performance in Sydenham put me right off my stride with the clue. At least, that was what I told myself. The truth was, I hadn't got any further with it. Slash's suggestion in the message he texted that Doris Carlton-Jones might be the victim was smart, but I found it hard to believe. Sara might have had issues with her birth mother, but I didn't think she'd murder her. Then again, what did I know? I'd spent over a year sharing a bed with her, and it had never occurred to me until the end that she was working with the White Devil.
Looking at the puzzle again, I couldn't see any direct link to Doris Carlton-Jones, but I didn't have enough information to be sure about that. Maybe the sun setting, the westernmost dunes and Alexander's womankind would mean something to her. I considered getting Andy to ask her, but decided against it. I texted him, saying that he should stay in the vicinity till further notice, just in case she was the target.
I looked at my watch. Under two hours to go. The floor of the hotel room was covered in crumpled paper. I was still trying out ideas, but as the deadline approached, they were getting more and more abstruse. I logged on to the Internet and went to the site Rog had set up. Neither he nor Pete had come up with anything coherent regarding the clue. Rog had managed to run it through all sorts of encryption software and got nothing but gobbledy- gook. I was sure it was the kind of puzzle that needed a human rather than a digital brain.
I found myself tantalized by some of the words. 'Set'-there was something lurking in the back of my mind about that. What else could it mean? As a noun, a number or group of people or things; a complete series; a team of horses; a receiving apparatus, like a wireless set; the movements in a dance. Where did that get me? As a verb, to cause to sit; to place; to sink, like the sun-as in the clue; to prescribe; to adjust; to come into a rigid state. Great-that was also going nowhere. I had the feeling this was a puzzle that didn't abide by the unwritten rules of crossword clues. Maybe there wasn't even a logical answer.
It was nearly eleven o'clock. I thought seriously about calling Karen. But what good would that do now? The police were unlikely to come up with a convincing answer when Rog, Pete and I, plus numerous computer programs, hadn't. If I'd given it to Karen in the morning, she could have got a warrant to find who had set up the who'snext e-mail address-but that would have been pointless, too, because the writer wouldn't have given a real name and address. Then I remembered the message. Flaminio or Doctor Faustus, whether Sara or not, had told me not to involve the cops, but that I was expected to show the clue to my mother. How did the writer know that Fran was a cryptic crossword addict? Sara did, because she'd seen my mother doing the Guardian crossword and had asked why she didn't do the one in the Daily Independent, where Sara used to work. Fran had told her that the setter there had an infantile sense of humor. Shit! 'Setter'-that derived from 'set.' Was that what was going on? Sara had set the clue and hinted in the message that Fran would spot the answer?
There was under three quarters of an hour to go. Was this a deliberate move on Sara's part to get me to contact my mother? Could she have some sort of surveillance on me or my mother that would be activated by an e-mail or telephone call? I didn't see how. I'd changed phone and laptop, and Fran would have put a new SIM card in by now. But I was still reluctant. I'd managed to get my mother and Lucy, plus Caroline, out of the killer's sights. I didn't want to do anything to put them back in them.
In the end, the steady ticking of the second hand on my watch got to me. I sent an e-mail to Caroline. Nearly half-past eleven. Would they still be awake? My heart started pounding and I paced around the room until the person in the room beneath thumped on his ceiling.
There was a chime from my computer. Caroline had answered. I've woken your mother. She's looking at the clue. We'll reply by 11:55. C.
I breathed a sigh of relief. One of the good things about Caroline was her crisis management. She'd got used to panics at the bank and reacted well to pressure. Unless it was from me-somehow she'd never managed to reproduce her cool office manner at home.
Then another thought struck me. Katya. I didn't know her surname. If she really was the target, Sara might easily disqualify my answer if I didn't give the full name-the White Devil had done that kind of thing. I called Safet Shkrelli.
The phone was answered with a grunted monosyllable that presumably meant something in Albanian. I explained what I wanted.
'Ask her yourself,' Shkrelli said. There was a rustling noise, then Katya came on the line.
'Are you in a safe place?' I asked.
'Yes, I think so. We are at-'
'Don't tell me!' I said, the words coming out in a rush. 'There may be surveillance. What's your full name?'
She paused, as if reluctant to give up the last remnant of her self. I was pretty sure that Safet Shkrelli had never bothered to ask her name.
'Katerina Petrova Georgieva.'
'Thank you,' I said. 'Take care. And remember, I can get you out of there.'
There was a bitter male laugh. 'You, Matt Wells? You're the one who has put her life in danger. Fuck you.' The connection was cut.
I sat down on the lumpy bed and dropped the phone. Was that really what I had done? Had Sara-or whoever Flaminio/Doctor Faustus was-chosen Katya because of the one meeting I'd had with her? Now, as the minute hand neared twelve, it seemed desperately unlikely. I looked again at the clue, but the words blurred into a meaningless jumble of letters. At least the whole sentence wasn't an anagram-Rog's digital tools had checked that.
Five minutes till my mother came back with her thoughts, nine till I had to answer. The full significance of what was happening hit me. Someone's life hung on what I sent. If Sara had set the clue, she'd found a perfect way to get revenge for the White Devil's death. In effect, I was being turned into a murderer.
The woman woke in the late evening, without a clue where she was.
'Come on, girl,' she said, her Texan accent at odds with the whimsical decor of Wilde's. It claimed to be the city's premier hotel for the discerning gay traveler but, as far as she was concerned, lime-green net curtains and pink-and-white-striped wallpaper were several steps too far down the road to Reading Gaol.
'Yeah, that's it,' she remembered. 'I'm in London- according to the incomparable William Cobbett, the Great fuckin' Wen.'
She got up and went into the bathroom. A large, old- fashioned bath took up most of the room. For someone who was over six feet, that didn't leave much room for other functions, even if she had kept her weight below the 140 pound mark. As she straddled the toilet, she recalled what had happened earlier in the day. Her publishers had taken her out to lunch, during which her editor had made it very clear that they wanted to sign her up for at least another four books.
'Talk to Lenny,' she'd said. Her agent would know how to squeeze every last drop of money out of them. When her editor, a youngish guy with an earring, went off to the john, she'd spoken to her publicist.
'Lavinia, honey, you gotta get me outta this hotel. Yeah, I know it's supposed to be the coolest place in town, but it is definitely not my kind of cool.' She listened as her publicist reminded her about the interview she was scheduled to give at Wilde's the next morning.
'Oh, well, all right, but just tonight. I'd rather stay in a motel than this crummy dump.' She held up a hand. 'No, honey, I know you don't have motels in London. No, you don't have to come along. I can handle the Times journalist. With one hand tied behind my back.' She had three university degrees, in subjects ranging from English literature to computer science, but she liked to play the Southern belle, lesbian version. She knew that people always paid more attention to your jugs than your certificates. In her case, that meant a lot of attention. Even her ever-so-gay editor couldn't keep his eyes off them.
Blinking, she gave the bath and its clawed feet a cursory inspection. It wouldn't have been the first time she'd brought herself to climax in one when she was touring books, but she really preferred the shower. What was it with the Brits and their baths? How the hell were you supposed to get clean, sitting in water you'd just made dirty? She turned the regulator up as far as it went, and stepped into the torrent. After ten minutes, the last of her jet lag was well on its way to the departure lounge.
She decided she'd hit a club. As she got dressed in her standard evening wear-boot-cut, slim-fitting black Levi's and matching shirt with polished quartz buttons, custom-made for her-she thought about the book she'd read on the plane. She knew she'd met the writer at one of the mystery conventions-was it Madison, Wiscon- sin?-but she was having trouble recalling what he looked like. Why was it that Brits thought they could write American characters? Then again, there were several American crime writers who imagined they could write Brits. The hero she'd shared her journey with was one hell of an asshole, even by real-life FBI standards- and that was saying
