‘Hello?’
Marsha watched him stonily from the desk.
‘Gotta take this call,’ he mouthed. ‘I’ll be right back.’
He slid away, pretending to talk, stopping at the bottom of the corridor, out of earshot from the offices. He dialled Reception.
‘UPS here. I’ve got a delivery for a Mr Gerber. Have I got the right number?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m coming off the A432. I’m only a few minutes away.’
‘Come down the second track on the right. It’s signposted.’
‘I’m tight on time. Need to just drop and fly. Can you get someone to come out and meet me at the front?’
‘I don’t know. This is getting to be a habit with you guys.’
‘Yeah – I’m sorry about that.’
‘I can’t always do this, you know.’
‘You’d be helping me out.’
‘Oh, ho ho. Now there’s an incentive.’ The receptionist sighed. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll get his secretary to wait for you. But just this once.’
‘Good girl.’
By the time he got back to the office the phone call had already come from Reception. Marsha was on her feet, replacing the handset. ‘I’ve got to go. I won’t be long.’
‘That’s OK.’ He sat down. ‘I’ll wait.’
She looked at him, looked at the chair he was sitting on. Then she looked at the computer. She bent over and, very coolly, very deliberately, logged out of the session. Taking her handbag off the back of the chair, she gave him a tight smile. Caffery smiled back and held up his hand. If you can’t trust a cop who can you trust?
That was what his mother used to say. It had always made his dad laugh.
When she’d gone he went to the window and waited for her to appear on the gravel driveway. She came out with her chin held high. Taut and controlled, arms crossed, looking off down the driveway. In his thirty-nine years’ experience he’d learnt that girls who dressed and behaved like Marsha never followed it up in the bedroom. Guys would get fantasies about whips and leather and being sat on, but girls like Marsha wanted more gentleness between the sheets than the ones who wore angora cardigans. Out of the bedroom, though, the Marshas of the world could be true predators. She’d got him – nailed him with logging out like that. This was going to end up with a sodding warrant. More time wasted.
He looked back at the computer. No, he thought. Not a chance he could get into it. Not a chance in hell. But then, he reasoned, it would be rude not to try. He went to her chair and sat in it, staring at the log-in screen. Two empty spaces – USERNAME and PASSWORD. The choke point – and in the movies it’d always be on the third try that the hero got the password. He searched the desk for clues. Nothing. Ran his hands over the computer, opened the drawers and felt up under them for taped pieces of paper. Nothing. He turned Marsha’s nameplate to face him. Marsha Wingett. Typed ‘m.wingett’. Thought, What the fuck? and typed ‘Cruella’ into the password box. Hit enter. The message flashed up. Oops! Have you forgotten your password?
He deleted Cruella. Typed in: ‘Cruella1’. Hit enter.
Oops! Have you forgotten your password?
It was like being heckled. And he knew there wasn’t long. Marsha wasn’t going to stand out on the gravel all morning waiting for a non-existent parcel.
‘Cold bitch’?
Oops! Have you forgotten your password?
‘Five eight seven QU zero.’
A woman stood in the doorway, watching him expressionlessly. Sandy blonde hair tied at her neck, a handbag over her shoulder and – who’d believe it? – a pink angora over her shoulders. She was holding a cardboard Starbucks carry-out tray with a coffee on it. Car keys dangled from her fingers.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said, “five eight seven QU zero”.’
‘Her password?’
‘Yes.’
He typed in the sequence. Hit enter.
Have you forgotten your password?
He looked at the woman. She looked back at him.
‘Uh?’ he said, waiting for her to speak.
She made an impatient noise in her throat, tipped sideways a little and studied the screen. She had little white pearls in her ears. ‘The username’s wrong. No dot after the initial.’
‘I should have known that.’
‘Yes. You should.’
‘Server’s acting like a mule. Everything’s going snail’s pace.’
She looked at him as if he’d just changed colour right in front of her eyes. ‘I know. I was the one who reported it to you.’
Caffery closed his eyes. Opened them. What were the chances? ‘Yes. Of course you did. Thank you for that.’
‘That’s OK. What time will you get to mine?’
‘Twenty minutes. As soon as this is done.’
She went to the desk in the far corner, set down the coffee, took off her angora and hung it carefully on the back of the chair. Baby pink. She’d be the one who’d walk over you in stilettos, he thought, deleting the dot. He hit enter and the screen lit up in front of him. All of Gerber’s consultations today.
It was the same system the other secretary had used and, having seen it in action once, it was easy for him to hop-skip backwards even though the database was working slowly, the diseased server grinding its cogs like a dray horse. He went back through the timeline two years and found the days in question. The name Lucy Mahoney came out at him like a bolt. At ten o’clock on the morning of 4 May she’d been given an abdomectomy and a sympathectomy by Georges Gerber FRCS.
Georges Gerber FRCS.
One hundred and eighty. Got you, you bastard.
He closed the database, logged out and stood up just as Marsha appeared in the doorway.
‘Hello.’
She gave him a courteous smile. ‘Are you leaving?’
‘I’m going to talk to Mr Gerber.’
‘He’s not here.’ She looked beyond him to the chair he’d been sitting in. ‘I think I mentioned that earlier.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘At home?’ She came past him, and stood for a moment looking at the chair again. Then she hung her handbag over the back and sat on it – tentatively, as if she thought it might burn her or give way. ‘Probably at home, I don’t know. I tried to call him a few minutes ago. He didn’t answer his phone.’
‘Thank you, Marsha. You’ve been a great help.’
He was at the door when she said his name. He waited. Hand on the door. Turned back slowly. From the other desk the pink angora girl had stopped what she was doing and was watching over the top of the monitor.
‘Yes?’
‘I just saw the other secretaries. They said you were looking for patient records.’
‘That’s right.’
‘The database is a bit slow but it’s still working.’ She pulled the keyboard towards her. Logged on and the screen came up. ‘I can go through Mr Gerber’s records, if you’d like?’
Caffery stood half in, half out of the door, and looked at her black hair, her little curranty eyes. Wanted to laugh for a moment. He thought, Marsha, bless every hair on your head, I take it all back. You’re an angel, a Samaritan. And probably a vixen in the sack. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘But I’ll speak to Mr Gerber directly.’
‘In that case I’ll print out his home address for you.’
57
Home and Away’s just finished and Ruth’s pouring her third rum and Coke when someone knocks at the door. She checks the clock. Only one p.m. Little Miss PI said later in the afternoon. It annoys her to think she might be early. She’s been trying to work out how to approach the subject, how to go about upping the amount. Maybe it’s the rum but she hasn’t got it sorted in her head yet, and that annoys her.
Another knock. Irritated, she sets her drink down, goes into the hallway and puts on the safety chain.