14

Lindsay cursed the one-way system that had turned a city she knew like the back of her hand into a convoluted maze. Wryly she remembered the April Fool’s Day joke that had been played by a bunch of math students when she’d been an undergraduate. They’d worked out that if they reversed just one sign in the traffic system, vehicles would be able to enter but not to leave it. The city had ground to an infuriated, hooting halt by eight in the morning, a problem it had taken the traffic experts till noon to solve. The memory kept Lindsay mildly amused until she finally pulled into the car park at the Computer Sciences Laboratory at eleven. She had stopped only to plead with Duncan for a day off, a request he reluctantly granted after she had delivered a short, first-person piece about her visit to the hospital. Since the Clarion had changed the front page to accommodate her story from the night before, the pugnacious news editor was determined to milk their exclusive line for all it was worth. Lindsay had deliberately left out all references to ghosts and stressed Deborah’s ignorance of her attacker’s identity. Then, with great satisfaction, she switched off her radio pager for the day.

“Lindsay!” exclaimed Annie as she emerged into the reception area looking more like an earth mother than a computer scientist, dressed as she was in a Laura Ashley print. “I thought you were going to phone.” She escorted Lindsay through the security doors and down an air-conditioned corridor.

“Sorry,” said Lindsay. “It’s just that… well, I needed to be doing something and I can’t get any further till I know what’s on that tape.”

Annie stopped in her tracks and studied her friend carefully. “What’s happened, Lindsay? You look completely out of it. Getting involved with murders doesn’t seem to agree with you.”

Lindsay sighed. “Can we sit down somewhere? I don’t even know where to begin.” Annie ushered Lindsay into her office, a tiny cubby hole with a remote terminal dominating it. Lindsay slumped into a low, easy chair while Annie sat at her desk. Lindsay lit a cigarette then stubbed it out almost immediately, remembering that it was forbidden in the computer areas.

“Last night, somebody tried to kill Deborah and nearly succeeded. It was me who found her. I thought… I thought she was going to die. It was terrible, Annie. Made me realise… I don’t know… how dangerous all of this is. Unless someone equally screwy is out to avenge Crabtree’s death, it’s got to be Crabtree’s murderer. But it’s too much a coincidence to believe there are two different killers on the loose. And that means, as far as I’m concerned, that it’s a race against time to prove who really did it before he has another go and succeeds.” Annie nodded encouragingly.

“I thought I could rely on the police to get their fingers out,” Lindsay went on. “But I don’t know, it all seems very strange to me. For some reason it’s a uniformed copper who’s running the show, not the CID, and there’s some guy who’s always around who’s either Special Branch or something odd. And somehow there doesn’t seem to be any urgency about what’s going on. This cop, Rigano, seems dead straight, but even he’s not getting the action going. To begin with, he was keen enough to enlist my help and stay abreast of what I was up to. But now, it’s almost as if he doesn’t want me to get any closer to the truth.

“I think I’m beginning to have just an inkling of an idea about who did it, but I haven’t a clue why. I think the answer, or part of it, is that tape.”

Annie grimaced. “Well, add that to the murderer’s assumption that Debs will have told you all she knows, and you could be the next target. And knowing you, I suppose all this is upfront in the Daily Clarion?”

“Sort of. I mean, I’ve done a couple of exclusives.”

Annie thought for a moment. “And?” she prompted.

“And what? Isn’t that enough? That I could be next on a killer’s hit list?”

“I know you. There’s something else. Something personal.”

Lindsay gave a tired smile. “I’d forgotten how sharp you can be,” she said. “Yes, there is something more. But it seems hellish trivial beside the real problems of people getting hurt and killed. I’m having a difficult time with Cordelia just now. She seems jealous of the time I spend at the camp, especially now Debs is there.”

“Hmm,” Annie murmured. “She does have a point, though, doesn’t she?”

Lindsay looked astonished. “I didn’t-”

“You didn’t have to, lovey. It’s not what you say, Lindsay, it’s how you say it. ’Twas ever thus with you. And if it’s that obvious to me, who hasn’t seen you for months, then it must stick out like a sore thumb to Cordelia. She must be feeling very threatened. If I were you, I’d make a point of going home tonight, no matter what other calls you think there are on your time.”

Lindsay smiled. “I’d love to do just that. But a lot depends on what you’ve got to tell me about that tape. I’m convinced that that’s where the answers lie.”

Annie frowned. “I hope not,” she said. She unlocked her desk and took out a pile of print-out paper and the tape. “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” she said. “I don’t think you’ll find many answers here.”

“You mean you haven’t been able to crack it?” Lindsay asked, her voice full of disappointment.

“Oh no, it’s not that,” said Annie cheerfully. “I won’t bore you with the details, but I must thank you for a really challenging task. It took me a lot longer that I thought. I didn’t get to bed till three, you know, I was so caught up in this. Whoever constructed that programme knew exactly what he was doing. But it was one of those thorny problems that I can’t bear to give up till I’ve solved it.

“So I stuck with it. And this is what I came up with.” She handed Lindsay a sheaf of print-outs, consisting of pages of letters and numbers in groups.

“Is this it?” asked Lindsay. “I’m sorry, it’s completely meaningless to me. What does it represent?”

“That’s what I don’t know for sure,” Annie admitted. “It may be some encoded information, or that in itself could be the information. But unless you know what it is you’re looking for, it doesn’t take you any further forward in itself. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, if that’s any help.”

Lindsay shook her head. “I hoped that this would solve everything. I think I was looking for a motive for murder. But I seem to have ended up with another complication. Annie, do you know anybody who might be able to explain this print-out?”

Annie picked up her own copy of the printed message and studied it again. “It’s not my field, and I’m not sure whose it is until I know what it is, if you see what I mean.” She sighed. “The only thing that occurs to me, and it’s the vaguest echo from a seminar I went to months ago, is that it might possibly be some kind of signals traffic. I don’t know for sure, and I can’t even put my finger on why I believe that. But that’s all I can go on. And I can’t put you in touch with anyone who might help because, if it is signals intelligence, then the ninety-nine per cent probability is that it’s Official Secrets Act stuff. I’m bound by that, and so is anyone else who might help. And if I put you in touch, they’ll have to report the contact in both directions. Just what have you got yourself into this time, Lindsay?”

Lindsay sighed again. “Deep waters, Annie.”

“You should be talking to the police about this.”

“I can’t, not yet. I don’t trust what’s going on, I told you.”

“Where did this come from, Lindsay? For my own protection, I think you need to tell me a bit more about the provenance of this tape. It all looks extremely dodgy to me.”