ATV9AXLPCIU4D8I3AT5RIPNLC4A903753Q0201 on it.
1,3,5,7 and so on — what if the disc’s owner had used this for the key as well as the code for the disc. I scribbled down only the characters that related to the odd numbers.
It read
Avalcudia5inca07300 — or Av Alcudia 5, Inca, 07300
I cracked a bottle of seriously expensive wine ten seconds later. The next part was easy. I applied the same logic to the other sheet and came up with compte13214alacontrasenyaryder.
It still looked like rubbish.
I slugged at the wine and sat back. Maybe the second sheet worked to a different code. I picked up the pen and tried another variant highlighting every even number — still gibberish. I tried every third number, every fourth. I tried starting with the second letter and choosing every third and fourth. I tried every fifth and then I tried the first number, the second number the fourth the eighth and so on.
Sheet after scribbled sheet ended up in a pile on the table. I threw none away. I wanted to ball each failure up and sling it in the bin but how was I to know that there weren’t two steps to this and that the secret lay in taking an earlier attempt and applying another code.
I finished the bottle of wine and rested my head in my hands.
‘My good wine, you bastard.’
I woke up to Martin shaking me. I looked at the clock. It was gone two o’clock.
‘Sorry but I thought I had cracked this bloody code.’
I showed him the first sheet. He smiled or rather his lips moved up at the edges — it could have been a sneer but I was in alcohol fuzz mode.
He picked up the second sheet and I handed him my first attempt at decoding it. He looked at for a few seconds and then bent down. He placed the decoded sheet on the table, and spread it out trying to even out the creases and folds. He picked up a pen and circled the last five letters on it.
Ryder
We were left with. compte13214alacontrasenya
‘And?’ I said.
‘Give me a minute.’
He took the sheet over to the computer and typed the whole line into Google. I followed him over and watched as the screen came up with:
Your search — compte13214alacontrasenya — did not match any documents.
He laid the sheet next to the computer and doodled for a second before putting a ring around the letters ‘compte’, another ring round ‘13214’ and a final ring around ‘alacontrasenya’
He pumped ‘compte’ into Google. It produced a few hits — mostly to do with French. Martin brought up a French/English on line dictionary. He inputted the word and the translator spat out ‘count’ or ‘amount’.
‘French?’ I said.
He ignored me. He entered the word Catalan and English in the Google box and got a site that translated ‘compte’ as ‘account’. He put in ‘alacontrasenya’ into the site. It came up blank. He started to chew the pen and then entered ‘a la contrasenya’. It blanked. He entered just ‘contrasenya’ and the site threw up ‘password’.
He grabbed a new sheet and wrote:
Account — 13214 (a) (ala)
Password — ryder.
‘Ta da. I think this is the account number and the password for the bank you found. I can’t be sure of the account number because the ‘a’ and the ‘la’ may be part of the word ‘contrasenya’ or they may not.’
‘How the hell did you get to Catalan?’
‘ Mallorca is connected in some way to Catalan — or something — I’m no expert. The first word was in French but Catalan and French have links and given the bank was in Mallorca I gave it a go. Amazing what you can do on the internet.’
‘Clever,’ I said, ‘But the address for the Colonya Caixa de Pollenca in Inca is at number 9, not number 5 Alcudia Ave?
So there we finished and I wasn’t sure how much closer to revenge on Dupree I was. We had a photo of four men — two of whom we knew. A connection to an old Glasgow criminal. An account number and password for a bank in Spain (maybe). And what?
It was too late for the hostel so I blagged the couch in Martin’s room and fell asleep in seconds.
Chapter 39
Friday February 15 th 2008
It’s strange how some things work out. I spent yesterday running over the evening at Martin’s. The highs and lows of working through the puzzle. The resolution that turns out not to be a resolution but yet another puzzle.
I jumped a bus into the city centre and went for a walk, mindful that whoever was after me might know where I now lived and could be following. I kept to the busy parts of town and looked over my shoulder so often I must have looked like some day release patient from the local nut-shop pretending to be a spy on a secret mission.
In between the looks over my shoulder I ran through my head what I knew and decided it was nowhere near enough to make a decision on what to do next.
If Dupree’s demise lay buried in the photos or hidden in the bank account, then better people than myself and Martin were needed. Such people exist and I may have been locked up for fourteen years but my network of contacts has not faded to the point where it is useless. Some of them are dead and some have moved on but there are enough around that could help if I wanted to raise my head above the parapet and call on them.
But therein lies the problem. I haven’t contacted anyone because I want to keep my profile low — very low.
As I walked by the HMV record shop on Argyle St I caught the sound of The Beloved as they threw out the invitation to Lose Yourself In Me. Strange to hear a nineties band blaring out — maybe it was greatest hits season — although post Christmas seemed an odd time if it was.
I like The Beloved — chilled music before the term chilled was hijacked by the dance brigade as post drug come down music. Jon Marsh’s voice always sounded the way I thought people would who only ever breathed out and I mouthed the words — probably adding to the lunatic cover I was building — mouthing, shoulder looks and the dress sense of Wurzel Gummidge — I was your friendly neighborhood fruit bat.
I was a yard past the front door to the store when it hit me. Lose Yourself In Me. It was exactly what I was doing to myself. I’d swapped one prison for another. One with physical bars for one with mental bars. I was free to wander the streets but I had no money, little human contact and soon no roof over my head.
I could see myself down on the river front, lying under the bridge with the other down and outs. I could taste the meths, smell the shit, feel the concrete under my bum. Ice cold in winter — stinking hot in the summer. I could see the spot in Buchanan St where I would squat down and hold out cupped hands waiting for someone to drop ten pence or spit on me.
I stopped walking and listened to the music. What was I doing? I‘d once had a hell of a life and the balls to hold onto it. I was a millionaire. Ok a bent millionaire but I had the cash, the status and, best of all, a future and now I was shuffling around Glasgow in rags. Next I’d start thinking about how long before death makes this all go away.
I focused my thoughts on Dupree and what the bastard had done to me. What was the down side of going after him? What in the hell was he going to do to me that I wasn’t already doing to myself? Kill me. So what! Do nothing and I’d be dead in a year.
I turned and walked into the store and the security guard approached me.
‘Can I help sir?’
I felt my shoulders drop as I started to turn to leave and then I stopped. I turned back and looked him in the
