Doughnut - By Tom Holt Page 0,52

Ionescu was brilliant and, in his opinion, longer-suffering than Lebanon, but it didn’t do to tell Janine that. “Fine,” he said. “When was this, exactly?”

“What? Oh, two days ago, maybe three. I’ve been trying to get through to you, but your people keep pretending you aren’t there. You know how hurtful that is?”

“You could’ve left a number.”

“What, and have you harassing me? No way.” Another pause. “You believe me?”

“That it might’ve been Max? Actually, yes, I do.”

“So you don’t think I’m crazy.”

“No.”

A very long pause. “You’re just saying that to make me crazier,” Janine said. “You think that if you encourage me in my delusions it’ll be easier to get me put away. Dr Ionescu—”

“Janine. I believe you.”

“Yeah, right. Why?”

“Because—” He clamped his mouth shut just in time. Because people in an alternative universe keep saying Max has been seen with my dead friend Pieter. “Because you’re my sister, and I know you,” he said. “Sometimes you do some rather injudicious stuff, but basically you’re as sane as I am. So, if you say you heard Max, I believe you. Simple as that.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Yet another pause. Then: “What the hell do you mean, injudicious? What have I ever done that—?”

“Well,” Theo said, “having me followed, for a start.”

“You’re upset about that, aren’t you?”

Upset. Oh boy. “A bit, yes.”

“I bet you’re thinking, she must be crazy, to do something like that.”

“Janine.”

“Yes?”

“Promise me,” he said. “If you hear – well, if you hear that voice again, call me, will you?”

“OK.”

“And getting the call traced might not be a bad idea.”

“For fuck’s sake, Theo.” She was starting to feel better, evidently. “Of course I did that. All my calls are traced, naturally. But it was from a cellphone, they couldn’t get a fix, not even which country he was calling from.”

That he could believe. “And if he calls again, for crying out loud, talk to him. OK?”

“Yes, Theo.”

“And then call me.”

“Yes, Theo.” Pause. “Look, about the having-you-followed thing.”

Theo sighed. “It’s all right,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You won’t tell Dr Ionescu, will you?”

“No.”

“You really really don’t think I’m crazy?”

“Really really.”

“It gets so hard sometimes.”

“I bet.”

“You’re just saying that,” she snapped, and the line went dead. He put the phone back slowly, as if afraid of waking it up.

When he reported for duty in the laundry room the next morning, there was nobody there, and all the sheets and towels and pillowcases had vanished. The machines were still in place, but although he crawled all over them trying to figure out what they were supposed to be for, he ended up no wiser than he’d been when he started. He couldn’t even tell if they ran on electricity or something else. He gave up after an hour and went back up to Reception, but there was nobody about. He sat down at the desk and turned the computer screen so he could read it. The screen flickered into life, and he typed YouSpace user’s manual into Google, just in case. Did you mean…? Google asked him reproachfully. He smiled and shook his head. Then, slowly and methodically, he went through the computer, looking for anything that might give him a clue about what was going on. There were lots and lots of files in lots and lots of folders. They were all password protected, but since there was a yellow sticky attached to the monitor with the word PASSWORD on it, followed by Flawless Diamonds Of Orthodoxy, and since the one password opened all the files, that wasn’t an insuperable problem. Opening the files, though, just made things a tiny bit worse. Nearly all of them were in languages he didn’t understand, some of them in alphabets he’d never seen before. The few in English were mostly to do with laundry collections and the contract for emptying the septic tank. There was one that looked hopeful; it was a list of words, in three columns, and the first three words in the second column were –

Bandits

Cowboys

Spaceman

But directly under those were

Nosebleed

Lyons

Ramayana

August

Thereafter

– which didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Nevertheless, he printed out a hard copy of the list and put it inside the manila envelope. Then he stood up and looked round until he saw what he’d been searching for.

It was a small box on the wall, painted red and with a glass front. He looked around for a suitable heavy object, found a fairly chunky desk stapler, and used it to smash the glass. The result was one of the loudest noises he’d ever heard, including