‘Okay,’ announced Radzi, a pack of ice balanced on his head. His fingers moved like lightning on the keyboard. ‘Basically, in these computers, there is a database that’s been hacked from the local police force, and since our population is a pitiful total of 15,000 including the mainland, there will be no problem tracking down individual activities.’
‘We can start with the Iyseeks.’
‘That’s what I thought as well. But the person himself - he doesn’t exist, not really. He was born as Reginalt Iyseek in 1949, attended the Coska nursery in 1953, pulled out half a year later. His parents migrated to the US, but in all the years until their deaths, they’ve never been seen with a child. No trail of him until year 2000 when he moved into a room above a pub. Reginalt Iyseek, 51 years old, citizen of Coska Island, born 27th January 1949, paid the mortgage installments until he turned 53, bought the whole pub three years later. Worked as the bartender until 16th October 2009 when the pub closed down due to permanent power failure.’
‘16th October,’ she repeated. ‘Nick died on the 18th. He must have closed down the pub and started terrorizing Daniel.’
Radzi frowned. ‘He didn’t have to close the pub down, surely he had other people to carry out his orders?’
‘Or maybe he wanted to make sure the deed was done right – what better way than to do it himself?’
‘Maybe. But that’s it about Iyseek. He was nothing more than a baby when his parents shipped him off to goodness-knows-where, or probably even left him behind with a different name, and then nothing – until he comes back.’
Nikki paused. Nothing more than a baby. ‘How did the parents die?’
‘It says here – oh –’ Radzi’s expression changed, ice droplets sliding to his chin. ‘It was a car accident in San Francisco.’
Nikki’s face was cheerless. ‘Can you find out anything about Andrea Kaniso?’
‘She was born in 1957, Cuban parents, attended a private high school here and later went to college in the US. In 1988, she stole 4,000 US dollars from a man but charges were dropped when the guy was found to be drug dealer. Apparently she snuck up on him in his own home.’
‘Looks like stealing from drug dealers can be justified.’ She looked disgusted. ‘What happened to Kaniso?’
‘Died ten years later. Natural causes.’
How strange. Why would Nick be researching her if she was a dead criminal?
‘What about Chek Kavok? K-a-v-o-k.’
‘Born in 1959 in Slovenia, got a scholarship for a Master’s degree in San Francisco when he turned 35. Prime suspect for stealing 30,000 USD from a doctor who specialized in bones, but no one could pin him down for earning that much by working three jobs over a year.’
‘You’re saying he covered himself with alibis?’
‘From the records I’m reading – he knew what he was doing, all right. Three different bar owners vouched that he’d been working for them for the whole of 1998 and that they only paid him at the end of the year, which explains why such a large sum of money came into his hands at one time.’ Radzi clicked some more and did something fast with his fingers. ‘You’ll find this interesting. He died in 1999, a few months after getting his money.’
Nikki had gotten out a pen and paper, and was drawing a timeline. ‘Which was also a year after Andrea Kaniso died. Anything else about Kavok?’
‘I’m hacking now. The database is useless. We don’t need formal information, we need the informal stuff, all the gritty details.’
As it turned out, it was difficult to track down his trail. There were no medical records that registered a similar age with Kavok’s asthma and hypoglycemic symptoms, no bank accounts with suspect passwords, no dental records.
‘Are you going to hack into foreign records?’
‘Yes, but it’ll take longer. Not so familiar with their security.’ He glanced at his girlfriend, the circles round her eyes dark. ‘Take a nap, Nikki. Seriously. When you wake up, I’ll have all the information ready.’
‘I need you to find out about the rest – Hugo Jamber, Tallulah Printip, Jed Zhen – here –’ She scribbled down their names for him. ‘Can you find anything about Jamber on the –?’
‘Sleep.’ Radzi looked like he meant it. ‘You’re no use when you’re tired. And I’ll need you to save everything into that photographic memory of yours.’
But he couldn’t know how hard it was for her to sleep. It was so much easier to be about and moving and doing, because when she lay there in the quiet, with only Radzi’s tap-tap-tap sounds for distraction, the speakerphone in her head roared with such ferocity that her head spun: You’re not Nick. You wanted to know. You left them for dead.
How could she lie there and sleep?
Oh Nick. What did you find out?
Oh Nick. What did you find out?
0 comments: