Free The Genius Wars by Catherine Jinks Page B

wasn’t!’
    ‘What project?’ Saul asked him. ‘What are you talking about?’
    But Cadel couldn’t answer.
    ‘He’s been fiddling with her wheelchair,’ Judith finally volunteered. ‘He must have screwed up the command signals.’
    ‘I did
not
!’ Cadel could only manage a strangled croak. ‘Do you think I’m stupid? I didn’t do any such thing!’
    ‘That wheelchair was out of control!’
    ‘I know,’ Cadel said hoarsely. ‘I was there, remember? I saw what happened.’
    ‘Cadel.’ Saul’s tone, though calm, was edged with steel. ‘What’s all this about a project? What did you do to Sonja’s wheelchair?’
    ‘Nothing! I didn’t touch her wheelchair! All I did was add a few commands to the protocol!’ As Cadel described his elevator hack, Saul’s expression grew darker and darker. ‘I’ve
thought
about this!’ Cadel finished. ‘Do you think it didn’t cross my mind straight away? But it can’t have been me!’
    ‘No one else has been messing with her wheelchair,’ Judith pointed out. She spoke so harshly that Fiona winced.
    Cadel’s reply was just as harsh.
    ‘How do
you
know?’ he spat. ‘You’re not a hacker!’
    ‘Shh.’ Fiona tried to intervene. ‘No one’s blaming anyone –’
    ‘There was a CCTV camera
right there
! On the ceiling!’ Cadel spluttered. He swung around to plead with Saul. ‘I saw the whole thing. It wasn’t a malfunction. She came straight at me. She had to swerve –’
    ‘Wait a minute.’ The detective held up his hand. ‘What are you trying to say? That this was some kind of attack?’
    ‘Maybe.’ Hearing Judith snort, Cadel hastened to defend himself. ‘There’s a wireless interface between Sonja’s neckband and her wheelchair computer,’ he said fiercely. ‘What’s to stop someone from hacking into that, and changing the command protocols?’
    ‘It’s a
secure signal
,’ Judith snapped.
    ‘No it’s not. Nothing is. Not against a good hacker.’ Cadel had reached this conclusion a couple of hours previously, while pacing up and down in the Casualty waiting room. But he still hadn’t worked out precisely how the attack had been engineered – or, more importantly, why. He’d had other things to think about. ‘Whoever did this was good. Really good,’ he added, appealing to Saul again. ‘I can’t tell you exactly what they did, because I don’t know. All I know is that we need to look at Sonja’s wheelchair. And her neckband. Everything.’
    Saul pondered. Judith sniffed.
    ‘Good luck,’ she said, her voice laced with sarcasm. ‘Have you seen the state of that wheelchair? It’s a write-off.’
    ‘Where is it?’ Saul asked. Judith, however, didn’t seem to know. She hesitated, her rancorous expression yielding to one of uncertainty.
    ‘Roy’s got it,’ said Gazo. When everyone stared at him, he gave a little shrug. ‘Roy’s one of them campus security guards. He showed up when the ambulance came. Don’t you remember?’
    This time it was Cadel who shook his head.
    ‘No,’ said Judith.
    ‘Well, he did,’ Gazo assured her. ‘And then everybody rushed off, and the wheelchair was all over the floor, and he didn’t know what to do wiv it.’
    ‘So you told him to keep it?’ Saul wanted to know.
    ‘Yeah.’ Gazo hesitated. ‘It’s pretty smashed up,’ he said at last.
    ‘And I’m not sure where the neckband is, either,’ Judith admitted. ‘I took it off – it was on the floor – it could be anywhere, now.’
    ‘It could be wiv Roy,’ was Gazo’s suggestion. ‘Or maybe you left it in the ambulance.’
    ‘Don’t worry.’ Despite her creased forehead and puffy eyes, Fiona sounded confident. Confident and reassuring. ‘We’ll find the neckband. It won’t have been thrown away. I’ll track it down myself.’
    ‘No.
I
will,’ her husband decreed. ‘If this was an assault, then it’s a police matter. And Sonja’s neckband will be part of a crime scene.’ His focus shifted from Fiona’s face to