That answered one question. Now I knew which electronic mail service he was hooked into. “That’s right,” I said. “But have you ever used bulletin boards and public domain software?”

He looked at me as if I had lapsed into Mandarin. “Sorry, Kate, I haven’t a clue what you’re on about.”

I explained at mind-numbing length about communicating with other users through bulletin boards, about capturing free software programs over the phone lines, and about game-playing via modems. He looked just as dazed and confused as I’d intended. “I bet you don’t even do the things that make it easy on yourself, like date-stamping your files.”

That earned me a blank look. “Pardon?”

“You date-stamp your files, that way you can check when they were sent and what mailbox they were sent to. A great come-back when people haven’t paid you and claim they never had the copy.”

“Oh, right,” he said blankly.

“You want me to show you?” I asked, sidling over beside him. “Just connect yourself to Hermes and I’ll show you how.”

Right according to plan, he connected his computer to the telephone system. He had an autologon program, which only revealed his mailbox number, not his ID and passwords. But that was probably enough for what I had in mind. I memorized the eight digit number, ran a routine quickly by him, then exited from the link. “If you’re interested, I’ll come over one afternoon after all

He gave me a sly grin. “Be my guest. Maybe I can do you a trade. I’m sure there’s one or two things I could teach you.”

How to slide under a stone without disturbing it, perhaps, I thought. Time for a bit of hardball, I decided. “Neil? How did you hear about the way Moira was killed?”

He shifted in his seat. “Why do you want to know?” he asked.

“I’m just checking with everyone. Routine. I’m not very accustomed to investigating murder, and there were one or two things I forgot to ask last time around.”

“Obviously, I was dying to find out exactly what had happened, but the cops told us not to talk about it while they had us cooped up in that bloody blue drawing room. Besides, the only person who seemed to know what was going on was Jett. Anyway, after the police told us we could go to bed, I collared Kevin. I told him the best way to control any bad publicity was for me to handle all the stories. I know, I know, it’s earned me a few bob, but why not? Anyway, I asked him for the details, and he told me she’d been battered to death in the rehearsal room with a tenor sax.” He smiled disarmingly. I wondered if he knew he’d just given me the last brick in my case.

Chapter   28