TWENTY-ONE
As Kate headed down to the lounge, she heard the buzzer. Damn! I must do something about the sound. It really didn’t carry all the way to the top floor. Someone may have been waiting a while.
She opened the door to a man in grey overalls. An engineer. He talked about fitting a satellite TV. Have the residents resolved that issue?
Kate said, “I thought there was something in the deeds that prohibited a satellite dish.” She wanted Sky, but now wasn’t convenient. The priority was to check out the train, so she told him to make an appointment.
He said something about rescheduling as she grabbed her coat. For a moment Kate thought he was coming in, but it was just her imagination because he backed away from the door. She pulled on her coat as she stepped through the door. Creep! He was staring at her.
The man wished her a good evening and headed across the square to a van. She switched off the light, closed the door, and locked it.
She jogged lightly to the road and continued into town. It was the strange time of day between the shops locking up for the night and the restaurants opening. Later, St Leonard’s Road would come alive, but now, the only people she passed were workers trudging home. Within five minutes she reached the shopping area and practically skipped up the steps to the station’s concourse. In front of her, Windsor’s Victorian central station loomed like a relic from yesteryear. Outside the bar that had once been called Ha Ha, a few early birds sat at tables and nursed bottles of beer. She walked past to the steam train set at the end of the platform. A group of late tourists received the usual nonsense lecture about it being the Queen’s train.
Kate chuckled to herself as she squeezed through the crowd to find the plate on the side of the engine.
1401.
Swindon Works.
Oct 1898.
1401. What was it? It wasn’t a date. There was no explanation for the number.
1401.
Joe had once said, “Maybe it’s the time the train runs.”
Now there was no doubt: this was the Runtime. Joe was telling her to enter the password at 14:01.
Excited, Kate headed back home. The grey streets suddenly seemed happy and full of the evening’s promise. People walking home from work now had purpose and pleasure at returning to their families. The only frustration was she had to wait. Kate couldn’t do anything until tomorrow afternoon.
When she got home she put the deadbolt key in the lock and tried to turn it. Strange. It didn’t rotate. She put the Yale key in the upper lock and it turned easily. She was surprised when the door opened. Mustn’t have deadlocked my door properly. Oh well.
Tolkien was in the lounge. He stood in a corner, his tail bushy, his eyes wide.
“Hey, it’s only me, Tolk!” she said. “No need to be scared of me, old boy.” As she took a step towards him he bolted, shot down the stairs and clattered through the flap.
Crazy scaredy-cat.
Kate spent the evening on the phone, first to her mother and then her sister, Darcy. They had the usual conversation about Kate’s jobs and Darcy said she was considering going back to work. She had brushed up her CV and sent it to a handful of recruitment agents.
Darcy switched to the subject of the twins. “India has cut her knee and Emmy has been vomiting. Norovirus, what else? Give it a couple of days and we’ll all have the bug she’s caught now.”
“Sorry to hear it. Is India’s knee bad?”
“Oh she’ll survive, but Tim had to take her to A&E. Did you know they’ve closed our local? Good job it wasn’t a real emergency. It took Tim half an hour to get there. They just taped it up and gave her a tetanus jab.”
“Poor love.” Kate hesitated then said, “Darce?”
“Yes.”
“Something has happened.”
“What?” Real concern.
“Nothing to worry about. I know you don’t like me to talk about Joe, but—”
“Oh, Kate! Will you move on for Christ’s sake? I know you loved him, but he was no good. The man you loved wasn’t real. He was a fantasy.”
“He’s left me a coded message.”
“What sort of message?”
“God! Darce, he’s left me a document telling me the truth.”
Her sister groaned. “Don’t let him play with your head like this. You’re a smart girl and I love you. I can’t bear to see you played like this. Joe was no good. A secret message won’t change that. Yes, it probably gives you an explanation. He will have answers for everything. Think of all those other women that fell for him. And, if it’s not bad enough that he was still married, think about those children he abandoned.”
Kate had been thinking. “Remember the detectives, the ones in the brown suits?” Something Andrew had said triggered the thought. “They pointed me to crimes in the US and said the FBI were after him. But the FBI doesn’t operate outside the US and don’t have jurisdiction in the UK. If they wanted someone, they would have to apply for extradition. That’s how it works. And you arrest them at work or home, not just pick them up off the streets and shove them in a car!”
“You’re grasping at straws. Maybe they thought it was safer to pick him up in the open. Maybe they knew he had a gun.”
“OK, but then why didn’t the police tell me straight off when I tried to find out what was happening? Why the cloak-and-dagger routine?”
Darcy sighed, exasperated. “Oh I don’t know. Maybe it was too politically sensitive. Who knows how things work now, post nine-eleven?”
Kate had further thoughts. If the people who picked Joe up weren’t the police then it was unlikely that the brown-suited men were FBI or detectives or whatever they had said. The story they told could have been a lie. As an extension to this logic, Kate wondered if this meant the internet articles could have been faked in some way. Maybe Joe didn’t have a string of identities and women. Then what did he have? Why was he picked up, and who were they?
She didn’t say any of this to Darcy. There was no point. She felt truly optimistic for the first time in a year. Once she read Joe’s secret message, she was sure all would be clear. Then Darcy would believe her.
Darcy said, “I love you. I don’t like to think you’re still being hurt by this.”
“I’m fine. Honest, I feel fine.”
“All right. Promise me you’ll not keep dwelling on this. It’s also high time you came over to visit. The girls will be excited to see you.”
Kate promised to visit soon. She went to bed, still filled with anticipation. Thoughts were going round and round searching for answers that she didn’t have. Knowing that she would be able to open the document at one minute past two tomorrow didn’t help. She couldn’t sleep.
In the still of the night, noises seem amplified. She thought she could hear a neighbour walking around.
A light switch clicked somewhere.
A car door slammed in the square.
There was the sound of someone moving about. A creak on the stairs. Must be the next-door neighbour, she told herself.
It sounded close.
She realized she was holding her breath, straining to hear. Her bedroom door was slightly ajar and she stared at it, suddenly petrified that someone was in the apartment. Another noise, closer. She gripped the covers, squinting her eyes to see.
The door moved.
TWENTY-TWO
Tolkien leapt onto the end of the bed and Kate jolted with shock and then relief. “Good grief, Tolk, I thought you were an intruder!”
He padded towards her and snuggled his body under her exposed arm. She immediately forgave him, relieved that he seemed more himself rather than the skittish cat that had dashed out when she’d come back. He began to purr and the comforting sound must have sent her to sleep, because the next thing she knew it was morning.
The excitement of the secret message immediately filled her head. How was she going to cope, waiting for 14:01?
When she saw the weather was fine she decided to go for a run, loop
ing around Windsor Great Park for about six miles. After a shower she felt ready for the day, full of anticipation and hope. The run had also cleared her head a bit.
Boomer.
If Joe had been telling the truth and Boomer existed, then she would surely find something on the internet about him.
It took a matter of minutes to find the relevant information. Boomer was the nickname of Danny Guice, college quarterback and All Star. He had played for Virginia Tech and was destined for the NFL. She read a few articles about how great he was, yard records and percentages that meant nothing to Kate but tallied with what Joe had said about Boomer’s high promise at college. But he didn’t make it as a pro. He had joined the army.
Kate discovered that the reason for him failing as a pro was a broken leg. Six months out and couldn’t cut it when he returned. His new contract with The Pittsburgh Steelers was terminated. Some pieces alluded to an attitude change, as though the injury had affected his outlook. Unkindly, one suggested he was afraid. Maybe that was what prompted him to join the army.
Kate searched for the name Mirrorman but found nothing relevant to Joe. She tried combinations of Boomer and Danny Guice with Joe’s various names. Nothing came up. Then she studied all the photos of Boomer.
Joe didn’t appear in any of them.
So Boomer was real, Joe’s story about him was true, but that didn’t mean they were really friends. She shook the cynical thought from her head. She suspected that if anyone searched for her and a college friend they’d be hard-pressed to find a picture on the internet unless… she tried Facebook and similar social sites. No sign of Boomer on those. She tried searching in professional sites like LinkedIn and Naymz. Nothing. She had drawn a blank.
Amazed at how long she’d spent searching, she took a break and made a sandwich.
Thirty minutes to Runtime.
The doorbell rang as she finished her sandwich. A man and a woman stood on her doorstep. Oh God! She’d completely forgotten about the police.
“Kate Blakemore?” It was the voice of the man on the phone: Inspector Mather. The other person was a woman. She had red hair tied back in a severe ponytail.
“I haven’t got long,” Kate said.
Mather frowned at her.
Realizing the greeting appeared a little strange, Kate apologized and invited them in. Up the stairs she pointed to the dining table. They sat and looked like they expected to be offered tea. They didn’t get it.
“This is Detective Sergeant Littlewood,” Mather said. Then, as Littlewood smiled and nodded, Mather continued and asked about Sarah Wishart.
“Sarah? I thought this was about her ex-partner, Peter.”
“Maybe it is. We are liaising with Czech police, but our principle concern is with the disappearance of Sarah. When was the last time you had contact with Sarah?”
“I, uh… Sarah’s disappeared?”
The policewoman spoke. She had a nice face, although her thin lips and downturned mouth gave her a critical look. There was also a hard, unfriendly edge to her voice. “Please, Miss Blakemore, answer the question. When did you last have contact with Sarah?”
Kate was flustered, and this woman, with her tone, put her on edge. “I... I don’t know.”
Inspector Mather again: “But you recently left her a message and you have been sending her texts.”
“That’s true. But I haven’t spoken to her.” Suddenly, with everything that was going on, Kate’s mind was blank about the order for things. However she felt a strong compulsion to try and justify herself. “The Czech police told me Peter had been murdered. I got a letter… a photograph in the post. I thought it might have been from Sarah. I wondered how Sarah was after Peter’s death. Maybe she would need support, come and stay? Oh… and she called me.”
Surprise lit up the inspector’s face. “She called you? When was this?”
“Friday evening. Only we didn’t speak. I didn’t pick up in time and she didn’t leave a message.”
The police officers studied her face impassively. They waited as if the silence would prompt a confession. Littlewood took some notes.
“Can I see the photograph you received?” Mather eventually asked, when it was clear Kate wouldn’t start speaking again.
Kate hesitated, checked her watch, then stood up and retrieved the photograph of Boomer and Mirrorman from the sideboard.
Mather looked at the photograph, flipped it over, handed it to Littlewood and said, “Who are they?”
Maybe it was the tension of the situation, but Kate told them she didn’t know.
Littlewood’s expression spoke of disbelief. “Boomer and Mirrorman—are they names? Who wants you to find them?”
Again she said she didn’t know. “It was posted in the Czech Republic. I assume either Peter or Sarah. I don’t know why.”
“You think it might be Sarah Wishart asking you to find her?”
That made Kate blink. She hadn’t considered that possibility. Could it be Sarah rather than Joe?
“Ms Blakemore?” Littlewood interrupted her thoughts.
“Sorry—what?”
“You seem distracted.” Littlewood’s eyes narrowed. “And you keep looking at your watch”
“I’m sorry, I really don’t have the time for this right now.”
“Why?”
“There’s something I need to do.” There were five minutes to Runtime and Kate was becoming more and more distracted. She had to end this now. “If you’ve no more questions…”
Annoyance fleetingly passed across the inspector’s eyes, but he masked it well. “We do have more questions. If you don’t mind, we will wait.”
Kate stood up too quickly and felt a rush to the head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. We’ll have to continue this another time. I really must go. I would like you to leave.”
The police stood, their eyes fixed on Kate, hard and calculating. “All right,” Mather said, his voice flat.
Littlewood placed the photograph of the soldiers in her notebook. “If you don’t mind,” she said, “we’ll keep this.” It wasn’t a question.
Kate saw them to the door.
Littlewood prompted, “You’re sure you don’t know the men in the photograph?”
Kate held the door, willing them to go. “No idea,” she said and read the immediate look on their faces: total disbelief. They were probably thinking, She is lying about this, so she has probably lied about everything else. Kate didn’t care. She needed them out now. She needed to get to her computer.
Mather asked for a date to reschedule. “Call me,” Kate said rather too abruptly and shut the door. She ran up the stairs, two at a time. As she reached the lounge she glanced through the window and saw the police standing outside, talking, probably evaluating.
It was 2pm. Kate needed to get on the computer and read Joe’s message.
TWENTY-THREE
Kate had left the password window of the file open. As her computer clock changed to 14:01 she typed I dare you and hit Enter.
File path not found.
What? A Windows error message.
Kate quickly tried again. Same result. The digital display ticked over to 14:02. Shit! She had missed her minute’s opportunity. She didn’t get it. Was the Runtime wrong? There were other numbers on the train. There was 3904, the large serial number on the side of the cab. There was also the date—October 1898, representing when the train was supposedly built. Could that be the time, 1898? She admonished herself for not realizing that 98 couldn’t be minutes. No, the Runtime joke was definitely 14:01, one minute past two.
File path not found.
She opened Windows Explorer and looked at the drives. There was nothing in the USB drives! Perhaps the card had worked loose, she thought. She reached down to push the card reader firmly into the slot. She’d call in sick and try again tomorrow.
The card reader was in place. It didn’t move when she pushed. She pulled it out and pushed it firmly back in. Windows Explorer continued to register no
thing in the drive.
Kate pulled the card reader out and looked at the slot where Joe’s small card was inserted. The slot was empty. She searched the desk, all the time telling herself that it couldn’t be there. Then she realized it could have fallen out, so she searched the carpet around the PC. There was a jumble of wires and cables at the back and she moved these aside.
Nothing.
She lifted the PC to check under it then sat back perplexed. What had she done? She distractedly glanced around the floor of the whole room until she snapped back into focus. Runtime. She had been in a hurry to get to the train. She had texted and been on the phone. The doorbell had sounded. That weird satellite guy was at the door. Her mind had been all over the place.
Could I have unconsciously removed the memory card and taken it with me?
She found the jeans she’d been wearing and checked the pockets. She went through her purse. She went to the coats at the front door and checked the pockets. She was totally stumped. Yes, it was a tiny memory card, but how could she have lost it?
Kate slumped on the sofa in the lounge and the tears came. A wave of tiredness and all the emotional turmoil of the past days flooded out. The card was her connection to Joe and she had lost it.
Amir sat in a nondescript blue van in the garage area behind the apartments. The girl had been singing to herself and spent most of the morning on the computer. He took note of her internet searches, his laptop mimicking her every keystroke. Why was she searching for someone called Boomer? Like her, he read Boomer’s real name. There was no link between this man and her boyfriend, unless she believed Boomer was another alias. From the pictures it was clear that it was not. Then she looked for the name Mirrorman and tried different aliases for Joe. So she knew his codename. Perhaps this was going to be easier than he had anticipated.
She had the security window for the file open and he held his breath with anticipation each time she looked at it. But she keyed nothing in and continued to search. At lunchtime she went to the kitchen and prepared some food. Would she notice anything missing? He doubted it; the girl didn’t strike him as the most organized. If she noticed it wasn’t in its place, he guessed she’d assume it was in a drawer or somewhere else.
I Dare You: A gripping thriller that will keep you guessing (A Kate Blakemore Crime Thriller Book 1) Page 9
