The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [31]
It was square one again. Gaddis Redux. Charlotte had been carrying around the entire story in her head. He looked at his desk, where he had scribbled down the cost of a cheap flight to Sheremetyevo on the back of a bank statement. His only hope now was a miracle in Moscow.
Chapter 13
Miracles come in many different guises. This one came late on Sunday night, while Holly Levette was cooking supper at her flat in Tite Street. Gaddis was lying back on the sofa, reading the papers and drinking a glass of red wine. Holly’s laptop was open on a low table in front of him and he called out to her in the kitchen.
‘Mind if I check my emails?’
‘Be my guest.’
Glass of wine in hand, Gaddis logged into his UCL account and clicked through his messages. There was one from Natasha in Spain, another from a colleague in Washington, and a round robin from a distant relative in Virginia trying to persuade friends and family to buy the paperback of his latest book. Gaddis checked the Spam folder – ‘Be a Master of the Universe with a Huge Broadsword in your Pants’ – and within the mass of junk offering him tertiary education courses and Viagra, he spotted a message that he could scarcely believe:
tomgandalf@hushmail.com has sent you a secure email using Hushmail. To read it please visit the following web page
The same weblink that he had seen on Charlotte’s Hotmail account was listed below. Gaddis looked up at the kitchen door, expecting Holly to walk into the room with two steaming bowls of spaghetti. He clicked the link and was again taken to the Hushmail website:
Your message has been protected using a question and answer which was created by the sender. You must correctly answer this question, word for word, to retrieve your message. You will be limited to five incorrect responses.
Question: Who was the doctor at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, in 1992?
Gaddis quickly typed in the answer.
Benedict Meisner
It was wrong. He had only four responses left.
He tried ‘Ben Meisner’ and swore when the answer was again rejected. Third time lucky, gulping wine, Gaddis typed in ‘Dr Benedict Meisner’, whispering ‘Come on, come on’ under his breath as he hit ‘Return’.
Like the click of a lock on a safe, the door swinging open, he was taken to a private message:
Dear Dr Gaddis
I knew Eddie Crane very well. Indeed, he was my closest friend for more than fifty years. For reasons that will become obvious to you, this is not the sort of information that I tend to make public.
If you would like to contact me, I suggest that you present yourself at the branch of Waterstone’s bookshop in Winchester High Street at 11 a.m. on Monday. If this is inconvenient for you, do not reply to this email directly. Instead, please send a blank email with the subject heading ‘Book’ to the following address: parrot1684@mac.com If you are able to make the journey to Winchester, please carry a copy of the International Herald Tribune with you and, having entered the bookshop, make your way upstairs. This is so that I might more easily recognize you. Eddie taught me a trick or two about tradecraft.
Sincerely,
Thomas Neame
Gaddis was flabbergasted. How did Neame know that he was investigating Crane’s death? Holly called out ‘Food’s ready!’ and her voice made him lurch half out of his seat in surprise. He quickly scanned the text a second time. He was aware that he should probably remove evidence of the correspondence from her computer, yet Gaddis had no idea how to clear the history quickly from an Internet browser.
He heard the strike of a match in the kitchen. Holly was lighting candles. Unsure of what to do, he simply