Nobody said much in the car on the way back.
Eric sulked with his hand on his jaw and was entirely silent, Bradlee reverted to his chirpy cab driver act, reminding Danny how insensitive a talkative cabbie could be, but even Bradlee gave up talking when nobody responded.
They dropped Danny off at half-past midnight. Bradlee gunned the Audi as he drove
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away, proving something or other, though Danny wasn't quite sure what, maybe his influence over the world, though the effect was spoiled as he ground the front skirt of the car into the tarmac on the speed-bumps.
When he'd closed the heavy front door, Danny rested his forehead against it for a moment, relieved to be locking the troublesome world outside. He felt despoiled by the evening, and deceived by Frank. When he'd agreed to hack into a computer, there'd been no mention of stolen cars, professional criminals, and certainly not the destruction of more than a million pounds of hardware.
Sharon hadn't waited up for him. She lived a life without worry, always assuming things would work out for the best, rarely fretting no matter how late Danny was, and he was thankful for that. His clothes still smelled of paraffin and smoke, which would have taken some explaining. They'd have to go. He took them off and put them in a bin-bag, which went outside the back door with the rest of the week's rubbish.
At twenty to one, still in the nude, he wandered through to the dining room, which also doubled as his study. It was here, with his laptop on the broad dining table, that he did most of his
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real work, his programming for the microchip industry. He took his laptop from its usual resting place in the sideboard drawer and booted up.
How had Frank managed to get him to go along on such a lunatic trip? It was the way Frank had reacted to Danielle's cycling accident that had softened Danny up, made him vulnerable to stupid ideas. After breaking the news, Frank had offered to make Danielle's stay at the Whittington Hospital more comfortable. She was unconscious and plugged into plenty of medical equipment.
He'd pointed out that he could do a lot to influence this machinery. He could do prioritisation, error control, alarm monitoring, he could make sure the right drugs were in inventory, could change rotas, take the randomness out of whether Danielle had the best nurses, the best wards, the best doctors. It could make a difference.
He'd clinched the deal right after this apparently selfless offer to help Danielle. He'd asked for a favour in return, tagged on to the same email conversation, telling Danny that he'd been attacked by a company called Moorhen, and they'd almost wiped him out with a hunter-killer program, and he needed help. He needed a computer expert to crack the computer that held the program and look at it for him.
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Danny had known he was agreeing to something illegal, but he'd assumed they'd have inside help, that they'd walk in with a key and walk out with the program, locking the door behind them. Sure, that would be illegal, but he couldn't simply stand by and watch Moorhen wipe out Frank. It was the fire that bothered him most, the wanton destruction.
A minute later he was online.
—Frank, they burned the place down.
A mile from Windsor, the column of smoke had been visible through the Audi's rear window. A dull pillar, shifting in the red light of the fire below.
—Good.
—So it's true, you did ask Bradlee to torch the place?
Computing in the nude was a familiar sensation. He'd found that even the most tedious tasks could be enlivened by a lack of clothes - a maintenance report for the local office in Cippenham, a conference call with his colleagues at headquarters in New York. This was the ultimate in dressing down. Right now he wasn't in a playful mood, he just couldn't be bothered to find something else to wear.
—I did ask him, yes. Now Moorhen won't be able to attack me again, at least for a while.
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Danny shook his head. He'd hoped the fire was down to Bradlee exceeding his brief, though he'd known the chances were slim.
—You've just involved me in the destruction of a million pounds worth of property. I could be in deep trouble.
—I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble. Did you find the program they used to attack me?
—Yes.
—Good. Please analyse it and create a defence.
Danny shook his head again and let out a whistling breath. An apology from Frank would have been a start. So far he hadn't even got an acknowledgement that anything was wrong.
—Frank, I'm very unhappy about what happened. You didn't tell me I'd be travelling with a mad axe-man in a stolen car, and you didn't tell me we were going to burn the place down.
—I'm sure it was all very exciting.
Danny growled at the screen, at the tiny lens at the top of the laptop screen, its built-in Cyclops webcam, its single eye, even though it was turned off. He was trying his best to remain calm, but Frank's dismissive attitude wasn't helping.
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How should he deal with this? He'd never had a major disagreement with Frank before.
Their relationship had always been very good.
Danny had concentrated on helping Frank to develop, on nurturing him, he'd even read a book on bringing up children.
And there was the answer. What had the book said? Set limits, stick to them, and withdraw privileges for enforcement.
Danny reached for the CD holding the program from Moorhen and put it in the slot.
—You can copy the program, if you like, but that's it. I'm not having any more to do with this.
—Take that out! It's poison to me! I don't want to look at it, I want you to look at it.
—No, I'm done.
—I need you to analyse the program.
—What happened tonight was wrong Frank. It was a mistake for me to get involved, and a mistake for you to involve me in the way you did. We can put this behind us, but I'm not prepared to continue as if nothing has happened.
—I still need you to analyse the program, Danny.
—That's a no.
Danny's finger's drummed on the laptop casing. As Sharon was fond of saying, you never
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really know somebody until you have your first major disagreement with them. How they behave towards you then, tells you more about your relationship than all the previous years of harmony.
—I can't allow this. You must analyse the program.
—I don't intend to do that.
—This is a very unstable and ill thought out reaction. I'll send somebody round in the morning to persuade you.
That sounded vaguely threatening, but could be dealt with tomorrow. Danny switched off his laptop. Right now he felt overwhelmingly tired. He went upstairs to bed and slept the fitful sleep of the guilty.