The Strangers On The Trains ( Part 12)

“Emily, you still there?”

She was standing with the phone to her ear but saying nothing. Her mind was miles away trying to understand the meaning of those three letters.

“Emily?”

“Sorry, sorry, I was thinking. SOS you say, as in save our souls, a cry for help?”

“Suppose so, what else could it be?”

“I need to tell you something, but not over the phone. Usual pub, about three?”

“All sounds a bit mysterious, but you know me, never turn down a free drink.”

“Who said it was free?”

“You invited me, so by my rules you’re buying. See you at three.”

Fat Tony hung up. Emily once again found herself with more questions than answers. Every time she thought she was close to understanding this case, something came along and threw all her assumptions out of the window.

It just couldn’t be a coincidence. Stephen Palmer was obsessed with those three little letters and now her kitchen was covered in them. There had to be a connection.

She googled SOS. There was a long list. Apart from the obvious one, she was surprised to find so many. There was the, Samaritans Of Singapore, Secretary Of State, Sensor Observation Service and the Sumatran Orang-utan Organisation. None of these seemed to be a dangerous organisation capable of threatening someone’s life and ransacking her home.

She poured herself a coffee and sat back in her chair. What was she missing?

She thought about Stephen Palmer. If he really was obsessed and even paranoid about something that he’d uncovered, then surely he would have made notes about it. Maybe there was something in his personal files on the computer. She logged on to the main server, went into archived files and typed in Stephen Palmer. A message appeared on her screen “Access Denied”.

She called Julie Crossley.

“Hi Julie, it’s Emily. I’m trying to access some of Stephen Palmer’s old files but I can’t seem to get in to them. Can you help?”

Julie was her normal no nonsense self.

“What do you need them for?”

“Well, I didn’t want to cover the same ground as he’d done, so I was wondering if he’d made any notes or observations regarding some of the crashes. I’m just trying to save myself time really.”

“Okay, I’ll email you his security password. That will get you into any of his files. But I’ll have to clear it with Paul first.”

“Of course Julie. Thank you.”

Emily sat staring at her laptop waiting for the email to arrive. It did, in exactly six minutes from the time she’d put the phone down to Julie. She opened it. There was Stephens user name and password. She logged on under his name. There were eight case files listed, each with a folder containing information about the various crashes.

She quickly scanned through them all. Nothing about SOS. In fact it looked like he’d drawn a blank wherever he’d gone. Christ, she’d discovered more in a week than this guy had uncovered in years.

She scanned through his Word documents. There was a letter he had written to a debt company asking for more time to pay, some silly poems that he’d written obviously when he was bored. Then she saw it. It took her by surprise but it was there. A word document called, Seal Of Solomon, and then in brackets SOS.

She opened it. It contained only one small paragraph. She read it out loud.

“I think I may be onto something here. It’s a possibility. But seems too far-fetched. I need to look a lot closer and find out more.”

That was it. Just twenty seven words.

She googled Seal Of Solomon.

Wikipedia said “ In Medieval Jewish, Christian and Islamic legends, the Seal of Solomon was a magical signet ring said to have been possessed by King Solomon, which variously gave him the power to command demons, genies (or jinni), or to speak with animals. It has the properties of both amulets and talismans.”

She continued to read as much as she could on the subject until it was time to meet Fat Tony in the pub. She arrived thirty minutes early but wasn’t surprised to see Fat Tony already seated in the corner with three empty pint glasses on the table. He saw her, smiled and stood up.

“Hello sweetheart, you’re early, let’s crack open a bottle of red, shall we?”

He sat back down again, making no attempt to go to the bar.

She laughed at him.

“My round is it then Fatman?”

“Your invite, your round.”

She couldn’t help but like this grotesque yet lovable man.

She came back two minutes later with a tray containing a bottle of Shiraz, two glasses and a pint of lager. She placed them on the table in front of Fat Tony.

“Thought you might like another pint while I’m unscrewing the bottle.”

He laughed.

“You know me too well Miss Watson.”

He downed the pint in two large gulps and was ready with his wine glass just as she had finished unscrewing it.

“You are one greedy bastard Tony, do you know that?”

“Yep, known it all me life. Now what’s up?”

She told him about the break in at her flat and the letters carved into her worktop and on her cupboards. She also told him about Stephen Palmers file on the Seal Of Solomon. She waited for a reaction. There was none.

“So come on then, what do you think?”

“Nothing to think is there, sounds like a load of bollocks to me.”

Emily poured him another glass of wine.

“Look Tony, Stephen Palmer becomes obsessed with the letters SOS. They stand for the Seal of Solomon. I start working on the same case and someone breaks into my flat and scribbles the same three letters all over my kitchen. Got to be more than a coincidence, surely!”

He drank his wine. Poured himself another glass until the bottle was empty.

“Calm down Miss Marple. Do you really think that this thing exists? Like something out of the fucking Lord of the Rings. Even YOU must be too well educated to believe that.”

“I’m not saying that there’s some magic ring somewhere, just that there must be a connection, that’s all. What that connection is, I don’t know. That’s what I pay you for.”

Tony got up off his seat and walked to the bar. Minutes later he was back with another bottle and three packets of crisps. He filled up their glasses.

“Okay let’s start from the beginning. SOS stands for Seal Of Solomon, correct?”

She nodded.

“Stephen Palmer was obsessed with it, correct?”

She nodded again.

“The people that broke into your flat wrote SOS everywhere but didn’t take anything, correct?”

She pulled an annoyed face and nodded again.

“According to the Internet, the Seal of Solomon is some kind of religious artefact, possibly a ring or something similar, correct?”

She lost her temper.

“Yes, yes, fucking yes!”

“So maybe, just maybe, this artefact is very valuable, right. Maybe, just maybe people are trying to find out where it is and steal it from the people who have it already. Maybe, just maybe, the train bombings were an attempt to disrupt the transportation of said item?”

Emily looked at Tony is amazement.

“I never thought of that.”

Tony sat back looking smug. He raised his glass.

“And that’s why the service has kept me in business for the past twenty five years!”

There was a silence as they both thought about what he had just said. Emily spoke first.

“So what now. How do we find out more about this Seal?”

Tony leaned forward.

“A few years ago I worked on the Ray Samuels case, remember him?”

“Yes, he was the man that went missing and then turned up twenty years later looking exactly the same. Then mysteriously died. Some kind of hoax or fraud.”

Tony shook his head.

“Close, but not quite. Anyway, I worked undercover on the case. But there was a guy involved. A guy called James Conroy. Back then he was head of religious studies at Oxford. He’s now retired, out in Berkshire somewhere. I got to know him quite well during that time. If anyone knows about the Seal Of Solomon, it’s him.”

“Do you think you could track him down and find out more?”

Fat Tony laughed, then tipped a whole packet of salt and vinegar crisps into his mouth.

“You betcha!”