Читать книгу WHAT GOES AROUND - DAVID J CHRISTOPHER - Страница 8

The siren is deafening. They must be able to hear this over in my old stamping ground at Nidri, five miles away at least. I had to move on from there after a particularly colourful drinking session, but that's another story. All the house lights are flashing on and off, but worse than that metal grilles have appeared from above the exterior doors and windows and are closing. We will be locked in shortly, presumably to await the arrival of some private security company or other. Perhaps she employs the same people as the Russian owner of the nearby Skorpios island, all machine guns and black berets. Maybe they will arrive by helicopter. I must try and keep my paranoia in check.

"I knew this was a bad idea," I shout at Lucy, "Any more bright ideas?"

It's probably a bit unfair on her but I'm not feeling very fair just now. Lucy though is looking supremely relaxed. I'm surprised because I would have her down as one of life's worriers.

"I do, as it happens," she says.

"Well, please be my guest anytime now. I'll just sit and watch this mutant TV whilst you plan our escape."

Lucy pulls her top of the range smartphone out of her bag. It makes mine look as though it was something Mr Bell might have built personally.

"Phoning a friend?" I shout.

"Sorry?"

"Who wants to be a millionaire?" I add.

"I've no idea what you're talking about," she replies. She's not giving me her full attention. "I'm looking for the code."

"You what? You've got the bloody code?"

"I have," she replies, "somewhere here. You can never find something when you need it can you?"

"What? The code to turn off the alarm? You might have mentioned that a bit earlier. I could have switched it off before all this."

I extend my arms to emphasise the point.

"I guess so. Helen gave me the number a couple of months ago when she was going away. Just in case it went off by accident. I forgot I had it. I think she said that the company who manage the system are based in Athens. Not sure how much they can do from there. Aha. Here it is."

She moves across towards the front door and a keypad on the wall. She types in a few numbers and as if by magic the noise stops, the lights go off, and the metal shutters lift to allow the afternoon sun back into the house. I glance out front and rear, there's no sign of any armed response team, if they are coming from Athens it'll be a few hours yet. I sit back down on the sofa. Lucy comes over and joins me.

"Roydon, now is not the time to catch up with box sets on Ex-Pat TV."

I give her what is intended to be a vacant expression. I have no idea what Ex-pat TV is. Even if I did, I notice that there are four remotes on the table in front of me. I wouldn't know where to begin. "Much as I would love to sit here and catch up with the back episodes of Dallas, I'm afraid that Mr and Mrs Ewing will have to managed without me. I can say though that Bobby isn't really dead," I tell her.

"Roydon," Lucy begins, "As is so often the case, I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about."

I jump up and start pacing up and down. Pausing at the view each time I arrive at the window. "OK, Come on. My beer's getting warm down at Billy's. Let's take a gander. That's what we came up for."

"What are we actually looking for?"

"No idea. Probably nothing."

I sense Lucy is wondering if she has made the right choice in selecting me as co-detective. We look around us at the living space downstairs. The area is clean and tidy. Unlike the bedroom, which was filled with fussy knick-knacks, this area is devoid of personal touches. Just as I would have it. Under the stairs, Helen has created a study area with white wooden shelves. On one shelf sits a very large expensive looking computer that Lucy identifies as a top of the range Apple Mac. The shelves are otherwise clear apart from a few books, holiday reads in the main. Nothing heavy. I slide open a drawer. Inside there are the usual things, pens, pencils, paper, paper clips, that type of thing.

"Nothing here," I announce.

Lucy slides into the swivel chair that I've vacated. She touches the keyboard and the screen springs to life.

"That's incredible," I say, "that keyboard isn't even plugged in, there's no lead."

Lucy gives me another of those withering looks. "I'll have a play here. Perhaps I can hack in. You go upstairs and see what you can find. I don't want you looking over my shoulder like that. You're cramping my style."

I take the hint and leave her to whatever it is she thinks she's going to do. I head back to Helen's bedroom, the one I came through. I move to the patio door and slide the lock into place. I won't be going out that way. I can't bring myself to rummage through in Helen's bedside drawers. Somehow it's just too personal. People keep all sorts of things by their beds and although being nosy was second nature in my previous life, I'm no pervert. Opposite the bed there's a dressing table. I sit at the pink stool and peer into the mirror in front of me. It lights up automatically. Clever. I pick it up. It must be battery driven as it's not plugged in. Now this I could use on my boat for when I do get around to having a shave. It would be nice not to cut myself.

"I'm in," Lucy calls out from downstairs.

I take a quick peak in the other bedrooms before rejoining her. There's nothing of any interest in them. They are not made up and presumably for when guests come.

"Nothing upstairs," I tell her as I arrive behind her. "How are you doing?"

"Well it took a few goes but I've managed to log on as Helen. She uses her birthday as her code and I've got that date in my reminders on my phone, so it was easy. Let's check her calendar for clues."

"You're a genius," I tell her.

But the calendar is blank. No entries at all for this month. Despite the IT lessons from Lucy it looks as though Helen might be a paper diary sort of person.

"I'll check her emails next."

"Do you think you should?" I say, "seems a bit like rifling through someone's post."

Lucy sighs in exasperation and ignores me. With a couple of clicks we are looking at a page of emails from the last few days. None have been opened but Lucy can tell from the headers that they all seem to be of a junk mail variety. She explains that it's probably from web sites that Helen has signed up to. The page moves and Lucy scrolls down. "Nothing there," she announces. She sounds disappointed. "I might as well log out."

We both take a last look around hoping that we might have missed something, but nothing springs out. I lock the rear patio.

"Right, I'll reset the alarm on the way out of the front door," says Lucy. She taps in the same numbers and opens the front door. It's a Yale lock so it will lock behind us. Lucy goes first and I hold the door open. Just as I am pulling the door behind me, I notice to the right a shelf with an old-style telephone on it. It's one of those black retro phones made to look as though they're from the sixties. A yellow post-it notepad by the phone catches my eye. My subconscious tells me that there's something here, so without pausing to think I grab the top sheet as I close the door and the alarm resets.

"What's that?" Lucy asks pointing at my hand.

"Probably her meat order," I reply, "something just made me grab it."

"Well, let's see what you've got then."

We both look at the piece of paper. There's nothing on it. At least that's what we think at first. But a closer inspection reveals an imprint on the paper. I turn it at an angle so it catches the sun.

"I think it says Winston Churchill," I squint in an effort to focus as I don't have my reading glasses, "Under that it says Preveza and at the bottom 10 am Tuesday. Here, see if you agree." I give Lucy the post-it note. She studies it closely.

"I think you're spot on," she says. "This is an actual real-life clue just like on the TV. Well done for finding it." She pulls me towards her and gives me a sloppy kiss on the head, much as you would to a child. I'm sure she her wrinkles her nose a little as she does so.

"Steady on," I say. "There's probably nothing in it. Anyway, more than likely there's a perfectly boring explanation. Let's go back to Billy's and think it through." The beer is calling.

We jump back onto the quad and Lucy drives us back down the hill towards the village. If it's possible I think we are going even more slowly than when we came but at least I'm in no danger of dying. Lucy sits high and erect in front of me, but leans left or right as she takes the bends. We meet a couple of cars going the other way and I wave cheerily at them even though neither of us have a clue who they are. Probably tourists at this time of year. The cars are rentals. You can tell them from the locals because they aren't covered with scratches and dents. Terry is still sitting where we had left him an hour or so earlier. He has three empties in front of him so I'm guessing he's on number eight by now. His speech is starting to slur a little and he's getting louder. As we pull up, he's in full flight offering advice to some poor unsuspecting new arrival in the harbour. He clocks us and immediately calls for Billy to bring me a beer. I've earned it. We bring him up to speed but keeping his attention is pretty difficult especially when a day boat full of bikini clad young women pulls up at the water's edge. Terry is out of his seat helping them in no time.

"Looks like we've lost him," says Lucy.

"So," I begin, "to summarise, no signs of anything untoward at the house. Helen's car is still there. Shit, what about her quad, did you check?"

"I did, whilst you were breaking in. Yep it's there too."

"I was not breaking in; the door was unlocked. Nothing in her diary or e-post or whatever you call it," I continue, refusing to be goaded by Lucy.

"Just the one clue," Lucy says, "found by my Sherlock Holmes here."

I almost blush.

"Have you read Sherlock Holmes?" I fancy myself as a bit of a literary critic. "The story lines are puerile. How it ever got to be so successful I have no idea."

"Probably because of the TV series," says Lucy. "They've made it into books now have they?"

"Conan Doyle must be so grateful to the BBC," I retort assuming she must be joking.

"Conan who?" Asks Lucy.

"Never mind, Watson." The note flaps in the breeze once more grabbing my attention. "Winston Churchill, Preveza, 10 am Tuesday," I say. "Definitely sounds like an appointment," I say stating the obvious. "When was the last time you saw Helen?"

"Last week as usual."

"So, the chances are that it's this Tuesday just gone that she's referring too. That's her writing, is it?"

I slide the note across to Lucy. She shrugs her shoulders.

"Don't worry," I say. "It's all a bit of a dead end anyway isn't it? We tried, we failed."

"How do you mean?" she asks. Her forehead creases as she frowns.

"Well, if Helen has gone to Preveza as the note suggests, then that's her business. She certainly hasn't been kidnapped, that's for sure. I think we've done more than enough already and anyway I've got a busy few days coming up."

Lucy looks at me as if I've just stood on a fluffy kitten.

"You can't mean that," she says, "if Helen did go to meet this Mr Churchill last Tuesday in Preveza, why did she go, where is she now, and why hasn't she made contact? No nothing's changed at all. If anything, I think it's even more worrying. By the way I'm sure I've heard that name, Winston Churchill, before somewhere, I'll check my contacts later."

I can never quite tell if Lucy is serious at times like this or whether she's having a joke at my expense. She must know who Winston Churchill was, surely. I search her face for clues, but none are forthcoming. Her expression is earnest but otherwise blank.

"OK," she says, "I've made an executive decision."

"Which is?" I ask. I sense I'm not going to like this.

"We're going to Preveza to find this Mr Winston Churchill."