Bright Air - Barry Maitland [55]
I waited outside on the pavement, breathing in the smell of pizza from the Italian restaurant next door. I felt tired and fed up after our prickly encounter with the doctor, and I just wanted to sit down with a bottle of red and a plate of spaghetti and forget about the whole thing. I noticed an empty table for two through the window, and when I saw Anna still hunched in front of her screen, shaking her head, I decided to take the bull by the horns. I opened the door and called to her, ‘Anna, I’ll see you in the restaurant next door.’
She frowned over her shoulder. ‘Okay …’
I got the empty table and ordered a bottle of wine while I waited. By the time she joined me my first glass was drunk, and I felt slightly better. She was still frowning.
‘Take a seat,’ I said, pouring the wine. ‘You look as if you need this. What’s the matter?’
She slumped down and handed me half a dozen pages. ‘That’s the print-out.’
While she sipped at her wine I scanned the pages. On them were printed lines of letters and digits, row after row. A typical sequence of lines ran:
2509 1105 57J WF 06663 04432 055
2509 1443 57J WF 06712 05512 072
2609 0906 57J WF 06584 04470 046
There were hundreds of lines like that, all following the same format with slight variations to the digits.
‘Is it some sort of computer code?’
‘No idea. My expert hasn’t a clue.’ Anna sounded flat. After going to so much trouble to get the notebook, this was obviously a major disappointment.
‘You were expecting the names of the guilty parties,’ I said. ‘But I told you before, things like that only happen in books. This could be data on anything—tides, weather, bird migrations, buried treasure …’
‘Buried treasure?’
‘I’m joking.’
‘Ha ha.’
‘I’m sorry, but what could we realistically have expected?’
A harrowing account of the breakdown of a wonderful young woman after she was heartlessly ditched by a slimebag called Josh Ambler, I thought. I couldn’t tell Anna how very relieved I was to see those meaningless data strings.
‘So what now?’ I saw the waiter approaching. ‘Let’s order.’
We picked the day’s pasta special, then Anna said, ‘I suppose you had lots of holidays when you were in London.’
‘Sure, cheap flights everywhere—St Petersburg, Istanbul, New York. Lots of places. How about you?’
‘I haven’t had a holiday in three years.’
‘Really? You must need a break.’
‘That’s what I was thinking. Some island getaway.’
‘Aha,’ I said, suddenly cautious. ‘Sounds interesting. Would you go on your own?’
‘It’d be more fun if I could persuade somebody else to come along. Even if I haven’t got big lips and a yellow bikini.’
‘You could always get that—the bikini, I mean.’
‘And I might even do a bit of climbing, if I had a partner.’
‘That’s possible. No breaking and entering, though.’
‘Agreed.’
‘I don’t think Damien would approve.’
‘Well, I wasn’t planning on inviting him.’
‘You know, I always wondered about that night at the Hibernian Hotel. How did it turn out for you?’
She looked impassively at me. ‘Josh, there are some questions a gentleman doesn’t ask.’
When I got home after dropping Anna in Blacktown, Mary met me with a happy smile.
‘Your friend Damien rang up half an hour ago. Such a charming young man. We had a good chat.’
‘That’s nice. I wonder why he didn’t ring my mobile.’
‘No, it was me he principally wanted to talk to.’ Mary sounded quite flirtatious.
‘Really? What about?’
‘He and his wife wanted to invite us both to dinner, and he was worried I might not be able to take an evening off from the hotel.’
‘Good point.’
‘But I said it wasn’t a problem. We’re going tomorrow, is that all right with you?’
‘Well, yes, fine.’
12
The next evening I realised I didn’t know where Damien lived, and asked Mary if he’d given her his home address. She said yes and named a new apartment tower in The Rocks, overlooking Circular Quay. I whistled. ‘Prime real estate.’
‘It does sound rather grand, doesn’t it? On the twenty-eighth floor.’
We drove down there, and I