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He drooped one bloodshot eye in a wink.

“So our time has grown short. I’ll send you back to your quarters now to eat your breakfast, but think very carefully. I’m sure you don’t want to suffer any more discomfort. All we need to know is where you put the translation. And the key to the code itself, of course. We’ll want that. Doc, will you escort our young friend?”

Doc went to the door and gestured for Finn, who got up and joined him. “Are you going to be good?” Doc asked.

Finn, who was thinking of bacon and eggs with mushroomies and a plump banger as well, nodded that he would be good. Absolutely. He walked beside Doc to the kitchen, where the oldish man—Marm—was using tongs to put what looked like a perfectly fried sausage on a plate that already held two eggs (fried hard, just the way Finn liked them), four strips of bacon, mushrooms still sizzling in butter, and a slice of tomato. Finn veered toward the plate like a compass needle swinging to magnetic north. Doc pulled him back.

“Wait,” he said. “No grabbing, my son.” And to Marm: “I’ll take it from here. He’ll want you.”

Marm nodded, gave Finn a wink, and headed for Mr. Ludlum’s study.

Doc picked up the plate with its freight of cholesterol-loaded goodies, but as soon as Marm was gone, he put it down again and pulled Finn to the right, away from the pantry and the room beyond.

“Hey!” Finn said. “My breakfast!”

Doc’s hand clamped Finn’s elbow hard enough to hurt. He dragged Finn to a door between the sink and the refrigerator. They emerged in an alley. Finn smelled fresh air tanged with gasoline. The black tradesman’s van was there, the engine running. Mr. Weasel was behind the wheel. When he saw them, he went between the seats into the back. The rear doors flew open.

“Hurry the fuck up,” Pando said.

“No fear, he’ll be in the jakes,” Doc said.

“Yeah, but he don’t stay in there long these days, and he ain’t entirely stupid, even yet. Get in here, son.”

Finn had time for one amazed look at the thin slice of blue sky above the alley, then stumbled into the back of the van. His legs were stiff and he went sprawling, half in and half out. Pando grabbed him and hauled him the rest of the way. From his back pocket he pulled a black hood.

“Put this over your head. No argument. This ain’t the time.”

Finn pulled the bag over his head. His hands were trembling. One of them—Doc, he thought—shouldered into him and he went down on his arse, head banging the side of the van hard enough to see stars inside the bag. The doors slammed shut.

“Go,” Doc snarled. “And mind you don’t get us into a haxcident.”

Finn heard Pando return to the driver’s seat and the squeak of springs as he sat down. The van started to move. There was a pause at the end of the alley, and then a hard right turn.

Doc thumped down beside Finn with a sigh. “Fuck me for a criminal,” he said.

Well, Finn thought, what else would you call yourself?

“Are you taking me somewhere to kill me?” The idea actually didn’t seem so bad. Not compared to being faceup on the drowning board with a sopping towel across his face.

Doc gave a brief grunt of what might have been laughter. “If I’d wanted you dead, I would have let you eat breakfast. The mushrooms were poisoned.”

“What—”

“Poison, poison! You never heard of it, you thick prat?”

“Where are you—”

“Shut up.”

There was a left turn, a right, then some of both as they circled at least two roundabouts. There was a long pause—at a traffic light, Finn assumed—and Pando laid on the horn when the queue didn’t move quick enough to suit him.

“Belay that, you numpty,” Doc called.

On they went. More lefts and rights. Then the van picked up speed, so they were on a faster road, but Finn didn’t hear enough noise to make him believe it was a motorway. Time passed. There was the click of a lighter, then the smell of cigarette smoke.

“He doesn’t let us smoke when we’re on a job,” Doc said.

Finn kept quiet. He was thinking about the poisoned mushrooms. If they had been poisoned.