The Lucifer Code by Michael Cordy

the thrashing sharks.
    'As we agreed, there must be no evidence,' he said, as if she wasn't there. 'Nothing that can be traced back to the Church.'
    'I don't understand,' Sister Constance said, as he turned away and she heard the putt-putt of the boat's engine start up again.
    Then the crew, their bloodstained hands redder than her robes, closed in, forcing her to the end of the sloop. Before she could protest, the man with the hook prodded her hard in the chest, pushing her backwards into the sea.
    As the cold water made her gasp and the first frenzied shark bit into her left foot, she still didn't understand why this was happening. Even as the razor-sharp teeth of a Great White ripped into her pelvis, tearing her apart, she screamed out Monsignor Diageo's name, convinced there had been a dreadful mistake.
    *

Barley Hall
    After leaving Amber Grant with the staff nurse and settling her in to the Think Tank for the night, Fleming turned his attention to two of his other patients. He prided himself on treating all his charges with the same level of compassion and professional care, but Rob and Jake were special.
    As he walked to the workshop, he was relieved he hadn't fought too hard with the director against seeing Amber. His curiosity was piqued, and he was convinced he could help her. Also, by putting Rob's trial back till tomorrow, he could give him a surprise that would lift his spirits.
    The Barley Hall workshop was the one element of Fleming's research facility that wasn't housed in the east wing. For reasons no one could remember it was located at the far end of the west wing where Bobby Chan's team worked. Here, in an extended shed, science merged with art, where electronics, metal, latex and space-age materials were combined to create prosthetics that behaved and looked like human limbs.
    When Fleming entered a technician was peeling a disconcertingly lifelike arm from a skeleton of metal and wires. Foot and hand moulds lined a wall in ascending order of size. Drums of differing skin pigments were stacked beneath a workbench, and in the far corner of the shed Bill, the chief technician, was honing a shapely left leg. To Fleming's right a series of finished limbs was stacked against the wall. All were wrapped in plastic and bore identification tags, like dry-cleaning awaiting collection. Most were single arms or legs of various shapes and sizes. But slightly apart from the rest was a tiny pair of legs. Each leg was so lifelike that, somehow, Fleming could hardly bear to look at them.
    Bill raised his face mask, switched off the lathe and pointed at them. 'I've put the final latex coat on. The feet are moulded from my own boy's.'
    Fleming picked them up. As always he was surprised by their weight, although they were no heavier than natural limbs. The detail, particularly of the feet and toes, touched him. 'They look fantastic, Bill, thanks a lot.'
    Bill raised his right thumb in a salute. 'Good luck.'
    Such was the nature of the clinic that few people commented when Fleming walked back to the east wing carrying the little pair of prosthetic legs. When he reached the other end of the building, he stopped outside the double doors of the physiotherapy suite and peered through circular windows into the large hall with its exercise equipment, walking frames and therapy pool. Only two people were inside.
    His nephew, Jake, was sitting on the polished wooden floor with his back to the door, playing with some plastic bricks while Pam Fleming, the child's grandmother, watched over him. Jake had lived with his paternal grandparents since the accident and Fleming had asked his mother to bring him here at six o'clock. She was small and birdlike with short fair hair streaked with grey, but she hovered protectively over her grandson. Both she and Fleming's father had been pillars of support since the tragedy.
    Fleming watched as Jake stacked brick after brick until he had created a tower almost as tall as himself. Then he built