Serafina and the Virtual Man - By Marie Treanor Page 0,94

here,” he said.

“I know.” Dale’s gaze moved beyond him. He actually twisted his neck to peer through the open living room door. “What are you doing?”

“Work. For the launch.”

Dale straightened. “I signed all the responsibility over to you.”

“I know. They’ll still do you for fraud.”

Dale drew in his breath. “I came to say I’m sorry.”

Adam laughed.

Dale coloured. “I know it’s inadequate, but what else is there?”

“Nothing, Dale,” Adam said deliberately. “Nothing at all.”

“I’ll go to prison. We both will.”

“I hate to be vindictive, but so you bloody should.”

“I know,” Dale said humbly. “And I know it’s out of your hands. You couldn’t stop it if you wanted to, and I don’t blame you for not wanting.”

“Good.”

“I just—I just wanted you to understand. It was for her. Petra.”

“I know.”

“I love her. Can you understand that?”

For the first time, pity for Dale began to outweigh all Adam’s confused emotions of hurt and anger and disgust.

“I can understand love,” he said evenly. “What I can’t understand is loving someone who’d want or even accept what Petra demanded of you. I’ve known you for years. I was best man at your wedding. And yet I never fucking knew you.”

“I never knew myself,” Dale said hollowly. “I never meant to kill you, just take the company from you. I thought you’d just storm off in a rage and set up on your own. I thought I could live without your friendship if we had all the company, all the income from the new system.”

Adam stared at him. “Why didn’t you just ask?”

Dale shook his head. “You’d have said no.”

That was probably true.

“A poor excuse for theft,” Dale added quickly. “But as you know it went beyond that and I had to cover my own ass as well as Petra’s. At first I was just relieved Petra hadn’t killed you. It was Petra who kept you from bleeding to death, you know.” His lips tugged upward at one side. “She said we couldn’t bury two bodies in the garden, and Killearn was already dead. It was my idea to hook you up to the VR. I could pretend to myself we hadn’t killed you that way, and when Petra wanted to turn off the VR and deal with the problem, I wouldn’t let her, even when we thought the poltergeist might be you. You could say she did that for me.

“But it got harder to keep everything straight. Trying to think of you as dead so I didn’t betray you were alive. Thinking of you alive to stop myself going mad with guilt.”

Dale stopped talking. Getting no response, he swallowed. “I just want you to understand, I’m sorry I couldn’t change it.”

Adam’s smile was twisted. “No, you couldn’t, could you? I gave you the opportunity, and even in a game you wouldn’t stop her. I think we’re finished here, Dale, don’t you?”

Dale nodded with genuine misery and half turned away. “At any rate, I’m glad to see you looking so well.”

“No harm done, eh?” Adam mocked, and Dale’s uncomfortable flush deepened. Adam took pity once more. “For what it’s worth, you probably did the world a favour. Stuart and the rest of the medical profession are stunned by what the VR machine did for me over five months. They’re investigating possibilities for coma victims.”

Dale almost laughed, almost like old times, almost like the half-guilty laughter over sick student jokes. But only almost.

****

On Saturday morning, while Jilly was having a late breakfast, the buzzer sounded and she found her brother Andy on her doorstep. She let him in the security door without a word and opened the flat door for him while she went to put the kettle on.

“What’s got you up so early?” she asked, when he strolled into the kitchen.

He shrugged and threw himself onto a kitchen chair. He wore tracksuit bottoms, and a hoodie covered his fair head. He looked as if he’d had a hard night out stealing cars. “Ma said you were looking for me. And I wanted to tell you Axel’s in clink. No bail.” He grinned at her. “Thanks.”

Jilly grunted. “Keep it in your trousers if you don’t want it cut off.” She poured two mugs of tea and shoved one across the table to him before sitting down, taking the bank notes from under the salt cellar, and pushing them toward him too.

“What’s this?” Andy asked suspiciously.

“Go to London if you want. Go and find that girl if you were prepared to risk the wrath of Axel for her.