"Such a terrible tragedy," said Vincent. He picked up the photo and studied it. "I still miss them. Like part of me died with them. Sometimes I think I keep this photo on my desk as a reminder of the last time I was really happy." He put the photo down and smiled briefly at me. "I wish they could have seen this place. My great­est achievement. And now someone, or something, is trying to shut it down. Which is why I asked Walker to contact you, John. Can you help me?"

"Perhaps," I said. "I'm still trying to get a feel for what's going on here. Talk me through it, from the be­ginning."

Vincent leaned back in his manager's chair and linked his fingers together across his expansive waist­coat. While he talked, his voice was calm and even, but his gaze kept flickering to the CCTV monitors.

"It started two weeks ago, John. Everything normal, just another day. Until one of the main turbines sud­denly stopped working. My people investigated and found it had been sabotaged. Not a professional job - the whole interior had simply been ... ripped apart. My people repaired it and got it back online in under an hour, but by then systems were breaking down all through the plant. And that's been the pattern ever since. As fast as we fix things, something else goes wrong. It's costing us a fortune in spare parts alone. There's nothing sophisticated about the sabotage, just brutal, senseless destruction.

"No-one ever sees the saboteur. You've seen the se­curity I've hired, but they haven't made a blind bit of difference. I've got cameras everywhere, and they never see anything either. I've had the videotapes checked by experts, but there's no trace of anything. We can't even tell how the bastard gets in or out! The destruction's getting steadily worse. Repairs and recon­struction are starting to fall behind. It's only a matter of time before it starts affecting our power output. And a whole lot of people depend on the electricity we pro­duce here."