‘I heard you talking,’ she said. ‘Thought maybe you could help me with something.’ None of the three said anything. The teenage assistant was rubbing at a patch of acne on his cheek. ‘You ever play games on the Internet?’
‘You mean like Dreamcast?’ She looked blank. ‘It’s Sony,’ the assistant clarified.
‘I mean games where there’s someone in charge, and they contact you by e-mail, set you challenges.’
‘Role-playing.’ One of the schoolboys nodded, looking to the others for confirmation.
‘Have you ever played one?’ Siobhan asked him.
‘No,’ he admitted. None of them had.
‘There’s a games shop about halfway down Leith Walk,’ the assistant said. ‘It’s D & D but they might be able to help.’
‘D & D?’
‘Sword and sorcery, dungeons and dragons.’
‘Does this shop have a name?’ Siobhan asked.
‘Gandalf’s,’ they chorused.
Gandalf’s was a piece of narrow frontage squeezed unpromisingly between a tattoo parlour and a chip shop. Even less promisingly, its filthy window was covered with a metal grille held in place with padlocks. But when she tried the door, it opened, setting off a set of wind chimes hanging just inside. Gandalf’s had obviously been something else — maybe a second-hand bookshop — and a change of use hadn’t been accompanied by any sort of makeover. The shelves held an assortment of board games and playing pieces — the pieces themselves looking like unpainted toy soldiers. Posters on the walls depicted cartoon Armageddons. There were instruction books, their edges curling, and in the centre of the room four chairs and a foldaway table, on which sat a playing-board. There was no sales counter and no till. A door at the back of the shop creaked open and a man in his early fifties appeared. He had a grey beard and ponytail, and a distended stomach clad in a Grateful Dead T-shirt.
‘You look official,’ he said glumly.
‘CID,’ Siobhan said, showing him her warrant card.
‘Rent’s only eight weeks late,’ he grumbled. As he shuffled towards the board, she saw that he was wearing leather open-toed sandals. Like their owner, they had a good few miles on them. He was studying the placement of pieces on the board. ‘You move anything?’ he asked suddenly.
‘No.’
‘You sure?’
‘Sure.’
He smiled. ‘Then Anthony’s fucked, pardon my French.’ He looked at his watch. ‘They’ll be here in an hour.’
‘Who’s they?’
‘The gamers. I had to shut up shop last night before they had a chance to finish. Anthony must’ve been flustered, trying to finish Will off.’
Siobhan looked at the board. She couldn’t see any grand design to the way the playing pieces were arranged. The beardie-weirdie tapped the cards laid out beside the board.
‘These are what matters,’ he said irritably.
‘Oh,’ Siobhan said. ‘Afraid I’m no expert.’
‘You wouldn’t be.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Nothing, I’m sure.’
But she was pretty sure she knew what he meant. This was a private club, males only, and every bit as exclusive as any other bastion.
‘I don’t think you can help me,’ Siobhan admitted, looking around. She was resisting the urge to scratch herself. ‘I’m interested in something slightly more high-tech.’
He bristled at this. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Role-playing by computer.’
‘Interactive?’ His eyes widened. She nodded and he checked his watch again, then shuffled past her to the door and locked it. She went on the defensive, but he merely shuffled past her again on his way to the far door. ‘Down here,’ he said, and Siobhan, feeling a bit like Alice at the mouth of the tunnel, eventually followed.
Down four or five steps, she came into a dank, windowless room, only partially lit. There were boxes piled high — more games and accessories, she guessed — plus a sink with kettle and mugs on the draining-board. But on a table in one corner sat what looked like a state-of-the-art computer, its large screen as thin as a laptop’s. She asked her guide what his name was.
‘Gandalf,’ he blithely replied.
‘I meant your real name.’
‘I know you did. But in here, that is my real name.’ He sat down at the computer and started work, talking as he moved the mouse. It took her a moment to realise that the mouse was cordless.
‘There are lots of games on the Net,’ he was saying. ‘You join a group of people to fight either against the program or against other teams. There are leagues.’ He tapped the screen. ‘See? This is a Doom league.’ He glanced at her. ‘You know what Doom is?’
‘A computer game.’
He nodded. ‘But here, you’re working in cooperation with others and against a common foe.’
Her eyes ran down the team names. ‘How anonymous is it?’ she asked.
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean, does each player know who his team-mate is, or who’s on the opposing team?’
He stroked his beard. ‘At most, they’d have a nom de guerre.’
Siobhan thought of Philippa, with her secret e-mail name. ‘And people can have lots of names, right?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘You can amass dozens of names. People who’ve spoken to you a hundred times... they come back under a new name, and you don’t realise you already know them.’
‘So they can lie about themselves?’
‘If you want to call it that. This is the virtual world. Nothing’s “real” as such. So people are free to invent virtual lives for themselves.’
‘A case I’m working on, there’s a game involved.’
‘Which game?’
‘I don’t know. But it’s got levels called Hellbank and Stricture. Someone called Quizmaster seems to be in charge.’
He was stroking his beard again. Since sitting at the computer, he’d donned a pair of metal-rimmed glasses. The screen was reflected in the lenses, hiding his eyes. ‘I don’t know it,’ he said at last.
‘What does it sound like to you?’
‘It sounds like SIRPS: Simple Role-Play Scenario. Quizmaster sets tasks or questions, could be to one player or dozens.’
‘You mean teams?’
He shrugged. ‘Hard to know. What’s the website?’
‘I don’t know.’
He looked at her. ‘You don’t know very much, do you?’
‘No,’ she admitted.
He sighed. ‘How serious is the case?’
‘A young woman’s gone missing. She was playing the game.’
‘And you don’t know if the two are connected?’
‘No.’
He rested his hands on his stomach. ‘I’ll ask around,’ he said. ‘See if we can track down Quizmaster for you.’
‘Even if I had an idea what the game involved...’
He nodded, and Siobhan remembered her dialogue with Quizmaster. She’d asked about Hellbank. And his reply?
You’d have to play the game...
She knew that requisitioning a laptop would take time. Even then, it wouldn’t be hooked up to the Net. So on her way back to the station she stopped off at one of the computer shops.
‘Cheapest one we do is around nine hundred quid,’ the saleswoman informed her.
Siobhan flinched. ‘And how long before I could be online?’
The saleswoman shrugged. ‘Depends on your server,’ she said.
So Siobhan thanked her and left. She knew she could always use Philippa Balfour’s computer, but she didn’t want to, for all sorts of reasons. Then she had a brainwave and got on her mobile instead. ‘Grant? It’s Siobhan. I need a favour...’