Authors: Gordon Brown
‘I think I even know the town?’
‘What after thirty years?’
‘Yeah. After the funeral Si’s brother came up to say
thanks for coming. He said that Ryder had offered him a job in
Spain
if he
wanted to quit the rain and early closing hours. I asked if he was taking it
and he said maybe. He reckoned it was Ryder’s way of saying thanks to Si.’
‘So where did he go?’
‘I know this sounds stupid but I’m sure he was off to
Inca.’
‘What as in
Peru
, Machu Pichu and pan pipes?’
‘Same name but it was a village in the middle of
Majorca
-
always stayed with me that name - don’t know why. I always thought I’d look it
up if I was in
Majorca
but I never was.’
‘So the photos were taken in
Majorca
?’
‘
Mallorca
if you want to be more accurate. Could be. Maybe even
in Inca?’
‘What the hell would Dupree want with some out of the
way town on
Mallorca
?’
‘No idea but it’s a start. I reckon the disc will tell
us more.’
I took the bottle back from him and drained it.
The geek’s friend is even more of a geek than the
geek. I’ve seen less high tech computer gear on the bridge of the USS
Enterprise. He lives in a flat in Shawlands on the south side of
Glasgow
.
Shawlands is where the south side of
Glasgow
tries
to be the west end and fails. For my money I prefer the south - less
pretentious. Being pretentious in Glasgow marks you out as an industrial
strength prick and there are few more pretentious than some that live in the
west end - of course there are a few exceptions to the rule and you don’t have
to go far south in Glasgow to find the seriously deluded.
Let’s just say that
Glasgow
has a golden S that
runs through it. From the
north west
to the south east. All the best areas can claim some
place within the S. If you take the start and the finish of the S - you’ll not
be far from the ‘fur coat and nae knickers’ brigade. I know I used to be a
resident.
The geek’s flat was wall to wall with wires, boxes
(plastic and pizza) and screens. He took the disc from me like it was a child’s
nappy and sighed. The sigh seemed to indicate that such technology was beneath
him but I assumed he had been informed by the geek of the pain that refusing to
help might incur.
He wandered over to a corner of the room and after a
suitably long period of groaning and moaning dragged out a disc drive and a
computer with the words Tiny embossed in the side.
‘Nae point firing this sod up on a new machine. This
is pre W 95. If my old Tiny still works she’ll read it fine.’
He plugged the box into the mains and spent ten
minutes doing a wire thing. The machine took another ten minutes to crank
itself into life. We weren’t offered coffee but given the geek’s friend was
even less conscious of his personal hygiene than the geek I thought this a good
thing.
At last the screen settled down and the geek’s friend
pushed the disc into the drive.
‘The Tiny’s drive is screwed. I hope the bolt on
works.’
It did and the first thing it came up with was a
flashing icon and four stars.
‘It needs a password.’
I looked at him and he looked at me.
‘How hard can it be?’ I said.
‘Depends. If it is some crappy kid’s toy - no problem.
But even in the nineties (he said nineties the way I would talk about my
grandpa in the war) they could write a half decent protection protocol. We
enter the wrong password and I’m in for a night or two of fun. It might just
lock me out altogether.’
I pulled out the folded piece of paper and showed him
the numbers. His eyes lit up. Four stars on the paper and four stars on the
screen.
13,5,79,111,315,1,71,921,2,****
‘Sad, man. Really sad.’
The geek’s friend typed in four numbers and the disc
whirred and brought up a menu. I couldn’t help myself.
‘How did you figure the code so quick?’
The geek’s friend smiled. He took the numbers and said
‘Move the commas.’
He did so and
13,5,79,111,315,1,71,921,2,****
became
1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,2****.
‘What do you think comes next?’
I could have kicked him but I’d wait until he got to
the bottom of the disc’s innards before I took out his legs.
The contents of the disc turned out to be less
revealing than I had hoped. There were two files on it, both of the Word
variety. The geek’s friend’s computer ground away. Each document had one page
and each page had a few characters typed in the middle. The printer whirred and
it spat out both sheets.
Sheet one read:
ATV9AXLPCIU4D8I3AT9RIPNLC4A903753Q0201
Sheet two was no less cryptic
C2O5M3PIT9EF1G3H211L4LAXLFATCOOONTTARCAPS9E4NDYYARR1Y4DFETR
I stared at both sheets.
‘What the fuck is that?’
I always did have a nice turn of phrase.
They both shrugged and I folded the papers and put
them in my pocket. The geek’s friend passed me the disc and we were out of
there.
I headed for Martin and his dwindling supply of
Highland Park
.
I’m losing interest in the whole thing. Digital
recordings, mystery letter from Spencer - even Martin’s lure has dwindled since
he ran out of malt. I’ve spread the photos and the sheets of paper in front of
me so often my neighbours think they are porn. I can’t make head nor tail of it
and I’m beginning to wonder if it is worth the candle.
After all, crossing swords with Dupree earned me
nothing but a locked door and bars on the windows for fourteen years. Even if I
can figure out what Spencer had discovered, who is to say Dupree
won’t just finish the job and have me
done in. It’s certainly the advice that Martin has being doling out and it
seems a far easier option than taking this nonsense any further. At least it
did until last night.
I was sitting on the steps of the
hostel when
the manager wandered out.
‘Need to get you moving.’
I didn’t realise he was addressing me and I continued
to stare at the pavement.
‘They are closing this place down for a refurb in two
weeks. It will be shut for three months. I’m struggling to place you all. Have
you anyone that you can move in with?’
I looked up, realising that I was the intended
recipient of the words. I shook my head.
‘You’ll have to find somewhere. Even when we reopen
you won’t get back in. We are changing this place to emergency accommodation
only. If you want to stay you are going to need to re-apply each night. So if I
were you I would start thinking about a place to live and maybe a job?’
The last word came out with a laugh attached to it. I
smiled back but I really wanted to cave his head in.
So I am out on the street - literally. I have no cash,
no roof and sod all prospects. It was just then that I thought ‘fuck it - I may
as well go after Dupree’ - what the hell else is left?’
I blagged some bus fare off the geek and headed for Martin’s.
To my surprise he was in. I had expected to camp out
in his garden, waiting for him to come home, but he had cut work early as he
was going to a concert that night. He was off to see Babyshambles at the Barrowlands.
‘Bit old for Pete Docherty aren’t you?’
‘When did you get your pension?’
‘Piss off.’
I asked if I could use his house for the evening. One
way or another I needed to figure out my next move. Martin had access to the
internet - which was fine except I had no idea how to use the thing. Inside
prison I had shunned it and since I got out I had avoided it. I asked Martin
for a crash course. He introduced me to the wonders of Google and told me he
would be back by
twelve o’clock
.
‘And leave the fucking whisky alone.’
I told him I would and he knew I wouldn’t.
I made a cup of tea and spread the photos and sheets
on the table.
The four photos I placed on the left, the two sheets
of printed paper in the centre and the tea on the right. I took a scribble pad
from Martin’s cupboard and bunch of pens.
I went back to the photos first.
Martin had a magnifying glass in the cupboard and with a nod to Sherlock Holmes
I picked up each photo and scanned them one by one.
The three at the café were duds. There was barely
enough detail to make out the faces never mind a clue to where they were. The
one outside the bank gave up little but the internet provided me with a hit.
The only bank I could find that matched the plaque was
Colonya Caixa de Pollenca. Their web site was in Spanish or Catalan but not
English. I was sure that with the wonders of the internet that this could be
translated, but I was still crawling in my Pampers when it came to using the
web.
The site indicated they had a number of branches in
Mallorca
but as
to which one Dupree was standing outside was no clearer.
I picked up the magnifying glass and poured over the
photo again. Then my head went pop.
‘Inca, fucking Inca.’
I went back to the web site and looked at the bank’s
details and sure enough there was a branch in Inca.
Colonya Caixa de Pollenca,
Av
Alcudia 9, Inca, 07300
. I punched the air.
So they were in Inca - Ryder’s home town -
it made sense. I put the photos to one side and picked up the two sheets of
paper.
ATV9AXLPCIU4D8I3AT5RIPNLC4A903753Q0201
C2O5M3PIT9EF1G3H211L4LAXLFATCOOONTTARCAPS9E4NDYYARR1Y4DFETR
Gibberish. If they were a code then there
had to be a key.
I took the shorter string of characters and
played around with the letters and the numbers for an hour. Taking a breather I
raided Martin’s drinks cabinet before I went back to it again, but got nowhere.
I remembered the creativity course I had
been on and it advised leaving the problem alone, doing something else and then
going back to it with a fresh head. I fired up the TV and used a film on TCM to
drain my brain.
I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up
the film was near the end. It was a poor man’s Jimmy Cagney and I wasn’t
interested but just as I went to kill the telly, the central character pulled
open a door and leapt in, gun at the ready.
The baddie (or it could have been the
goodie) was waiting.
‘Can’t pull the same stunt twice Mikey.’
With that he shot the goodie (or baddie) in
the chest. Shit dialogue - I turned it off but the same stunt twice line ran
through my head and then an
Edison
sized light bulb went on. I pulled out the
sheet of paper with the disc code on it and grabbed the sheet with
ATV9AXLPCIU4D8I3AT5RIPNLC4A903753Q0201
on it.
1,3,5,7 and so on - what if the disc’s owner had used
this for the key as well as the code for the disc. I scribbled down only the
characters that related to the odd numbers.
It read
Avalcudia5inca07300 - or Av Alcudia 5,
Inca, 07300
I cracked a bottle of seriously expensive
wine ten seconds later. The next part was easy. I applied the same logic to the
other sheet and came up with
compte13214alacontrasenyaryder.
It still looked like rubbish.
I slugged at the wine and sat back. Maybe
the second sheet worked to a different code. I picked up the pen and tried
another variant highlighting every even number - still gibberish. I tried every
third number, every fourth. I tried starting with the second letter and
choosing every third and fourth. I tried every fifth and then I tried the first
number, the second number the fourth the eighth and so on.
Sheet after scribbled sheet ended up in a
pile on the table. I threw none away. I wanted to ball each failure up and
sling it in the bin but how was I to know that there weren’t two steps to this
and that the secret lay in taking an earlier attempt and applying another code.
I finished the bottle of wine and rested my
head in my hands.