attempts to open them, while Deira listened in amazement.
‘You were his student,’ she concluded. ‘Maybe you have some insights I don’t.’
‘He didn’t leave you any hints?’ asked Deira, who couldn’t quite get her head around the fact that the professor had left some kind of macabre treasure trail for his wife to follow after his death. ‘Like that they were numbers or phrases or . . . anything at all?’
‘No.’ Grace detailed her hopeless attempts and told Deira that she’d tried ‘Amazing Grace’ without success too. ‘I wondered if there was anything he’d ever said to you that would make you think of a possible clue?’
‘I left college over fifteen years ago!’ exclaimed Deira. ‘I couldn’t possibly have a sensible idea.’
‘But can you remember anything he said, any particular likes or dislikes . . .’
‘Grace, it’s you he wanted to be able to open the documents,’ Deira pointed out. ‘He’d be thinking of something special to you, not to me.’
‘You’re right, of course.’ Grace sounded defeated. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking.’
‘Well . . . let’s put our heads together anyhow.’ Deira pushed the glass of soda water to one side and leaned over to look at the laptop’s screen. ‘Do you have any idea how long the password is? Because obviously a four-symbol one would be a lot easier to crack than anything as long as “Amazing Grace”.’
Grace shook her head.
‘Let me try.’ Deira tapped the keyboard, then turned to look at her. ‘I don’t think it can be more than four characters,’ she said. ‘The cursor doesn’t appear to go any further than that anyhow.’
‘Oh, but . . .’ Grace made a face. ‘I thought it might seem that way but still be longer. Sometimes sites don’t show exactly how many characters you need.’
‘Possibly, but this is an internal document password and I honestly don’t think it’s massively encrypted. So that narrows it down at least.’
‘There must still be an enormous number of four-character passwords, though,’ said Grace. ‘Otherwise it’d be easy to crack a mobile phone.’
‘True,’ Deira conceded. ‘But let’s think about this clearly. The professor wanted you to work this out. He couldn’t have made it too difficult.’
‘I’ve tried every combination of memorable dates I can think of,’ Grace said. ‘Birthdays, anniversaries . . . Oh God!’ Her face paled and she pulled the laptop back towards her. She typed in a combination, then sighed with relief when she got the ‘password incorrect’ message. ‘I thought for a second he might have put in the day he died.’ She covered her face with her hands.
Deira said nothing. It was the first time she’d seen the other woman anything but composed – even in the restaurant, as she’d recounted her story, she’d been totally self-possessed.
After a moment, Grace took a deep breath and looked at her again. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Grace . . .’
‘Really.’ Her voice was firm and steady. ‘Carry on. Any more thoughts?’
‘Do you think it could be anything to do with the places you’re visiting?’ asked Deira, who wondered if Grace’s apparent calmness in the face of a terrible tragedy was simply a coping mechanism, or if she truly was one of the least emotional people she’d ever met. ‘Nantes. La Rochelle. Bordeaux . . .’ she continued, ‘is there anything special about them?’
Grace shook her head. ‘Other than the fact that we’ve been to them all before, no,’ she said. ‘As for the rest, I haven’t been to Pamplona, Toledo or this place called Alcalá de Henares. Ken did a literary lecture tour in Spain just before he was taken ill, and although I can’t remember exactly where he was, I’m assuming he went to those places. He’s certainly been to Pamplona a few times. The Sun Also Rises is . . . was one of his favourite books, and he went there for the running of the bulls. He didn’t run himself,’ she added, ‘but he sat in the cafés around the square and drank wine and channelled his inner Ernest.’
‘You were reading that on the boat,’ recalled Deira.
‘As I said, it was Ken’s favourite. I thought it would mean something to read it on this trip. I’d have preferred to reread Rosamunde Pilcher, to tell you the truth.’
Deira smiled slightly, remembering her own run-in with Professor Harrington over her critique of Hemingway’s best-known novel. Then she turned her attention back to the computer screen.
‘Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares,’ she remarked.
‘Cervantes?’
‘The guy who wrote Don Quixote,’ said Deira.
‘Yes,