WHAT GOES AROUND. DAVID J CHRISTOPHER
you know that don't you?" Lucy's voice is muffled through the glass.
I'd better let her in. I think I've wound her up enough today. "OK, I'm coming. Where's your sense of humour?"
"This is serious. It's not a TV show, it's real," she replies.
She's getting herself worked up now. For the first time I'm aware of a distant bleeping noise coming from the back of the room. Somewhere near the front door. Sounds like a microwave finishing its cooking period but it isn't stopping. What was it that Terry said earlier? Something about Helen having an all singing, all dancing super-duper alarm system. Shit. I leap up throwing down the remote control and in two strides I am at the patio door. I unlock it, and throw it open in one move.
"About bloody time, I thought you'd moved in."
"Lucy," I say, "I think we may have a small problem."
All hell breaks loose.
Chapter Six
The siren is deafening. They must be able to hear this over in my old stamping ground at Nidri, five miles away at least. I had to move on from there after a particularly colourful drinking session, but that's another story. All the house lights are flashing on and off, but worse than that metal grilles have appeared from above the exterior doors and windows and are closing. We will be locked in shortly, presumably to await the arrival of some private security company or other. Perhaps she employs the same people as the Russian owner of the nearby Skorpios island, all machine guns and black berets. Maybe they will arrive by helicopter. I must try and keep my paranoia in check.
"I knew this was a bad idea," I shout at Lucy, "Any more bright ideas?"
It's probably a bit unfair on her but I'm not feeling very fair just now. Lucy though is looking supremely relaxed. I'm surprised because I would have her down as one of life's worriers.
"I do, as it happens," she says.
"Well, please be my guest anytime now. I'll just sit and watch this mutant TV whilst you plan our escape."
Lucy pulls her top of the range smartphone out of her bag. It makes mine look as though it was something Mr Bell might have built personally.
"Phoning a friend?" I shout.
"Sorry?"
"Who wants to be a millionaire?" I add.
"I've no idea what you're talking about," she replies. She's not giving me her full attention. "I'm looking for the code."
"You what? You've got the bloody code?"
"I have," she replies, "somewhere here. You can never find something when you need it can you?"
"What? The code to turn off the alarm? You might have mentioned that a bit earlier. I could have switched it off before all this."
I extend my arms to emphasise the point.
"I guess so. Helen gave me the number a couple of months ago when she was going away. Just in case it went off by accident. I forgot I had it. I think she said that the company who manage the system are based in Athens. Not sure how much they can do from there. Aha. Here it is."
She moves across towards the front door and a keypad on the wall. She types in a few numbers and as if by magic the noise stops, the lights go off, and the metal shutters lift to allow the afternoon sun back into the house. I glance out front and rear, there's no sign of any armed response team, if they are coming from Athens it'll be a few hours yet. I sit back down on the sofa. Lucy comes over and joins me.
"Roydon, now is not the time to catch up with box sets on Ex-Pat TV."
I give her what is intended to be a vacant expression. I have no idea what Ex-pat TV is. Even if I did, I notice that there are four remotes on the table in front of me. I wouldn't know where to begin. "Much as I would love to sit here and catch up with the back episodes of Dallas, I'm afraid that Mr and Mrs Ewing will have to managed without me. I can say though that Bobby isn't really dead," I tell her.
"Roydon," Lucy begins, "As is so often the case, I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about."
I jump up and start pacing up and down. Pausing at the view each time I arrive at the window. "OK, Come on. My beer's getting warm down at Billy's. Let's take a gander. That's what we came up for."
"What are we actually looking for?"
"No idea. Probably nothing."
I sense Lucy is wondering if she has made the right choice in selecting me as co-detective. We look around us at the living space downstairs. The area is clean and tidy. Unlike the bedroom, which was filled with fussy knick-knacks, this area is devoid of personal touches. Just as I would have it. Under the stairs, Helen has created a study area with white wooden shelves. On one shelf sits a very large expensive looking computer that Lucy identifies as a top of the range Apple Mac. The shelves are otherwise clear apart from a few books, holiday reads in the main. Nothing heavy. I slide open a drawer. Inside there are the usual things, pens, pencils, paper, paper clips, that type of thing.
"Nothing here," I announce.
Lucy slides into the swivel chair that I've vacated. She touches the keyboard and the screen springs to life.
"That's incredible," I say, "that keyboard isn't even plugged in, there's no lead."
Lucy gives me another of those withering looks. "I'll have a play here. Perhaps I can hack in. You go upstairs and see what you can find. I don't want you looking over my shoulder like that. You're cramping my style."
I take the hint and leave her to whatever it is she thinks she's going to do. I head back to Helen's bedroom, the one I came through. I move to the patio door and slide the lock into place. I won't be going out that way. I can't bring myself to rummage through in Helen's bedside drawers. Somehow it's just too personal. People keep all sorts of things by their beds and although being nosy was second nature in my previous life, I'm no pervert. Opposite the bed there's a dressing table. I sit at the pink stool and peer into the mirror in front of me. It lights up automatically. Clever. I pick it up. It must be battery driven as it's not plugged in. Now this I could use on my boat for when I do get around to having a shave. It would be nice not to cut myself.
"I'm in," Lucy calls out from downstairs.
I take a quick peak in the other bedrooms before rejoining her. There's nothing of any interest in them. They are not made up and presumably for when guests come.
"Nothing upstairs," I tell her as I arrive behind her. "How are you doing?"
"Well it took a few goes but I've managed to log on as Helen. She uses her birthday as her code and I've got that date in my reminders on my phone, so it was easy. Let's check her calendar for clues."
"You're a genius," I tell her.
But the calendar is blank. No entries at all for this month. Despite the IT lessons from Lucy it looks as though Helen might be a paper diary sort of person.
"I'll check her emails next."
"Do you think you should?" I say, "seems a bit like rifling through someone's post."
Lucy sighs in exasperation and ignores me. With a couple of clicks we are looking at a page of emails from the last few days. None have been opened but Lucy can tell from the headers that they all seem to be of a junk mail variety. She explains that it's probably from web sites that Helen has signed up to. The page moves and Lucy scrolls down. "Nothing there," she announces. She sounds disappointed. "I might as well log out."
We both take a last look around hoping that we might have missed something, but nothing springs out. I lock the rear patio.
"Right, I'll reset the alarm on the way out of the front door," says Lucy. She taps in the same numbers and opens the front door. It's a Yale lock so it will lock behind us. Lucy goes first and I hold the door open. Just as I am pulling the door behind me, I notice to the right a shelf with an old-style telephone on it. It's one of those black retro phones made to look as though they're from the sixties.