Chapters (49)
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Also by Graham Hurley
- LIMELIGHT
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- AFTERWARDS
‘Are you telling me my son’s at some kind of risk?’ I ask. ‘Does Sylvester think he’s gullible?’
‘God forbid, quite the contrary.’ He’s beaming at me now. ‘I gather they’re brothers-in-arms. It’s a love affair, my dear. They both want to get very rich indeed. Which may not be the best news you’ve heard all day.’
TWELVE
En route home, hurrying to get out of the rain, I get a text from Rosa, my agent. Bill has given me a bag of allotment veggies for Andy, mainly salad stuff, and I pause beneath Evelyn’s umbrella to read the text.
Rosa, I can tell at once, is losing patience with yours truly. Halligan’s pressing for sight of the Pavel masterpiece. It would be good to know if it even bloody exists. Any chance of a clue or two, my precious? No sign off. No line of kisses. Just a peremptory shove to stir me into action.
Back at the bungalow, I share this news with Evelyn. Charlie Halligan, I explain, is the commissioning editor who can green-light the project.
‘And you have access to this machine of Pavel’s?’
‘It’s upstairs. I brought it down with me.’
‘And have you looked?’
‘I tried. Did my best. But lots of stuff is locked down and I haven’t a clue what to do.’
We discuss options. Evelyn herself is as clueless about IT as I am. The latter years of her editing career, she says, put her on handshake terms with the Word programme but anything beyond that gives her panic attacks. She even fights shy of internet banking, fearful that half the world might be watching. Better, she says, to nip down to the Nationwide in the High Street. Nice girl called Debbie.
This takes me nowhere, and when I ask about friends of hers who might help me out, she looks dubious.
‘What else is on the computer?’
‘Everything, I imagine. Half his life. Maybe more.’
‘Then shouldn’t you be talking to some kind of relative? Otherwise it sounds a bit intrusive to me.’
She’s right, of course, but Pavel had only one relative that I was aware of and he lives in Australia.
‘Then phone him. Ask for his permission. Everyone obsesses about data protection these days.’