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. You didn t really expect him, did you? Hamzah asked his daughter gently.There was no anger in his voice, no accusation.Just the acceptance of basicfacts.Chief among them was that the last time Ashraf drove out to VillaHamzah, she d flatly refused to see him.Actually, Raf hadn t driven himselfat all, Avatar was the one behind the wheel and she d been cross about thattoo.Expect him? She expected nothing.That Av was missing was a given, Zara knew that.Her father only ever saw thekid if he knew her mother was busy elsewhere.And even that was a recentdevelopment, poor little bastard.Which was what Av was.In a city wherepolygamy was normal, to be illegitimate was by definition to be poor, one ofthe unwanted. Here, said the major as he handed her a linen napkin, spotless anduncreased,  you might want this.Zara looked at him blankly. You re crying, he said.She was too, which might explain the soft edges to the streets outside.CHAPTER 10___________7th OctoberThe girl at the window was unmistakable as the restaurant car trundled by.Herdesolation so real that Raf could almost taste it through glass.Been there, felt that.He wore dark glasses from habit, a leather coat lined with spider s silk andboots with toe caps and black metal heels.Behind the Armani shades his eyeshad four colour receptors, as they had done from birth, one more than strictlyhuman.His fourth was in ultraviolet, though he could recalibrate across theentire spectrum.Sound he adjusted by opening and closing his inner ear.So far, sopredictable, if somewhat simplified.Unpredictability started with the fox,which now spat static, swore and raged inside his head.The police bike on which Raf sat came with twin headlamps, featuring the verylatest in multielement cluster/light guide technology, but he d disconnectedthem at the same time as he cut the wires to the brake light and both sets ofPage 28ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlindicators.The reflectors he d ripped off by hand.Matte black alloys wentwith a racer-noir engine cage and a light-swallowing paint job.The whole bikewas gloriously transparent toCCTV.The paint job was fresh and done by a garage at cost.A lot of people in thecity suddenly wanted to be friends with the new Chief ofDetectives.As it was, Raf practically had to order his local store to startcharging full price for groceries and only the threat of taking his businesselsewhere had convinced the manager Raf was serious. You certain some fuckwit intends to snatch her?Raf wasn t sure whether to nod or cry, so he nodded.The fox might be back butit had rebooted to a default personality.And Raf had always thought the foxwas the stable one while he suffered the glitches. Says who?demanded the fox.Said every snitch on the precinct s payroll, every cut-rate whore trying tocop a plea, even a few semihonest members of the public too afraid to leavetheir names.Rumour had hit the streets on steroids and been breaking laprecords ever since.The why changed with every telling, but the what was rock-solid, whisperedfrom under veils and escaping like smoke in the cafés from between half-openlips; somehow, and it was a very indeterminate somehow, tables had been turnedon Hamzah, the man himself had been made the proverbial offer that can t be.only he had, and as of now, Hamzah s kid was a walking target.Everybodybut everybody who was anybody, who knew that kind of thing, already knew it.Hamzah included. Daddy s rich? Come on, Raf muttered crossly.For a while the fox said little, so Raf went back to worrying about Hani,because some days that felt like what he did best.Just before leaving home, Raf had asked the kid if there was anything sheneeded, meaning toast or hot chocolate before bed, and she d looked at him,her arms like sticks and small face serious, flicked her dark fringe fromdarker eyes and said,  more time.So that was what he was trying to give her.Time and space.Life s greatshortage for those who already had the luxury of water and food.Since the incident at the warehouse, Zara hated him, fair enough.Raf couldlive with that, but Hani s mistrust really hurt.He saw it in her everysilence, her refusal to eat when he was in the madersa s huge kitchen, insideways glances and half-conscious flickers of fear.Most of the time Raf managed to convince himself that it was just hisimagination.And then he d come home to some unguarded look or catch amuttered reassurance from Donna to Hani, as the kid was sent to kiss him goodnight before trundling off to bed.Puddles, Hamzah had said, surprising Raf, the one time they talked.Adultsmight labour upstream against their grief but children step in and out ofsadness, trailing it after them in damp footprints.Only to step back intomisery when the ground behind them begins to look dry.CHAPTER 11___________7th October I m fine, Zara insisted. No, you re not. There was a determined expression on her mother s face [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]