He leaned inside and checked the back of the trunk space. The sides and floor were carpeted; the overhead panel beyond the lid, bare metal. The farthermost recess, high at the rear, was lined by a foam-backed rubber strip, molded into the angle and glued to exclude drafts. Kevin reached up and checked along with his fingers. The rubber was not solidly anchored all the way along. Behind it he could feel gaps between the structural bracings. The gaps probably opened through to space behind the rear seating. He straightened up and looked at the house. All was quiet and still. Kevin picked up his two boxes, carried them inside, and went on down to the lab.
He sorted through the mec boxes on a shelf at the back and picked a black one about cigarette-pack-size, built to hold three of the smaller mecs, and checked that its batteries were good. For mecs he selected two: Tigger, the chain-saw wielder; and Mr. Toad, which with its huge eyes would make a great spy. Then he renewed the batteries in Taki’s relay, rewrapped it in the plastic, and put it, along with some packing foam and adhesive tape, a Stanley knife, screwdrivers and a few other items that he might need, in a portable tool carrier. To these he added the flashlamp from its hook by the stairs, then went out via the rear door and back around to the car.
He cut a slit through the rubber high up in a corner at the back of the trunk, where only deliberate searching would have found it, and probed through with a screwdriver to explore the other side. Bringing his face up close and peering through with the flashlight, he verified that it was the space behind the rear seatback. He taped the relay to the metal behind the flap of carpeting that he had loosened, extending the antenna that Taki said worked better in confined metal spaces behind the rubber strip. He secured the mec box next to the relay, leaving the incision open so that a mec emerging from the box would have access both ways, forward or backward. That way, he reasoned, it would be possible to “bug” (he rather liked the double meaning), say, a purse or coat left on a seat in the passenger compartment, or a bag placed in the trunk.
The sound of a motor came through the trees, and Eric’s van appeared from the driveway just as Kevin was finishing up. He waited while it drew up alongside the Jaguar. Corfe switched the motor off and wound down the window. “Hi, Kev. Being an early bird today, eh?”
“Not really. I always figured that stuff about birds is an example of vertebrate chauvinism. Nobody ever thinks of it from the worms’ point of view: Early worms get eaten. I’m with the worms.” It was a tired line that he had voiced before. He was speaking mechanically, his expression distant, still preoccupied with the unreal charade that was playing itself out inside the house.
“Watcha up to?” Corfe asked.
“Oh . . . just taking some stuff inside.”
Corfe cocked an eyebrow pointedly. “How is everything in there?”
“Just . . . like normal. I can’t believe it. It feels eerie.”
“I know what you mean. Is Eric up?”
“Yes. He’s in the kitchen.”
“Maybe I’ll come in and have a coffee and say hi. Like me to drop you off at school afterward?”
“Sure.”
Corfe climbed out and closed the van door. They began walking up to the house. Kevin decided that until there was something specific to use his planted mec spies for, he couldn’t see any good reason to mention them.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Hello, Ms. Lang?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks for holding. Yes, I have the record here: Jonathan Charles Anastole, age 52, died March three this year. The cause of death registered here was myocardial infarction. There’s no indication of anything unusual. The exterior examination showed a couple of minor abrasions, but nothing that would be associated with cause of death. No organ abnormalities. . . . Blood alcohol negative.”
“Is there a toxicological report—poisons, neural agents, that kind of thing?”
“Those tests are specific. We wouldn’t normally screen for them unless there was a reason to be looking for something like that. It wasn’t requested in this instance.”