Common Murder

Annie frowned. “I hope not,” she said. She unlocked her desk and took out a pile of print-out paper and the tape. “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” she said. “I don’t think you’ll find many answers here.”

“You mean you haven’t been able to crack it?” Lindsay asked, her voice full of disappointment.

“Oh no, it’s not that,” said Annie cheerfully. “I won’t bore you with the details, but I must thank you for a really challenging task. It took me a lot longer that I thought. I didn’t get to bed till three, you know, I was so caught up in this. Whoever constructed that programme knew exactly what he was doing. But it was one of those thorny problems that I can’t bear to give up till I’ve solved it.

“So I stuck with it. And this is what I came up with.” She handed Lindsay a sheaf of print-outs, consisting of pages of letters and numbers in groups.

“Is this it?” asked Lindsay. “I’m sorry, it’s completely meaningless to me. What does it represent?”

“That’s what I don’t know for sure,” Annie admitted. “It may be some encoded information, or that in itself could be the information. But unless you know what it is you’re looking for, it doesn’t take you any further forward in itself. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, if that’s any help.”

Lindsay shook her head. “I hoped that this would solve everything. I think I was looking for a motive for murder. But I seem to have ended up with another complication. Annie, do you know anybody who might be able to explain this print-out?”

Annie picked up her own copy of the printed message and studied it again. “It’s not my field, and I’m not sure whose it is until I know what it is, if you see what I mean.” She sighed. “The only thing that occurs to me, and it’s the vaguest echo from a seminar I went to months ago, is that it might possibly be some kind of signals traffic. I don’t know for sure, and I can’t even put my finger on why I believe that. But that’s all I can go on. And I can’t put you in touch with anyone who might help because, if it is signals intelligence, then the ninety-nine per cent probability is that it’s Official Secrets Act stuff. I’m bound by that, and so is anyone else who might help. And if I put you in touch, they’ll have to report the contact in both directions. Just what have you got yourself into this time, Lindsay?”

Lindsay sighed again. “Deep waters, Annie.”

“You should be talking to the police about this.”

“I can’t, not yet. I don’t trust what’s going on, I told you.”

“Where did this come from, Lindsay? For my own protection, I think you need to tell me a bit more about the provenance of this tape. It all looks extremely dodgy to me.”

“I found it in a collection of papers belonging to Rupert Crabtree, the man who was murdered. His son owns a small software house in Fordham. It was in such a strange place, I figured it might be significant. And now, from what you tell me, it could be more than just a clue in a murder mystery. Have you made a copy of the tape?”

Annie nodded. “I always do, as a precaution.”

“Then I’d suggest you disguise it as Beethoven string quartets or something and hide it in your tape collection. I’d like there to be a spare, in case anything happens to my copy. Or to me.”

Annie’s eyebrows rose. “A little over the top, surely?”

Lindsay smiled. “I hope so.”

“You can make a copy yourself on a decent tape-to-tape hi-fi, you know,” Annie remarked in an offhand way. “And you will be going home tonight, won’t you?”

Lindsay grinned. “Yes, Annie, I’ll be going home. But I’ve got a couple of things to do first.” She stood up. “Thanks for all your work. Soon as all of this is over, we’ll have a night out on me, I promise.”

“Let’s hope those aren’t famous last words. Be careful, Lindsay, if this is what I think it might be, it’s not kid’s stuff you’re into.” Suddenly she stood up and embraced Lindsay. “Watch your back,” she cautioned, as the journalist detached herself and made for the door.

Lindsay turned and winked solemnly at Annie. “Just you watch me,” she said.

As she wrestled with the twin horrors of the one-way system and the pay phones of Oxford, Lindsay decided that she was going to invest in a mobile phone, whatever the cost. In frustration, she headed out towards the motorway and finally found a working box in Headington. Once installed, she flipped through her contacts book until she found the number of Socialism Today, a small radical monthly magazine where Dick McAndrew worked.

She dialed the number and waited to be connected. Dick was a crony from the Glasgow Labour Party who had made his name as a radical journalist a few years earlier with an expose of the genetic damage sustained by the descendants of British Army veterans of the 1950s atom bomb tests. He was a tenacious Glaswegian whose image as a bewildered ex-boxer hid a sharp brain and a dogged appetite for the truth. Lindsay knew he’d recently become deeply interested in the intelligence community and GCHQ at Cheltenham. If this was a record of signals traffic, he’d know.