabbed an imager—one of the full spectrum models—and stuffed it in his pocket. Who could tell when the police would release the rest?

He retraced his steps back to the Banbury road, wet-legged, a considerable bulge in one of his pockets, but exuding a practised and smiling innocence.

"Hi," he told the first policeman. "I've come to collect my van."

He showed his ID, waited to be photographed, finger scanned and cleared with HQ.

And then collected his van. He could feel the impatient stare of the two policemen burning into the back of his neck as he took his time, walking around the van, looking inside, underneath and checking the back. Images of the previous night were still fresh. If Pendennis had escaped yesterday and made his way to the Hall, what better mode of transport than hiding in Nick's van.

A car horn sounded from the gate. "Come on, we haven't got all day!"

Nick opened the driver side door and climbed inside. One more check of the back seats and he was away, waving goodbye to the police and Framlingham Hall. He tried Louise's number again. Still no answer. Was she avoiding him? Or worse?

He didn't want to think about worse. He'd go home, load the data, fire off the analysis programs and leave them running while he drove over to see her.

And maybe drive to Upper Heywood afterwards. Demand to see Pendennis and see how Ziegler reacted.

He parked outside his two-bedroomed terrace, slammed the car door shut and jogged the few yards through his almost non-existent front garden.

And stopped.

His front door was ajar. Had the police searched his house after all? He reached out a hand and pushed the door wider. He expected to see his belongings strewn all over the floor but the carpet was clear. He could see up the stairs to the landing and the hallway through to the kitchen at the back. Nothing looked out of place. No damage, no muddy boot prints from overzealous officers.

A more worrying thought. If not the police . . .

He crept inside. At least it was daylight. And there were people nearby. Houses on both sides, a street only yards away.