“Legally or technically?”
“Technically.”
“I was afraid that’s what you meant.” She paused for a minute, analyzing the problem, then continued. “It could be done. I’d have to hack my way into the financial system, and that would be break and enter or trespass, as if you care.”
“But it is possible.”
“No guarantees, but I think so. I assume this isn’t a formal request.”
“It’s an informal request between two very good friends who always help each other out.”
“Ah. The very good friends angle. If I get caught you support me to the end of my natural life. You can’t pop me off because I become inconvenient.”
Since the prognosis on Sylvia’s life could be calculated in months I thought it was a deal I could live with. I gave her the information from the header, which she scribbled in a notebook.
“But if you can’t pick it up fast, get the hell out. I’ve got some other avenues I can try.”
She looked up from beneath her lashes and smiled wickedly. “I’m not worried. It’s challenge that keeps me young. But I still have to account for the time.”
Since there had been no cover sheet, and hence no charge-code, in the Network file, I had given her Bob’s personal charge-code to cover the time for the searches. I smiled. “Just bill it to the code I gave you. Triple time and a half if you have to.”
Just then the waiter approached the table.
“Is there a Morgan O’Brien at this table?”
I looked up at him. “That would be me.”
“You have a call. You can take it at the cashier.” Sylvia shook her head and muttered, “Figures.”
I picked up the phone. “Hi, Elaine.” I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end. Guilt is such an overpowering emotion. “Give it a break. Nobody else knew I was here, so it had to be you.”
She let out her breath slowly. “Sorry, Mo…” She was the only person in the world, other than my mother, who ever got to call me that, “… but I can’t make it. I’m still waiting for Cindy — she’s my graduate student — and she’s supposed to be bringing in live fish from Weaver Creek that should have been here an hour ago. I don’t know where the hell she’s got to, but if she does-n’t turn up soon screw her, she can unpack them on her own. Could we meet tomorrow morning instead?”
“You name the time. I’ll take you out for breakfast.”
We arranged to meet at eight in a café just outside the university gates. I can’t say I was upset. Watching two of my closest friends go at each other wasn’t my idea of a relaxing way to end the evening. As I sat back down in my chair Sylvia raised her eyebrows in a question. I nodded.
“Asshole.” I winced. She looked up at me sharply. “I can’t help it if it still hurts.” I reached across the table and took her hand. She didn’t pull away, but turned to look out the window so I couldn’t see her face. I felt a flash of anger at Elaine so intense it hurt. Why couldn’t she just accept Sylvia for who and what she was?
By unspoken agreement we made light conversation over a crème brûlée and finished up the evening early. Sylvia looked tired, and it was one in the morning for me. When I got back to the hotel I fell into bed and was asleep in minutes.
The phone rang at 5:00 A.M. I was on Albion Street and I had my mother by the scruff of her soiled nightgown, yelling at her, shaking her and yelling, angry at something she’d said or done or maybe not done. It didn’t seem to matter. She flopped about like a rag doll, and it slowly entered my head that she was a rag doll, and I shook harder, watching with detachment as the head flopped from side to side. Then I heard the phone ringing far away. I held onto my mother with one hand and with the other groped behind me, slowly changing dimensions from the dreamworld to a high-rise hotel on 12th and Cambie.
“I thought you’d be up by now.” It was Duncan. He was sounding pert and jolly, designed, no doubt, to annoy me. When I didn’t answer, he continued. “She wasn’t amused.”
“It’s five in the morning.”
“No, it’s not. It’s eight. Anyway, I’ve got meetings booked all day and I wanted to get back to you on the Patsy thing.”
I pushed myself up to a sitting position and cleared my throat. “Shoot.” It sounded more like a croak than human language.
“She went all wooden and stared at me, didn’t say a thing for a minute, then said something warm and caring like ‘Good luck in your new position. Now you’ll have to excuse me.’ Then she reached for the phone and glared at me until I was out of the office. A real people person.”
I was slowly resurfacing. “That’s it?”
“Not quite.” I waited. Duncan was going to play this for all it was worth. “Well, of course I wanted to say goodbye to Lydia, who, by the way, wasn’t at her desk. So I waited a few minutes to see if she’d come back — “
“Out of Patsy’s line of vision.”
“Possibly. Anyway, I did happen to overhear Patsy asking for Bob. Lucky for him he wasn’t there, because she wasn’t very nice. Michelle was told to find him and get him up to the fifth ASAP.”
Good old Bob. Never in the right place at the right time. So Patsy knew I had the file by the end of yesterday’s workday, making her the most likely candidate for Bob’s office visitor when I called later that evening. My head had finally cleared enough for me to remember what I’d wanted to ask Duncan. I scrabbled for my briefcase, which was lying on the other bed.
“Duncan, can you do something else for me?” He didn’t reply, so I assumed he was calculating the extra hours he could tag on to his babysitting bill. I found the Network file and pulled out the remote reference search. “Could you find out who was in the building last year on October thirteenth between one-thirty and two in the afternoon?”
“You mean you want me to say goodbye to the commissionaire as well?”
“It would be a nice gesture.”
It was a bit of long shot, but sometimes long shots paid off. The NCST building is locked on the weekend. If someone had done that search from their office computer they would have to stop off at the commission-aires’ kiosk and sign out a key to get into the building. I was pretty sure that the commissionaires’ office would keep those records for several years back.
When I had hung up the phone I briefly considered pulling the covers up over my head and refusing to face the day, but instead I braced myself, rolled out of bed, and headed for the shower. I had lots of reading to do and I needed to get my alias in order. Bottom line, Elaine could be the key to this whole damn thing, and if I was going to get her onside I needed to be prepared and have all my wits about me.
chapter six
At 6:30 A.M. I packed up my briefcase and checked the inside pockets of my leather jacket. I had had the lining especially tailored to suit my job, and right now the hidden pockets held an evidence kit, a small flashlight, a set of lock picks, and a pepper spray, none of it exactly government issue. Between a light breakfast and heading out the door I had managed to scan Riesler’s latest review article on the state of genetic techniques for stock identification. It was impressive stuff, beautifully written and logically tight, and it gave me enough of the terminology to fake my way through a conversation if I was forced into an unexpected situation. After all, I was now Dr. Morgan O’Brien, a visiting post-doc from the Canadian Genomics Institute in Ottawa. I should at least know the lexicon.
Southern BCU sits on one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in North America: the tip of Point Grey. It made driving into the university