‘That’s a bit devious.’
‘But possible.’
‘Maybe it’s just you getting desperate for a suspect,’ Lexi said.
‘Not desperate. Imaginative,’ Troy replied with a grin. ‘Don’t forget I’m the perceptive one.’
Lexi checked out an incoming message on her life-logger and then said, ‘We’ll see. Terabyte’s on his way.’
The computer technician had a real name but no one used it. A lot of the people who asked for Terabyte’s help didn’t even know what he was actually called.
He’d first made a name for himself at school. He’d won himself and every other student a two-day holiday in winter with an electronic attack on the building’s computerized heating system. One of his mates congratulated him a little too loudly for freezing everyone out of school. A teacher overheard and, from then on, everyone became aware of his special skills.
Now, at the age of seventeen, he was Crime Central’s best computer nerd. And Troy had asked him to gate-crash the administration of the suicide website.
He came into the room, sneezed, flung his hair over one shoulder and adjusted the glasses on his nose. ‘I hacked into better-protected sites when I was ten,’ he said.
‘So,’ Troy replied, trying to control his rising expectation, ‘you’ve found out all about Charon Angel.’
‘Pretty much,’ he replied. ‘Her name is Sharon Angie.’
‘It’s a she?’
‘I haven’t seen a photo but Sharon sounds female to me. The site admin doesn’t have a lot on her, but she’s living in Switzerland. Way up a mountain in a village called Wengen. I’ve got her email address, not a house address. Or cottage, or whatever they have in Wengen.’
‘Anything else? How old is she? Has she been to this country?’
‘I trawled around. According to Passport Control, she’s never been here. She’s twenty-seven and she shops a lot online. I don’t suppose they’ve got supermarkets at the top of Swiss mountains. Again, no home address, but judging by what she’s been buying, she likes books on psychology and martial arts, music from Iceland, wine and car maintenance.’ Terabyte had a long and cute face. When his hair flopped forward, he gave the impression of a spaniel.
Troy’s shoulders dropped and his enthusiasm faded. Terabyte had just blown his theory that Charon Angel was hunting body parts. She hadn’t even been in the country. What had happened to Troy’s usually reliable instinct?
‘I’m guessing I’ve disappointed you,’ said Terabyte.
Troy nodded. ‘That’s me done for today. I’ve got a shepherd’s pie waiting at home. With bucketfuls of brown sauce.’
Terabyte looked at Lexi with a grin on his face. ‘Us outers wouldn’t know if shepherds taste nice with or without sauce.’
SCENE 14
Lexi gazed at her life-logger and groaned. ‘That’s another avenue blocked off. Only a couple of people have had hand transplants and they both check out. Done in genuine hospitals with genuine hands donated by genuine accident victims.’
With a wide grin, Troy said, ‘Nothing underhand going on there, then.’
Lexi groaned again.
Troy apologised for the joke. ‘I’m not surprised you didn’t turn anything up. It fits. If Dmitri got involved with some sort of medical black market, the transplant wouldn’t be officially registered.’ He shrugged. ‘Let’s face it. Right now we’re a bit stumped with Dmitri and L4G#1. Let’s not make them brick walls for banging our heads against. Let’s tackle the major woman with the wrong heart, L4G#2.’ Troy was still pained to refer to two of the bodies by codes rather than names, but he had no choice until he discovered their identities. ‘I’ve been thinking about it overnight.’
‘Oh?’ Lexi took a careful bite out of a block of soft, decomposing cheese. It was casu marzu, crawling with live insect larvae. If jolted, the maggots would launch themselves about fifteen centimetres away and she’d lose their juicy flavour.
‘As far as we know, no one’s reported her missing. So, maybe she lived on her own. Why don’t we put out a call to shops and anyone who delivers things to people’s houses? Is anyone supplying things to what appears to be an empty house? Is stuff piling up at the door?’
‘Sounds reasonable.’ Fiddling with her life-logger, Lexi said, ‘I’ll do it.’
‘What about your spy cameras outside the transplant clinic?’
‘I looked at the footage last night and this morning — between meditations. Nothing iffy. No unmarked vans pulling up to the doors. Just the comings and goings you’d expect for a legitimate health centre. Gianna Humble, Blade Five, nurses, cleaners, a couple of patients.’
Sucking on a chunk of mint chocolate, Troy nodded. ‘Imagine I run a shady transplant outfit. I’ve got some embarrassing bodies to get rid of. I might well do it near a proper clinic, so it got the blame if someone found what I’d buried.’
‘It’s a possibility, I suppose,’ she admitted.
‘Have forensics found anything interesting in all that stuff they took from the wood?’
‘Nothing that definitely links to the case.’
SCENE 15
Goods had indeed piled up outside the large, posh house on the edge of Shepford. The trader who made the regular deliveries had recently become suspicious and had wandered round to the back garden. When she’d spotted a broken window, she’d reported it to Crime Central. At once, Troy and Lexi upgraded the low-priority incident at Olga Wylie’s house to the highest priority.
Troy almost tiptoed through the house. That seemed appropriate and respectful, in case he was now invading a dead woman’s personal space.
‘No evidence of anyone else living here,’ Lexi called out, less sensitive than Troy.
‘I think we can class Olga Wylie as rich and a loner,’ Troy whispered.
They were in her study — the room with a broken window. Lexi examined the dust on the desk. ‘There used to be something on here. Something about the size of a laptop. And, look, an electric cable for charging a computer battery. But nothing to plug it into.’
Troy nodded. ‘Someone broke in and took it, then?’
‘Maybe.’ Lexi bagged some dust because she knew it would contain human skin. With tweezers, she also picked up a hair with a root. She’d extract DNA from both.
‘Just like Dmitri Backhouse. No computer. If I’m right, it means there was something significant on it. When she died, someone got rid of it.’
‘I’ve got a visible fingerprint here,’ Lexi said. Checking on her life-logger for a few seconds, she added, ‘Eighty-four per cent match with L4G#2. It’s not perfect because the body was degraded. Assuming this,’ she said, pointing to the pattern in the dust, ‘belongs to Olga Wylie, we’ve got a name for our second body.’
Sad, but relieved, Troy nodded again. He requested Olga’s medical details and then soaked up the atmosphere while his partner went about her job. Not much seemed to have been disturbed. The burglar hadn’t ransacked the place. That suggested he or she came in for something specific — like Olga’s computer.
Lexi went over to the smashed window and peered closely at it. Then she examined the carpet underneath. Disappointed, she said, ‘I can’t see any blood, fibres or anything from the burglar. We’ll need a detailed search and special equipment. That might show up some traces.’
‘They’re like chickens. Not to be counted till they hatch.’
Lexi did not look up. ‘Don’t worry. If I don’t get anything on the person who smashed the window, I’ll find something else. All it takes is for me to be more thorough than the guy who broke in. Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll get the forensic team to go over the place millimetre by millimetre, if necessary. Every drawer, every nook and cranny.’