Inherit the Earth - Brian Stableford [90]
“I think they’re trying to tell you something,” Damon said. “Not you personally—the people in charge of the foundation.”
“What are they trying to tell us?” the data analyst demanded sharply.
Damon didn’t want to admit that he was confused, but he wasn’t sure that his run of lucky guesses could be sustained. “They seem to think that Ahasuerus and the remnants of Conrad Helier’s old research team are loose cannons rolling around their deck,” he said tentatively. “I think they want everybody—including Interpol—to know that there’s a new captain on the bridge, one who intends to run a very tight ship from now on.”
“What on earth is all that supposed to mean?” Rachel Trehaine demanded aggressively. She looked at Catherine Praill as if to see whether the younger woman understood it any better than she did.
“I wish I could be more precise,” Damon assured her. “I wish they’d be more precise. I don’t know what to believe. There’s too much of it, and it’s almost all lies.”
The woman from Ahasuerus was still annoyed, but she wasn’t entirely insensitive to his distress. She nodded, as if to concede that he’d been through enough for the present. By the time one of the gunmen appeared with a pair of wire cutters she had begun to look thoughtful. Damon didn’t suppose she’d been able to find out exactly what Eveline and Karol were playing at in the short time available to her, but she must have found out enough to keep her interested. She probably knew at least as much as Damon did, and was probably better placed than he was to start putting the pieces together. When Damon thanked her for cutting him free from the bed’s head she finally took the trouble to ask whether he was all right.
He assured her that he was, then went to place a reassuring hand on Catherine Praill’s arm.
“It’s all over now,” he told her gently. “The police will want to question you again, but I’m sure they don’t suspect you of being involved in Silas Arnett’s abduction. It’s possible that you carried something into his house without knowing you were doing it, but Interpol must have a reasonable idea by now what kind of game this is. They’re being played with exactly as we are.”
“That’s an interesting observation, Mr. Hart,” said a new voice.
Damon looked around to see Hiru Yamanaka, who was coming through the doorway waving his ID card at all and sundry.
“You got here very quickly,” said Rachel Trehaine, her eyes narrowing slightly with awful suspicion.
“So we did,” Yamanaka agreed. “That’s because we weren’t very far away. Mr. Hart is right, Miss Praill—we do have some other questions to ask you, but we certainly won’t be bringing any charges against you and we’ll take much better care of you this time. You, Mr. Hart, are under arrest.”
“For what?” Damon demanded, blurting the question out with frank amazement. “You don’t really think I’m Conrad Helier, enemy of mankind, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” the inspector said equably. “In fact, I’m certain that you’re not, but I do have reason to think that you have information relevant to an ongoing murder inquiry, and perhaps to the whereabouts of a man we’re currently seeking in that connection.”
Damon felt horror clutch at his stomach. The mirror man had said that his side in the dispute hadn’t killed anyone—but there was no way to know how many lies the mirror man had told. “Silas is dead?” he said, leaping to what seemed to be the obvious conclusion.
“We still have no information as to the whereabouts or well-being of Dr. Arnett,” Yamanaka said, taking no satisfaction from his own punctiliousness. “The inquiry in question is into the murder of Surinder Nahal. We are holding your friend Diana Caisson as a possible accomplice, and we are making every effort to locate our chief suspect, Madoc Tamlin—who is, I believe, currently in your employ.”
Damon was lost for words. He didn’t know whether to be more alarmed by the fact that Diana was in custody or the fact that Madoc—who evidently wasn’t—had somehow been fingered for a murder he surely couldn’t have committed. He had thought himself