Страница 35 из 52
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 A
“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.”
A
Lindsay sighed. “Can we sit down somewhere? I don’t even know where to begin.” A
“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, A
“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 ru
“I think I’m begi
A
“Sort of. I mean, I’ve done a couple of exclusives.”
A
“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,” A
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.”
A
“You mean you haven’t been able to crack it?” Lindsay asked, her voice full of disappointment.
“Oh no, it’s not that,” said A
“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,” A
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. A
A
Lindsay sighed again. “Deep waters, A
“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.”