‘DC Clarke, CID,’ she recited into the mouthpiece.
‘DC Clarke, it’s the front desk. Got someone down here wants a word.’
‘Who is it?’
‘A Mr Gandalf.’ The speaker’s voice dropped. ‘Weird-looking bugger, like he got sunstroke in the Summer of Love and hasn’t been right since...’
Siobhan went downstairs. Gandalf was holding a dark brown fedora, stroking the multicoloured feather attached to its headband. He wore a brown leather waistcoat over the same Grateful Dead T-shirt he’d worn in his shop. The pale blue cords had seen better days, as had the sand-shoes on his feet.
‘Hi there,’ Siobhan said.
His eyes widened as though he didn’t quite recognise her.
‘It’s Siobhan Clarke,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘We met at your shop.’
‘Yes, yes,’ he mumbled. He stared at her hand but didn’t seem inclined to shake it, so Siobhan lowered her arm.
‘What brings you here, Gandalf?’
‘I said I’d see what I could find about Quizmaster.’
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Would you like to come upstairs? I could probably rustle us up a cup of coffee.’
He stared at the door she’d just come through, and slowly shook his head. ‘Don’t like police stations,’ he said gravely. ‘They give off a bad vibe.’
‘I’m sure they do,’ Siobhan agreed. ‘You’d rather talk outside?’ She looked out at the street. Still rush hour, the traffic nose to tail.
‘There’s a shop round the corner, run by some people I know...’
‘Good vibes?’ Siobhan guessed.
‘Excellent,’ Gandalf said, his voice animated for the first time.
‘Won’t it be shut?’
He shook his head. ‘They’re still open. I checked.’
‘All right then, just give me a minute.’ Siobhan walked over to the desk, where a shirtsleeved officer was watching from behind a glass shield. ‘Can you buzz upstairs to DC Hood, tell him I’ll be back in ten?’
The officer nodded.
‘Come on then,’ Siobhan told Gandalf. ‘What’s the shop called anyway?’
‘Out of the Nomad’s Tent.’
Siobhan knew the place. It was more warehouse than shop, and sold gorgeous carpets and crafts. She’d splashed out there once on a kilim, because the rug she’d coveted was out of her price range. A lot of the stuff came from India and Iran. As they walked in, Gandalf waved a greeting to the proprietor, who waved back and returned to some paperwork.
‘Good vibes,’ Gandalf said with a smile, and Siobhan couldn’t help but smile back.
‘Not sure my overdraft would agree,’ she said.
‘It’s only money,’ Gandalf told her, as though imparting some great wisdom.
She shrugged, keen to get down to business. ‘So, what can you tell me about Quizmaster?’
‘Not a great deal, except that he may have other names.’
‘Such as?’
‘Questor, Quizling, Myster, Spellbinder, OmniSent... How many do you want?’
‘What does it all mean?’
‘These are names used by people who’ve set challenges on the Internet.’
‘Games that are happening right now?’
He reached out his hand to touch a rug hanging from the nearest wall. ‘You could study this pattern for years,’ he said, ‘and still not wholly understand it.’
Siobhan repeated her question and he seemed to come to himself.
‘No, they’re old games. Some involving logic puzzles, numerology... others where you took on a role, like knight or apprentice wizard.’ He glanced towards her. ‘We’re talking about the virtual world. Quizmaster could have virtually any number of names at his disposal.’
‘And no way of tracing him?’
Gandalf shrugged. ‘Maybe if you asked the CIA or the FBI...’
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
He shifted slightly in what was almost a squirm. ‘I did learn one other thing.’
‘What?’
He took a sheet of paper from the back pocket of his cords, handed it to Siobhan, who unfolded it. A news cutting from three years before. It concerned a student who had disappeared from his home in Germany. A body had been found on a remote hillside in the north of Scotland. It had been lying there many weeks, even months, disturbed only by the local wildlife. Identification had proven difficult, the corpse reduced to skin and bone. Until the parents of the German student had widened their search. They became convinced the body on the hillside was that of their son, Jürgen. A revolver had been found twenty feet from the corpse. A single bullet had pierced the young man’s skull. The police had it down as suicide, explained away the location of the firearm by saying a sheep or some other animal could have moved it. Plausible, Siobhan had to concede. But the parents still weren’t convinced that their son hadn’t been murdered. The gun wasn’t his, and couldn’t be traced. The bigger question was: how had he ended up in the Scottish Highlands? No one seemed to know. Then Siobhan frowned, had to read the story’s final paragraph again:
Jürgen was keen on role-playing games, and spent many hours surfing the Internet. His parents think it possible that their student son became involved in some game which had tragic consequences.
Siobhan held up the clipping. ‘Is this all there is?’
He nodded. ‘Just the one story.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘From someone I know.’ He held out his hand. ‘He’d like it back.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s writing a book about the perils of the e-universe. Incidentally, he’d like to interview you some time, too.’
‘Maybe later.’ Siobhan folded the clipping but made no attempt to hand it back. ‘I need to keep this, Gandalf. Your friend can have it when I’m finished with it.’
Gandalf looked disappointed in her, as though she’d failed to keep her side of some bargain.
‘I promise he can have it back when I’m finished.’
‘Couldn’t we just photocopy it?’
Siobhan sighed. An hour from now, she hoped she’d be in that bathtub, maybe with a gin and tonic replacing the wine. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Come back to the station and...’
‘They’ll have a copier here.’ He was pointing towards the corner where the proprietor sat.
‘Okay, you win.’
Gandalf brightened at this, as though those three little words were the sweetest ones he knew.
Back at the station, having left Gandalf at Out of the Nomad’s Tent, Siobhan found Grant Hood scrunching another sheet of paper into a ball and failing to hit the waste-paper bin with it.
‘What’s up?’ she asked.
‘I got wondering about anagrams.’
‘And?’
‘Well, if the town of Banchory didn’t have that “h”, it would be an anagram of “a corny b”.’
Siobhan burst out laughing, slapping her hand to her mouth when she saw Grant’s look.
‘No,’ he said, ‘go ahead and laugh.’
‘God, I’m sorry, Grant. I think I’m nearing a state of mild hysteria.’
‘Should we try e-mailing Quizmaster, tell him we’re stuck?’
‘Maybe nearer the deadline.’ Looking over his shoulder at the remaining sheet of paper, Siobhan saw that he was working on anagrams for ‘mason’s dream’.
‘Call it a day?’ he suggested.
‘Maybe.’
He caught her tone of voice. ‘You’ve got something?’
‘Gandalf,’ she said, handing over the news story. She watched him read, noticing that his lips moved slightly. She wondered if he’d always done it...