'Well I think we need the rest in spreadsheet form, don't you?' said Craig with a smile as he composed a response.
We sent it and watched for a response from the Clinical Trials Unit.
It didn't come. Instead,
'What message?' I looked at Craig.
He checked the 'Copy of Sent Messages' file. It was from Enever, the real Enever this time, to Jed in the Clinical Trials Unit.
'Oh, oh,' said Craig. 'Time to go.'
He quickly downloaded Jed's first e-mail and its spreadsheet attachment, and left BioOne's system. 'Will they know we were there?' I asked.
'I hope not,' Craig said. 'But I don't want to risk going back in.'
'That's OK. I'm sure we've got a lot of good stuff already.'
Craig stretched and began packing up his computer and the scraps of paper he had been scribbling on.
'Are you going home now?' I asked.
'Oh, no. If I can't pull an all-night hacking run any more, I'm not fit to run the company.'
'Thanks again for all your help.'
'No problem.' He paused at the door. 'Stay alive,' he said, and was gone.
I started on the BioOne files right away, using my own laptop. Craig had given me a password so that I could access them in the Net Cop system any time I wanted from anywhere I wanted.
There was a mass of information. Many of Enever's e-mails had meaty attachments to them. And then there was the Clinical Trial Unit's data, columns of dense figures and statistics. If this was the summary, I wondered what the complete data was like. It was good stuff, but I couldn't understand most of it. I had to stop and think about what every document referred to. Someone else would have to look through this. Someone who would instantly be able to sort the interesting from the irrelevant, and who could analyse whatever they found there.
The time had come to see Lisa.
I had held off physically tracking her down until I had something concrete to give her, evidence that I hadn't changed, that I was still the man she had married, that I hadn't killed her father. I was now pretty close to having that evidence. And I needed her help if I was to make sure that more Alzheimer's sufferers like Aunt Zoe didn't die.
I was excited at the prospect, but also nervous. I was confident in my ability to persuade the old Lisa that I was innocent, especially with all that I had now discovered. But the Lisa who had turned her back on me, who had suffered so badly from her father's death and taken it out on me? I wasn't so sure.
From my conversation with Kelly, I guessed that part of her behaviour was due to the effects of the BP 56 she had been taking. Perhaps the greater part. If she had stopped the drug when she'd moved to California, perhaps she'd be more amenable to reason.
I could only hope.
I wrote a one-page note and stuck it in an envelope, packed my bags and left. I drove to the airport and left the Ford in a car park. There were seats on the next flight to San Francisco, and two hours later I was in the air.
31
Lisa's mother lived in a small wooden town house on Russian Hill with her second husband, an affable banker named Arnie. Technically, the house had a view of the Bay and Alcatraz, and it was true that from one of the upstairs windows you could just see some water and one corner of the fortress-island. Lisa and I had visited them three times, the last being at Thanksgiving almost a year before. Apart from my stupid argument with Eddie about Chancellor Kohl, it had been fun, full of an American family warmth that I was surprised to find attracted me. There were probably English families like that too, but mine wasn't one of them. Lisa and I had agreed to come again for Thanksgiving this year, only two weeks away. Whether I would be there or not depended on what happened in the next twenty-four hours.
I walked up to the freshly painted white door and rang the bell. There was no answer at first, and I wondered if she would be in. I knew she worked a couple of days a week at an expensive children's clothes store run by a friend of hers. I tried to stand as close as possible to the door, so she couldn't see me from any of the windows and pretend she wasn't there.
Finally she answered, patting her hair in place and smoothing down her dress. The automatic smile that came to her lips disappeared when she saw me.
'Simon! What on earth are you doing here?'
'I'm looking for Lisa.'
'Oh, Simon! You shouldn't have come all this way! You know I can't tell you where she is.'
'Well, I have. Can I come in?'
'Oh, yes, of course,' she led me into the kitchen. 'Do you want some coffee? I was just making some.'
'Yes, please.'
She busied herself with percolators and filters.
'How is Lisa?' I asked.
'Not good.'
'I'd like to help.'
'I don't think you can.'
'Why not?'
She turned to me. 'Her life has been turned upside down, Simon. Frank's death, losing her job, Frank's…' she paused, 'sexuality. Rightly or wrongly she holds you responsible.'
'So she knows about Frank and John?'
'Yes. A detective flew out here to interview her. And Eddie and me as well.'
'That must have been so hard for her.' I looked closely at her mother. 'But you knew all the time, didn't you?'
She nodded. 'It took a while to dawn on me. Mind you, I think it took a while to dawn on him. It was almost a relief when it did. You see, before, I thought there was something wrong with me. We stayed married for the sake of the kids for a while, but there was no point in it. So, in the end, we divorced.'
'And Lisa never suspected anything?'
'No. In retrospect, I wish she had. She's a strong kid, she would have gotten used to the idea eventually. But Frank was adamant we shouldn't tell the kids. And now…' Ann's chin shook. 'Now after Frank died in such a horrible way, it's just so difficult for her. And for Eddie, of course.'
She sniffed, and reached for a tissue from a box on the windowsill.
'So she holds me responsible? She can't really think I killed him, can she?'
'I don't know whether she thinks it through that rationally. She's afraid you might have. Everything else has gone wrong in her life, so she thinks it will turn out for the worst with you too. She just wants to leave it all behind, Simon. Frank, Boston and you. Especially you.'
These were difficult words to hear. The coffee machine began to bubble and drip. Ann glanced at it, and then let it do its stuff.
'What about you?' I asked. 'You don't think I killed him do you?'
She composed herself, and then slowly shook her head.
'Then, can I tell you why I want to see her?'
'It's not a good idea, Simon,' she said.
