Page 23 of Savage Obsession

“What now?” Julia asks me as we pull away. “She didn’t know anything.”

“We now know she caught a train, probably. On Monday morning.”

“But where to?”

“We won’t know that until we start checking the timetables. I wonder why she didn’t go to the airport?”

“She’s never flown on a plane. She wouldn’t know where to start buying an airline ticket.”

I shoot her a sharp glance. “But she has a passport?”

“We’re a landlocked country. You can get a long way on a train. She’s used to those. We went to Austria by train a couple of years ago, so maybe she…”

“Fair enough,” I concede. “Let’s assume that’s her preferred mode of transport, then.”

We arrive back at the hotel and let Henry make a return visit to the rose garden. I lead the way back up to the third floor and pick up Julia’s laptop from where I left it on the bed.

“That’s mine,” Julie points out unnecessarily.

“I know. I need to borrow it.” I open it on the bedside table. “Password?”

“Lily one two one one three. All one word, capital L.”

I shoot her an exasperated glance. “Her date of birth. Not very secure.”

“I’m an accountant, not a spy.”

I make a mental note about her career choice. “I could have hacked into that in moments. You need to be more security conscious.” The screen comes to life in front of me, and I immediately type ‘Warsaw train timetable’ into the search bar. I’m clumsy at first, it’s a Polish keyboard, and although I’m fluent in the spoken language I’m out of practise with writing. Still, I manage, and the list of routes and timetables appears.

I try to refine my search to just Monday morning, but the tables don’t work that way, and I’m reduced to checking each one and making a list of the destinations, both within Poland and internationally, that she could have chosen.

It’s a long list. Warsaw is a busy capital city, well-connected to most of Eastern Europe. Even assuming she was headed south towards Tenerife, there are still over two dozen possibilities.

Train companies don’t keep a record of passenger details for cash transactions, so there’s nothing there to hack into. Our best chance would be the CCTV at the station if I can get a look at that. I have some prowess at hacking, enough for me to be able to identify the CCTV system in use, but after several attempts to find my way past security, the system gets wise and locks me out.

“Shit,” I mutter, glaring at the suddenly blank screen.

“What’s wrong?” Julia asks.

“I’m going to need some help with this.”

“Maybe the police?”

I shrug. They probably could access the tapes and review the footage, if they could be persuaded to bother. I’m not confident, given their general lack of interest so far.

“There’s someone else I know…”

“Who?” Julia demands.

“She’s called Casey Savage…” And the chances of her picking up the phone to me, even if I could lay my hands on her number, are slim to none. She might, just, respond to Kristian as a sort-of ally of her brother, Ethan Savage, but I doubt she’d recognise my name. And even if she did, I might be persona non grata by now if Kristian has put the word out that I’ve been cut loose. I suspect there’s a decent chance he hasn’t, yet, just because Andrzej was so ready to cooperate when I called him. He assumed I was making the request on behalf of Kristian, that I was still his second-in-command.

I can’t help wondering what’s holding Kristian back. He really should have announced my sacking, even appointed my successor by now.

“Who is that? This Casey Savage? One of your underworld associates?” Julia wants to know.

“Yeah, sort of.”

Casey is one of the most gifted IT experts in the world, renowned for her hacking skills as well as her ability to create elaborate coding guaranteed to crack even the most watertight security systems. Governments, defence companies, top-secret organisations, she has a formidable reputation for always finding her way in, and usually making her way back out without them even knowing she was there. The Warsaw public transport system network should be a doddle.

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