Destroy Unopened

by Anabel Donald

  Useless to speculate.

  ‘Thanks, Lil,’ I said. ‘We’ll leave it, I think.’

  ‘I took details of the job,’ she went on remorselessly. ‘Apparently he owns a derelict industrial property on the fringe of the Scrubs. It’s frequently vandalized. He wants you to identify the vandals: he thinks it’s a gang of youths. I quoted the usual rate and he accepted it. He’s particularly anxious that you start straight away.’

  ‘Straight away? Like, now? Five thirty on a Saturday evening?’

  ‘Yes. And I said you would.’

  Pure rage swept through me.

  ‘That’s bullshit, Lil,’ I said. ‘No way. I’ve got plenty on at the minute, and frankly, it’s not up to you to decide.’

  ‘I’ve committed us,’ said Lil, calmly. ‘I know that’s what Nick would want. She feels very strongly about never turning away work that we can easily do. We’re still building a proactive business profile.’

  If she’d been in the same room I’d have given her a proactive punch in the nose. ‘I’m not going to do it, Lil,’ I said, through grinding teeth. ‘Ring him back and tell him we’ll deal with it next week.’

  ‘No need,’ she said. ‘I’m free. I’ll do it.’

  ‘You’ll miss the firework party,’ I said, trying to let her down gently. It was a mistake. Offer a sop to an alligator, you get your hand bitten off.

  ‘Thank you for your consideration,’ she said, ‘but much as I enjoy parties, I enjoy work more. The usual rate, please.’

  ‘Lil – wait in the office, OK? I’ll be with you in a minute. Where’s the Kid?’

  ‘He’s gone to the party. I understood you wanted me to get rid of him.’

  ‘Just wait for me. Don’t do anything. Don’t answer the phone, don’t –’ I broke off, realizing I might put ideas into her head. ‘Just stay exactly where you are and make some tea.’

  I put my boots on again and went into the kitchen to turn the heating off.

  Then I changed my mind and left it on – an extravagance, but I didn’t know what time the police’d be finished with me, and I knew I wanted to come home to warmth and a bath. I was still in the kitchen when I heard knocking at the door of my flat.

  I let Polly in. ‘It took me over an hour from Heathrow, this fog is ridiculous, London has bad feng shui, it must be that, feng shui is very important, my flat in Hong Kong is wonderful to live in because the architect was guided by a feng shui consultant. Where are you going? Can I have some water? What’s the matter, you look furious, aren’t you glad I’m here? Put me in the picture, do.’

  The last thing I wanted was to go through for her what I’d just been through for myself, about Nick’s disappearance and the possible candidates for the Killer But neither did I want to confide in her about Barty and my pregnancy.

  Practically, she could be useful. She was quick, she was bright, she was an outsider, she was an extra body, I could trust her absolutely. And I needed help. Much as I never like to admit it, I needed help.

  So I fetched her the water and put her in the picture.

  When I finished, she said nothing for a while. Then she said, ‘It’s all supposition.’

  ‘Fishburn’s body isn’t supposition. Nick’s disappearance isn’t supposition.’

  ‘Nick could just turn up.’

  ‘She won’t. Not unless I find her.’

  ‘Not unless we find her,’ said Polly. ‘OK. You go to the police. You go specifically to Cairncross, because presumably your connection with Eddy gives you some cred with him, which might get action quicker. Meanwhile I go round to Fairfax’s other place – the vandalized building he’s hired you to protect.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Because it’s the only address we have. It can’t hurt to check it out.’

  ‘But if Nick’s being kept there, Fairfax wouldn’t have drawn my attention to it.’

  ‘He may not know she’s being kept there. Hobbs is Boy, right? You suspect Boy. Hobbs may be using his mate’s place without his mate knowing.’

  ‘Or it might be a trap,’ I said.

  ‘Or it might be a trap,’ she agreed.

  I looked at her. She was wearing ‘rich woman travels to warm climate’ clothes, loose cream silk-look but presumably uncrushable trousers and shirt with a coffee-coloured cashmere overcoat slung over her shoulders.‘You can’t go poking round a derelict warehouse dressed like that.’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘I’ll change.’

  Lil was waiting in the office, sitting reproachfully upright. When I came in she pointed at a mug of tea on the desk. ‘It’ll be cold by now,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, Lil. I was held up.’

  ‘I’ll go on the assignment straight away, shall I? I’ve opened a file in the folder Ongoing Investigations, called it Fairfax.1 and backed it up to floppy. You’ll find all the details in there, including the rates agreed with the client. Incidentally, I intend to claim expenses for an evening meal, since I’ve missed supper at the home. I assume you will approve that.’

  ‘You opened a file on the computer?’

  ‘No need to sound so surprised. I am conversant with the use of computers, of course.’ She folded her lips together as if they’d been stapled.

  She couldn’t possibly take the assignment, even if it was absolutely kosher, nothing to do with the Killer. A frail old woman, up against teenage vandals? What could she do? Her sight wasn’t good, so she couldn’t easily hide and watch. To make a useful identification, she’d have to see them up close, and if she was up close, they’d see her She couldn’t move fast enough to make her escape. She wasn’t on a Zimmer frame yet but her stiff and laboured movements made Fishburn’s creaking lumber seem lithe. And her bones must be as brittle as dried flowers. One energetic push, and she’d be in Intensive Care and there’d be an empty bed at the old people’s home.

  She wouldn’t like it, but I braced myself to tell her I’d decided not to let her handle the Fairfax enquiry. I didn’t mention Polly: insult to injury.

  For a moment she said nothing. Then she launched into her quotation bellow.‘And though/ We are not now that strength which in old days/ Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;/ One equal temper of heroic hearts,/ Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will/ To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Tennyson.’

  ‘No, I mean who’s supposed to be speaking?’

  ‘Ulysses.’

  ‘Another retired librarian, I suppose,’ I said unforgivably. I wanted her so annoyed with me that she’d walk away from the whole thing. I didn’t want her acting on her own initiative.

  ‘Very well,’ she said in a voice tight with resentment. ‘Since I’m not wanted, I’ll leave you, then.’

  It would be best if she left. I could make my peace with her later ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Thanks. See you.’

  She wrapped the scarves round her neck viciously – she was probably, mentally, whipping them round mine – and heaved herself creakily out of the chair.

  ‘Thanks, Lil,’ I said again.

  ‘You’re out of date,’ she said. ‘You don’t understand the implications of the technological revolution. Just because I’m old, you brush me aside. This –’ she pointed to the computer – ‘with this, my age doesn’t matter. Forget guns. These are the equalizers. I have a young lover in Australia, you know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Very passionate and virile. We speak over the Net. I’ve told him all about myself. Some aspects of my information are slightly adapted, of course. We have very similar sexual tastes. Healthy, but robust.’

  I didn’t point out that her lover in Australia might be a twelveyear-old boy who also adapted his information, and now wasn’t the time to start asking whether Nick let her run up bills on my modem.

  ‘You thought Benbow was old, because I am. He isn’t old! He’s a YOUNG DOG! And you think I’m useless because my body’s packing up. But THI
S ISN’T!’ She slapped the palm of her hand against her forehead, dislodging her hat. Lopsided tufts of grey hair made her look disorganized and absurd. She straightened her hat with a powerful downward tug of both arthritic hands and went storming on. ‘It’s all about knowledge. The knowledge to target information, and retrieve it and co-ordinate it and apply it. Accumulating that knowledge takes YEARS. And I’ve had years. I’ve had a LIFETIME. What do you think librarians DO? Whereas you don’t even know my name,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘What?’ I said, losing patience.

  ‘On the telephone. When I gave you my name, you didn’t recognize it.’

  ‘I’ve never heard it,’ I said. ‘I’ve always known you as – oh, SHIT! You’re Seymour!’

  ‘Please!’ she snapped. ‘Language! I’ve never—’

  ‘Leave it out, Lil.’ My mind was spinning. ‘Come here, look!’

  ‘Well, I –’

  I switched on the computer and waited while it clicked and whirred and flashed pointless information and pictures. When it settled down to readiness, I logged on for e-mail and waited again. Every second seemed to stretch and stretch while the whimsical hourglass wait icon wobbled about as my hand shook on the mouse. Read e-mail click Internet Cafe click, flash –

  Have collected the following accounts: Lagrange, Atiyah, Leibniz, Ireson, Abel. Do not pursue these clients: debts paid in full. Actively pursue Bourbaki. Consult Seymour.

  I moved away from the chair and pointed LU at it. ‘Read,’ I said. ‘You’re Seymour. I’m consulting. Read.’

  She read it, her annoyance gone, her wrinkled face intent. ‘And this is?’

  ‘An e-mail that means nothing to me. I thought it was a mistake, or a joke. But it just could be from Nick.’

  ‘Sent from the Internet Cafe on Thursday afternoon,’ she said consideringly, ‘and she was last seen on Wednesday evening. Yes, it could be.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, apart from the obvious.’

  ‘What obvious?’

  ‘That it’s a coded message of some kind, and probably from Nick.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of the names.’

  ‘What about the names?’

  ‘They’re mathematicians,’ she said. ‘Famous mathematicians.’

  ‘Famous for what?’

  ‘For work in mathematics. I can’t see a pattern,’ she said. ‘And I don’t recognize Ireson. That one’s not familiar.’

  She took a piece of paper and started doodling, still looking at the screen.

  ‘Actively pursue Bourbaki,’ I said. ‘That’s a hint, surely. Is Bourbaki a mathematician too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What else do you know about him?’

  ‘He’s French, I think, and very prolific. His name keeps coming up in catalogues – there’s something odd about him, I know there is, but I can’t remember,’ she said, exasperated with herself. ‘And I don’t understand. If Nick could send a message, why couldn’t she express herself clearly?’

  ‘Because she got someone to send it for her?’

  ‘But if she had to disguise the meaning from them, it presumably pertained to them. In other words, they’re her kidnappers, in which case, why should they send her message at all?’

  ‘Never mind that. Keep trying to make sense of it. She must have thought you would.’

  ‘Not just me. She could have addressed it to me alone, but she addressed it to you, and advised you to consult me. Presumably the solution requires both of us.’

  ‘Concentrate on the message,’ I said, looking at it again myself What I know about mathematicians could be written on a Rizla paper and leave plenty of room for a rollup. The words meant nothing.

  What to do now? Lil could take for ever working out what the message meant, if it did mean anything apart from an appeal for help. Meanwhile the time pressure was building up: I was even surer now that Nick was in danger. ‘What’s the address of Fairfax’s place?’ I said.

  Without comment, her eyes still fixed on the VDU, Lil fished a piece of paper from her pocket and passed it to me. ‘Unit 12, Kensal Industrial Estate.’

  ‘Where’s that?’ I said.

  ‘Go to Wood Lane, turn right, follow the Scrubs round to the left, that’s the industrial estate. I don’t know the unit,’ she said abstractedly. ‘Why include Ireson? Is that a case you’ve had?’

  ‘No, I’ve checked that. It doesn’t mean a thing.’

  ‘Where d’you keep your CD-ROMs?’

  ‘I don’t have any.’

  Lil clucked impatiently. ‘Yes you do, they came in the package with the PC. Nick told me about them. I need an encyclopedia.’ She searched through the desk drawers.

  The door opened. ‘I’m all set,’ said Polly. ‘Oh, hi, Lil, how’s things with you? How’s Benbow?’

  ‘Evening, Polly. We’re both well, thank you,’ said Lil, her attention only briefly distracted from the CD she’d found and inserted.

  ‘Come on, Alex, give me the address, and I’m off.’

  Polly looked quite different, as she so easily could. Old, loose grey jeans, a baggy black sweatshirt, a dark-blue padded waistcoat and charcoal trainers, her short dark hair brushed straight back, no make-up. In the fog and the dark, she’d blend into the background. She wasn’t even obviously female. ‘Get a move on, Alex,’ she said. ‘Address?’

  ‘Hang on a minute. Poll. We’ve got an e-mail from Nick, I think, and we need to work it out first.’

  ‘Dammit,’ said Lil explosively, after a flurry of keyboard clicks. ‘No Bourbaki in the encyclopedia: too general.’

  ‘What’re you trying to find out?’ said Polly.

  I explained, and she read Nick’s message on the screen, over Lil’s shoulder. ‘Makes no sense to me,’ she said. ‘Have you tried the Net for Bourbaki?’

  ‘I’m just about to,’ said Lil, keying in the password, which she evidently knew better than I did.

  I watched her search with a heavy heart. Nick had sent her message two days ago. She knew I was coming back to London on Thursday: maybe she’d been expecting me to work it out very soon after, expecting rescue every minute since then, and here I was on Saturday evening, no closer I felt guilty, and stupid.

  ‘Got it!’ said Lil, keying in Print. We all watched the paper inch out of the machine, read it as it came, read all of it, only two paragraphs. When it had finished we looked at each other.

  The relevant bit was the heading and first line.

  Who is N. Bourbaki?

  A group of mostly French mathematicians . . .

  ‘A group,’ Polly said blankly.

  ‘More than one, anyway,’ I said. ‘Oh, shit.’ One had been bad enough, one who was possibly the Notting Hill Killer. But a group – we needed the police. We needed far more than us. ‘Tell the police,’ said Lil, echoing my thoughts. ‘We can’t afford the time,’ said Polly, echoing my further thoughts.

  ‘We’d have to explain. You call the police and talk to them, Alex. I’ll go round to Fairfax’s place, now, in case it’s them, which it probably is. That’s a group, for heaven’s sake. Three of them.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ I said. ‘It’ll be much safer with two.’ ‘And I’ll handle the police,’ said Lil.

  I did what I could to minimize the risks. Very quickly, I told Lil all I knew. About Arthur Fishburn (that upset her – ‘Oh no! Not Arthur! Poor, poor man!’), about the letters and about James Hobbs being Boy, and about my dealings with Cairncross. She could use his name to get some action from the police. I tried him myself but he wasn’t answering, so I left a message with the mobile service telling him where I was going, and that I had reason to believe a woman was being held captive there, possibly by the Killer.

  As I said it I was aware how far-fetched my reasoning was. Reasoning was too precise a term for it. Wild guessing, more like. I hoped Cairncross was sensible enough not to scream up with sirens blaring: that way Nick might get killed. If she was
there. If, of course, he got the message and bothered to respond to it.

  I checked the Kensal Industrial Estate on the A-Z – Lil’s directions were spot-on – and took a torch and the chisel and the wire-cutters which could double as a weapon, and the mobile phone.

  ‘I’ve brought my phone as well,’ said Polly, brandishing it. ‘I must remember to cancel the contract, I keep forgetting, it’s just been sitting here in London useless, bleeding money—’

  Lil interrupted, ignoring Polly. I empathized. ‘If I come to any other conclusions, I’ll leave a message on your mobile, Alex,’ she said. ‘I assume you’ll keep it switched off.’

  ‘Unless I call 999.’

  ‘Don’t forget to check the phone for messages,’ said Lil. ‘I’ll do what I can with the police, and handle things here at GHQ. And the best of luck.’

  Chapter Thirty

  Polly drove, I navigated.

  We began by driving past to take a look. We went north up Wood Lane and into Scrubs Lane with the Scrubs on our left. The fog-screened bonfire party was reaching its climax, the guy just visible as bare sticks and flaring straw-stuffed head on top of a huge blazing pyre. Crowds drifted around the blaze, some children trailed cascades of spitting light from sparklers.

  Next came the estate we were scoping out. It seemed completely deserted, but it was hard to tell because it was in almost total darkness: most of the street lights were out. Beyond the estate, the road became a bridge spanning the West London Junction, acres of railway sheds and marshalling yards, with a few trains clattering and shunting and very few people.

  ‘Pull in here,’ I said. She stopped in a lay-by. ‘Decision time,’ I said. ‘Do we drive in or do we walk?’

  ‘Walk from where?’

  ‘Not from here. Too far. We could turn round, go back and park on the other side of Scrubs Lane from the Scrubs, then walk casually into the estate and find Unit 12.’

  ‘The advantage being?’

  ‘Surprise. No noise of the car No warning given to possible kidnappers.’

  ‘Or?

  ‘We drive in and right up to Unit 12.’