"Jeez, that would solve a lot of problems."
I raised my hand, aware that what I was about to say was a waste of breath. "Don't try to grab Sara if she shows. Call me and I'll get Karen involved."
He looked at me dubiously and then nodded. "Okay."
"Call in every hour on the hour, on the secure line." Rog had done what he could to make the landline I used only for my friends secure. There was still a risk, but it was small and I preferred to know that Andy was okay.
He nodded. "What about the other two properties Sara bought?"
"There's a house in Oxford and a flat in Hackney."
"Hackney, East London? That's a bit down-market for her, isn't it?"
I thought about that. "It isn't clear what she's doing with the properties. Maybe they're just investments. Or potential safe houses."
"Not anymore. We have to check them out."
"We do. But I have to solve this bloody clue first, remember?"
"Shouldn't I take a look at the places in and around London rather than watch on the mother?"
I shook my head. "When we go in, we go in together, okay?"
He was reluctant, but he accepted that.
"Stay sharp," I said, when he'd got himself ready.
He slapped me on the shoulder. "Ditto. Good hunting with that puzzle shit."
I undid the chains and replaced them when he'd gone out. Then I went back to my desk and concentrated on the puzzle. I'd done some research on cryptography for one of my novels set in the seventeenth century. People back then were keen on codes because of the political and religious turmoil. The problem was, there were a hell of a lot of different methods-substitution codes based on arithmetical figures, such as shifting every letter forward by three; transposition ciphers, where the order of letters is changed; anagrams, where rearranged letters make a different word; acrostics, where the first or last letters form different words-and that was just the start. I tried all those basic ideas with the "sun sets" line and got nowhere. The problem with both substitution and transposition is that, without the key, you can waste huge amounts of time crunching the numerous possibilities. That was where computer software came in, and Roger could use it-but time he spent on the clue was time not spent tracking down Sara. He was better employed doing the latter, not least because there was a good chance she was the one who had sent the message and he might kill two birds with one well-aimed stone.
I got up from my desk, its surface covered in crumpled pieces of paper, and walked up and down the living area. My mind was all over the place, and the fact that someone's life hung in the balance didn't do a lot for the state of my nerves. I thought about turning the message over to Karen. Would the sender ever find out? This was different from the White Devil case-then, my flat had been bugged and cameras had been secretly installed. Andy had been over my apartment with the locating device and got nothing except the alarm system. So was it safe to tell Karen? No chance. Even if she was prepared to keep quiet about the fact that Mary Malone's killer had contacted me, the nature of police work meant that someone would spot their involvement, even if they didn't use sirens or send in the Armed Response Unit. Besides, the VCCT had a history of leaking to the press. As I'd seen with Jeremy Andrewes's use of Josh Hinkley, those hounds were already on my trail. No, I had to keep Karen out of this loop, as well.
So what now? The first time I'd read the line, I'd thought of a crossword clue. That was bad news, as I struggled to get through the so-called quick crosswords in the papers. Cryptic ones I avoided like the Black Death. I had a stockbroker friend who used to do three cryptic puzzles as he was being driven into the City every morning-and he still had time left to scan the financial pages and close a few deals. I told him that just proved he had the cold, calculating mind of a money-making machine; he told me that any writer worth his place on the earth should be able to do a cryptic crossword in under ten minutes. We'd stopped being friends.
"The sun set by the westernmost dunes of Alexander's womankind." What was going on there? I went over to the shelves where I kept books that had defeated me, but weren't so bad that they went to the local charity shops- among them were the later poems of Ezra Pound, Finnegan's Wake-was the line a quote from it?-and the novels of Dorothy L. Sayers. There was also a guide to solving cryptic crosswords. I'd bought it secondhand when I was trying to emulate my former friend. I took the tattered book back to my desk and ran through the clue forms it suggested. I tried inserting a comma, and then commas plural, to change the sense. No joy. I looked into the question of anagrams again, though I couldn't see any of the usual words suggesting that reordering was necessary-there was no "mix up," "shuffled" or the like. Then I looked into word exchange-"orb" instead of "sun," "group" instead of "set," "desert" instead of "dunes," and so on. Nothing flashed up. Were there words hidden in other words? I saw "stern" in "westernmost," but I didn't know anyone of that name. I saw "lex" in "Alexan- der's"-that was Latin for "law," which seemed relevant if the next target was a crime writer, though it could also apply to a judge or a policeman. A shiver ran up my spine. Was that a reference to Karen? The word "womankind" certainly suggested that the victim would be a female. Again, I felt guilty about keeping the clue from her. If her life was in danger and I allowed the killer to catch her unawares, how would I feel? Shit. This was almost as bad as the contortions the White Devil put me through. Which was, no doubt, the point.
I sat back in my chair and looked up at the ceiling. Maybe I was being too clever. Maybe the clue was more basic than I'd thought. How many Alexanders could I think of? Alexander worked as a male first name, and as a surname. "Womankind" suggested a female. Did I know any Ms. Blank Alexanders? I couldn't think of any. I had a look at the Crime Writers' Society directory. There were a couple of guys called Alex, including one whose surname was Black and whom I vaguely knew. He lived in Edinburgh. I thought of the cottage in the Scottish Borders that Sara owned. It was too close for comfort. I sent Alex Black an e-mail via a single-use account, suggesting he go to ground until further notice. The other Alex lived in Egypt. I reckoned he was safe enough there. As for women, there were none with the surname of Alexander. I checked the nom de plume section-no Alexanders there, either.
"Bollocks!" I yelled, throwing the directory over my shoulder. I went back to the crossword book. Abbreviations? I didn't see any. Words with two or more meanings? That was more suggestive. Apart from the definite article, all the words had multiple meanings, especially if you considered the symbolic undertones. "Sun" implied light; enlightenment; the central point around which everything else revolves-did the target have a large ego?- and riches, which could imply a bestseller. "Set" could mean group, but also something that hardens, as in jam. But on a basic level, the sun sets in the west. Was that the point? It seemed unlikely, given that "westernmost" was already in the sentence. "Sand" could be the stuff on the beach-was this a reference to some beach in the far west? But it could also refer to time, as in the sands of. Even a seemingly innocent word like "by" could mean several things-a book written by an author seemed suggestive, but how did that fit with the dunes? Neither of the guys in the directory called Alex had written books whose titles or settings had anything to do with beaches or the west. "By" could also mean "close to"-again, I'd already drawn a blank with proximity to beaches.