"Never been anything like it," Col Charnwood had told Suzi and the team late one night when they had tired of Amanda's gymnastic antics. "Like something out of the Third World, it was. Bloody thousands of us, there were. Swarming like flies over the muck. Didna matter who you were, not then. We all worked ten-hour shifts. The money was the same as you'd get paid by the benefit office for being on the dole. But it was our city we were protecting. That meant something in them days, ya know?"

Now the embankment was being refurbished, centimetre by centimetre. Tracked machinery that crunched up the rock, heated it, spun it into fibres, then laid it down over the slag mounds which had been re-profiled for improved hydrodynamic efficiency, a glassy lava flow that would hold back the Tyne for a century.

"Cutting our heart out of it," Col said sadly.

Suzi looked closely at the machinery as they passed, seeing the small Event Horizon logo on each of the lumbering rock smelters, a blue concave triangle sliced with a jet-black flying V.

"We unplugging from the deal, pet?" Col asked.

Suzi visualized Chris Brimley, shorn of all dignity, helpless eyes pleading with her. A victim of deliberately applied psychological violence. "Not straight away, no. I want Amanda to put Brimley back together again first. The money from this will pay his debts to L'Amici. She can get him to break his habit. After that I'll pull her out. He'll have a chance at life again."

Col shot her an uncertain glance.

"Where's your sense of style, Col?" she asked, smiling. "We make a soft exit. This way Morrell doesn't find out for at least another five months. Maybe never. People have a way of forgetting the worst, glossing over the nightmares. Morrell's security psychics might not spot his guilt next time they vet him. Be nice to think."