40
‘They write computer games,’ I said. ‘They earn a living from producing computer games.’
I was back in Orlovsky’s computer room, sitting in the armchair.
‘That’s very interesting,’ said Orlovsky, ‘and it supplies a complete and satisfactory explanation for Keith Guinane’s interest in voice systems. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect him to be interested in. It doesn’t necessarily connect them with the Carsons.’
‘Alice Carson said that one day someone put on a computer game for a child and it had a tune repeated over and over.’
I remembered the way her hands had moved from the arms of her chair into her lap, that I could see that she was clenching one hand with the other by the tension in her neck and shoulders.
‘Yes,’ said Orlovsky.
‘She said she felt sick and scared. She couldn’t bear it and had to leave the room. That she vomited.’
‘She also said she’d never heard the tune before,’ Orlovsky said, deadpan.
‘It triggered a memory, something she’d closed out.’
‘I thought repressed memory was a load of bullshit.’
‘Who knows? I’m repressing a lot of memories. They come out in my dreams. What about you? How can we find a game written by the Guinanes?’
‘Frank, this is a waste of time. Accept coincidence. Think about it. Finding Guinane and Carson are both in SeineNet is like finding them both in the telephone directory. How many zillion names do you think are in SeineNet?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘it isn’t coincidence. It can’t be.’
‘Anthea Wyllie, that’s where you should be looking. Have you reminded the cops about her?’
‘Yes. How can we find the game?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t know, there’ll be a fucking list of game authors somewhere, I suppose. Make some coffee. Do you know how to make espresso coffee? Is that part of officer training?’
‘If need be I can make a stimulating drink from a parasitic plant that attaches itself to mangrove roots.’
‘Costa Rican beans will be fine.’
I was in the kitchen watching the coffee drip into the glass jug when my mobile rang. Vella.
‘I should’ve called you before,’ he said. ‘The girl was dead at least thirty-six hours.’
Thirty-six hours? I’d made the demand for the photograph at lunchtime the day before I went to the station…
‘The picture?’
‘Manipulated. Taken with a digital camera. Two pictures brought together. One of her alive holding up the newspaper. Then they changed the newspaper, put another one in its place. They were expecting you to ask for proof. So they took the picture before they killed her.’
I felt tired in my legs, in my arms, in my shoulders, tired and sick.
‘She was electrocuted,’ Vella said. ‘Probably in the bath. There’s more. Not pretty. Want to know?’
‘No. That’s enough.’
‘Not going anywhere fast here. You got anything to add?’
‘No.’ What was there to tell him? That I was running SeineNet on the Carsons’ mainframe and risking his job every second that it was up? And for what? I didn’t know for what.
I was looking at nothing out of the window when Orlovsky came to the door. ‘Can’t believe it. These things can take hours. Fourteen Guinane games registered with the U.S. Patents Office, earliest one is 1985. I might be able to find it on the net. Get most of the early games.’
‘She was dead when they sent the picture,’ I said. ‘Electrocuted. The picture’s been manipulated.’
I looked around. Orlovsky had his forehead against the doorjamb, eyes closed. ‘I’ll find the game,’ he said. ‘Today. I’ll find it today.’
‘Before you do that,’ I said, ‘get Cassie Guinane’s housemate on SeineNet.’
41
Her name was Margaret Patton then and it was Margaret Spears now and it took me three hours to find her in an expensive house in expensive Albert Park. She was very reluctant to see me.
‘We’ve only just moved in,’ she said. She was fortyish, fair and pretty, flushed cheekbones, a doll’s face, a grownup doll wearing a dress with pleats in the front. ‘We got back from England three weeks ago.’
Her husband came down the passage, a tall man, sleek dark hair. ‘Hamish Spears,’ he said, putting out a hand. ‘It’s related to this awful Carson thing, is it?’
I shook his hand. ‘Frank Calder. Yes, it is. I’m sorry to be a nuisance.’
Margaret Spears said, ‘I don’t understand how Cassandra is connected…’
‘We don’t either,’ I said. ‘But we think there’s a possible connection. If I can have ten minutes.’
‘Of course you can,’ said Hamish Spears. ‘Come in. I’m an accountant. Abergeldie, Smith, Alberstam. We’ve done some work for CarsonCorp. Shopping-centre business. Nice people to do business with.’
Carson, the magic name, opener of doors, inspirer of greed and fear.
He led the way into a chintzy sitting room with a pale rose-coloured carpet and plump furniture. ‘Frank, I’ll leave you two alone,’ he said. ‘Maggie, give Frank a drink.’
She cocked her head. I shook mine.
‘Please sit down,’ she said. ‘It’s so long ago. What can I tell you now?’
‘I’ve read the transcript of your interview with the police in 1986,’ I said. ‘There wasn’t much you could tell them.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Well, I didn’t really know her. It was just a notice-board thing. And we were both private people. To tell you the truth, we were unlikely house-sharers. She saw my notice on the board. My parents had bought the house and I needed a tenant. We weren’t friends or anything. I was a bit straitlaced, I suppose.’
‘And she wasn’t?’
‘Well. After she moved in, someone told me she’d had an affair with a lecturer when she was an undergraduate. In second year. That’s not very straitlaced, is it?’
‘No. Men came to the house?’
‘No. Only her father. He was a frightening type.’
‘In what way?’
Margaret shrugged. ‘Big and angry-looking. A beard. He always seemed to be angry with her. Never came in. She’d go out and they’d talk in the street or in his Land Rover. Dirty, covered in mud. She seemed frightened of him. Terrified, really.’
‘You didn’t tell the police that.’
‘Didn’t I? I suppose it didn’t seem important. They weren’t interested in her father. Boyfriends, anyone I’d seen her with at uni, that’s what they wanted to know about.’
She paused, scratched her hairline with perfect nails, moved her head quickly. She was uncomfortable.
I waited.
‘I really didn’t want to get involved,’ she said. ‘Frankly, the father scared me too.’
I waited, looking at her. She couldn’t hold my gaze, swallowed. There was something else she wanted to say.
‘I was a coward. Just a girl from the country. I didn’t want the police going to her father and saying that I said she was scared of him. Anyway, I was just reading that into her behaviour, I didn’t know that.’ She frowned. ‘I didn’t know her. If I’d known her…’
‘That’s perfectly understandable,’ I said, smiled at her, waited, wouldn’t be the one to speak.
She exhaled loudly. ‘Yes, well, about four years later, the strangest thing happened. The place next door had
