Common Murder

Simon shrugged. “Not really. Rex always gets a walk any time between ten and midnight, depending on all sorts of things like the weather, what’s on the box, who’s at home. It wasn’t always my father who took him out. I did sometimes, too. So if someone had been lying in wait, they might have had to hang around for hours on more than one occasion. If I’d been home earlier on Sunday, it could just as well have been me that walked him.”

“So you think it’s more likely that he met someone by arrangement?”

“Not necessarily. It might have been a chance meeting that turned nasty.”

Lindsay recalled Crabtree’s distinctive figure. “Your father would have been easy to recognize at a distance and chase after if you were looking for a chance encounter. After all, Deborah thought she spotted him from quite a way off on the night he died, when he was walking the dog,” she added. “And she wasn’t even on the common. She was walking back from the phone box.” Simon shrugged. “But he was carrying a gun, Simon,” Lindsay continued. “Surely that suggests he was expecting trouble?”

Simon paused to think. “Yes, but maybe he was just expecting trouble in a general way and had started carrying the gun when he took Rex out last thing.”

Lindsay shook her head in disbelief. “This is rural England, not the New York subway. People don’t wander round with guns just because they think someone might give them a hard time. If he was genuinely afraid of being attacked, if he’d been threatened in any serious way, surely he’d have gone to the police?”

Simon shrugged. “Don’t ask me. It would probably have given him a buzz to confront someone with his gun and then turn them over to the cops. And I think he was genuinely frightened by those peace women. Especially after that one attacked him.”

Lindsay shook her head. “I can’t believe he thought the peace women were coming after him,” she said. “It must have been something else. He said nothing?”

“No. And if you’ve no more questions, I’d appreciate the chance to get back to work,” he replied.

“Okay. Thanks for the time. I’m sure Ros will appreciate your solidarity,” she threw over her shoulder as she left.

Back in the car, she scribbled down the names of the computers she had seen and drove off, keeping an eye out for the red Fiesta. But her rear-view mirror was clear, so she stopped at the first phone box she came to. Typically, it was prepared to allow 999 calls only. Three boxes later, she found one that would accept her money, and she dialed an Oxford number. She was quickly connected with a friend from her student days, Annie Norton, a whiz kid in computer research.

After an exhaustive exchange of gossipy updates while she pumped coins into the box, Lindsay wound her way round to the point of the call. “Annie, I need your help on an investigation I’ve got tangled up with,” she tossed into a gap in the conversation.

“If it’s anything to do with Caroline Redfern’s much publicized love-life, my lips are sealed,” Annie replied.

“No, this is serious, not chit-chat. It’s about computers. I’ve acquired a cassette tape that I think is a computer program. It could have been made on any one of four computers, and I need to know what it says. Can you help?”

“A cassette tape? How extraordinary. We’re talking real computers here, are we, not video games?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Hmm. No indication of what language it’s in?” Annie asked.

“English, I suppose.”

“No, no, what computer language-BASIC, FORTRAN, ALGOL, etc., etc.”

“Oh,” said Lindsay, bewildered. “No, nothing at all, unless there’s a computer language called Sting: The Dream Of The Blue Turtles‘:’

“What? Are you serious?”

Lindsay laughed. “No, that’s what’s written on the cassette, that’s all.”

“And what computers are we talking about?”

“An Apple Macintosh, an IBM, an Apricot, an Amstrad, and a Tandy.”

“A Tandy? Little lap-top job, would fit in a briefcase? With a flip-up screen?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Annie sighed in relief. “That explains the tape. It’s probably been transferred from one of the other machines,” she mused. “It should be fairly simple to run it through our Univac and read it for you. When can you get it to me?”

“I could drop it off in an hour or so-I’m only down the road in Fordham.”

“Tremendous. We could have dinner together if you fancy it.”

Lindsay was tempted. She had reached the point where she wanted more than anything to walk away from the conflict of interests with the peace camp, the police, and the job. She felt guilty about two-timing Cordelia and was unsure how she felt about Debs. But she had promised to be at the vigil, and she had to keep that promise. She could just fit in the round trip to Oxford if she didn’t hang about too long with Annie. “Sorry,” she said. “But I’m working tonight. Maybe when I pick it up again, yeah? How long will it take you?”