“I managed to persuade Carolyn to let me make copies of them,” Sophie told her. “I also took copies of the previous disks Penny had sent since she arrived in England. The first disk has Heart of Glass from the beginning to Chapter 12, the second from the beginning to Chapter 15 and the last one goes up to Chapter 18. There seem to be about twelve pages to a chapter. But bear in mind, these chapters must have been completed about a week before Penny died. They may not be current enough to be any help to your investigation,” Sophie cautioned.

“Have you looked at them?”

“I spent most of the night with a very awkward delivery,” Sophie protested.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m just a bit keyed up over this,” Lindsay apologized. “What’s the best way for you to get them to me? Express courier?”

Sophie chuckled. “You’re still a Luddite at heart, aren’t you? I thought you were supposed to have embraced the new technology now?”

“Eh?”

“If you pick up your e-mail, you’ll find them all there. In the few odd moments of calm during the night, I put the files into a format I could transmit, and sent you a bunch of massive e-mails.”

“Hellfire!” Lindsay exclaimed. “You are a fucking genius, Doc! Oh, God, now I’ve got to get right across town to Helen’s, I don’t have my laptop with me and she’s got a different network provider for her Internet connection and I don’t know how to use the software and I’ve got to read up on all the stuff Ellie pointed me at . . .” She stopped gibbering and subsided into thought.

“Carolyn reckoned there could be another delivery in the pipeline, if Penny was sticking to her usual weekly cycle. She was due to have sent another disk off the day she was killed,” Sophie said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lindsay said, too distracted to take in what Sophie was saying. “That’s terrific. Soph, you’re the berries. The absolute berries. Listen, I’m going to have to run. I’ve got to pick up my laptop and start plowing through this stuff, plus Helen’s got a hell of a situation going on here that I’m trying to help her out with, so I’m going to have to steam off. I’ll call you, okay? I love you.”

“I love you too. Take care,” Sophie said. But she was already speaking to herself.

Chapter 16

Chapter 16