Cyber Cinderella (15 page)

The screen was filled with more information in dense text.

He pointed at it. “See, now I know who the dot com registrar is. I’ll go there now to find out more about the registrant.” He opened up what was recognizably a Web page with a convenient “who is” search box in the top left-hand corner. He became animated as he viewed more spewed ugly sans-serif text. “The registrant’s the same, World Web Worshippers UK. Here’s a contact, look, ‘administrative contact,’ one Atreides, no first name, host master at worldwebworship dot com. That must be it, that must be who they are. Do you know someone called Atreides?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Stupid, stupid, why didn’t I know that name? Was it Turkish? It was certainly all Greek to me. I performed a “whoislookup” into my memory, but nothing was upchucked. “Sorry, I don’t. Maybe it will come to me.”

“But I know that name,” he said. “I’m sure I know it. Atreides, Atreides,” he intoned. He wrote the letters down in a circle on the white board by his desk, “S, A, I, D, T, R, E, E,” striking off the letters from Atreides as he went. He looked jubilant. “There’s one riddle solved, at least. That’s the answer to the anagram about said tree.”

“Oh yes. Amazing. But it doesn’t help, does it?”

He continued to look at the screen, undeterred. “And look, our Mr. Atreides the administrative contact’s got an address.”

“But it’s a PO box. What is a PO box anyway, other than something people use when placing personal ads? How do you get one?”

“Sorry, I know about dialog boxes, not PO boxes.” His eyes continued to scan the screen. “Your ‘technical contact’ is Atreides again, Paul Atreides.”

“Think Izobel, think,” I said out loud. “Who is Paul?”

I shook my head. We looked at the screen together. There was a list of “domain servers” and a “registrar of record,” neither of which meant anything to me. Paul Atreides meant nothing to me and yet I seemed to mean something to him. How could that be? The ball inside my throat must have been an inflatable one because now it had deflated. I felt flat and frustrated.

“My God,” said Ivan. “I think I’ve got it. I think I know who Paul Atreides is. Of course I do, how could I forget?” He inputted “google.com” to the address bar. Hadn’t this been where all my problems had begun? He then typed in the words “Paul Atreides.” The results came back quickly and were myriad.

“You’re Googling Paul Atreides? He’s a pretty popular bloke,” I said when I saw the tens of thousands of sites about him. Far more than about Izobel Brannigan, that was for sure.

“Heir to the House of Atreides and savior of Arrakis, source of all Melange, the prophesied Kwisatz Haderach, superman and messiah,” Ivan said.

“You what?”

“Izobel, haven’t you ever read
Dune
by Frank Herbert?”

“Er, no. Isn’t it a film?”

“Sacrilege, fans of the book don’t like to talk about the disappointing film version. I don’t know how I could have forgotten the name of Atreides. It was etched on my brain throughout adolescence as much as Gandalf.”

“It’s a book like
Lord of the Rings
then?”

“Kind of.
Lord of the Rings
crossed with
Star Wars.
”

“Great. What’s it about?”

“An interstellar imperium where the House of Atreides has to safeguard the source of this spice in order to protect the universe. I can’t believe you haven’t read it.”

I smiled wanly. “Do I look like a fifteen-year-old boy? Why would I have read a sci-fi fantasy adventure book?”

“Because it’s a classic,” Ivan said.

“Have you ever read any of those teenage girl classics by Judy Blume or Virginia Andrews? No, I thought not. While you boys were reading about intergalactic spice racks, we girls were swapping our copies of books with stuff about sex and birth control.”

“My book sounds better. Herbert wrote it in the sixties and yet was amazingly prescient about the future of the environment and the effects of globalization.” He was po-faced as he spoke and I had a glimpse of the earnest adolescent he must have been.

“Well, while you boys were playing Dungeons and Dragons we were learning about the birds and the bees, so which do you think was more useful?”

Ivan laughed while I frowned. “Thing is, it doesn’t help us much, does it? Arse, registering the site under a false name.”

“Unless the book too is a clue to the identity,” he said. “I’ll reread it if you like.”

“But it’s not, is it?”

“No, just a pseudonym, I presume. Still, at least it’s a good book and a cool superhuman slash messiah character.”

“I don’t care. I don’t care about stupid
Dune
and stupid Paul whatsit.” My voice wobbled. “I’m never going to find out who’s behind the bloody site.”

“Yes, we are.” Again, Ivan touched my arm. “I promise. Let’s see. The PO box. There must be something we can do with that.”

“It’s in London.”

“Yes.” We fell silent. Neither of us knew anything about PO boxes, clearly. One of those things you take for granted without ever really thinking any further. I never needed to, until now.

“Let’s do what hasn’t worked up until now,” he said. “Let’s look them up on the Internet.”

“Ah yes, the Internet. I believe it’s a craze that’s taking the world by storm,” I said, in best sixties radio presenter tones.

“All the groovy kids are loving it,” he said in a matching male voice as he went into the Royal Mail’s site. “Quick links, here we are, PO boxes.”

“Hurrah.”

“Cost forty-five pounds per six months, how you get one, why you get one. ‘If you work from home, a PO box address can strengthen your business image.’ I’ll have to remember that one.”

“You don’t work from home.”

“Yes I do. Frequently Asked Questions.” He clicked on the FAQ link. “‘How much does it cost? Where can I have the box? Could someone find out my home address via my PO box number?’ Bingo.” He clicked again. “Isn’t my connection fast? I’ve got broadband, of course.”

I stared intently. Please say yes, please say yes, I asked of the Royal Mail Web site, please tell us there’s a real-life address behind any PO box. We both leaned forward and in.

“We are obliged to disclose your full postal address to anyone who asks for it. However, we will not disclose your name or telephone number,” the site read.

“Eureka,” we cried with one voice and leaped up and did the sort of dance performed by attention-seekers on
Top of the Pops.

“We know where you live. We know where you live,” I sang. “Nah, nah, na-na-nah.” We hugged briefly and then sat down again.

“Is there a frequently asked question about how you ask the Post Office for a postal address attached to a PO box?” I asked.

We paused blankly before we both reached for the mouse to drag the cursor toward the Contact Us link we had spotted. His hand got there first, closely followed by mine, which landed on top of his in accidental hand-holding.

“Let’s ring the general inquiries number,” I suggested and punched it into my mobile.

“It’s cheaper to use a landline, don’t you know?”

I ignored him and concentrated on the options being given to me by the surprisingly un-Received Pronunciation of the recorded message. I pressed option two. It’s always a bit like choosing a boyfriend—the options given never quite seem to match up exactly to your requirements but once you’re on the line you think you might as well go for it.

“‘Your call is in a queue and will be answered as soon as possible,’” I mimicked. “Hello,” I said on at last achieving human voice-to-voice contact. “I want to find out the address for a PO box.” I liked being in control. I was sick of being the appendage girl to Ivan’s detective work.

The man at the other end chuckled. “But you need the sales center, not general inquiries.”

“Silly me. What’s the sales center number then, please?”

I rang it and was faced with another set of random options, this time mostly concerned with business reply services, whatever they were. I pressed three for the sake of pressing something.

“Is this the right number for getting the address of a PO box?”

“Yes it is,” said the disdainful and disembodied voice.

I nodded at Ivan. “The PO box we’re interested in is four-five-three-two-one and it’s in EC One. London.” I held my mobile out from my ear so that Ivan could listen in.

A pause. A bored voice. “There is no PO box of that number.”

“What do you mean? We’ve got it registered. It must be a PO box number. We’ve seen it on an Internet site.”

“There is no PO box of that number. Are you sure you took it down correctly?”

“Yes I’m sure.” Ivan found the printout of the whois details. “Yes I’m very sure, I have the number right here in front of me.”

“Then your Internet site has the number incorrectly. Or they have been given a fallacious PO box number.”

“That can’t be, it can’t be true. Check again, please, check again.”

“There is no valid PO box of that number.”

“Bastard.” The voice at the other end put the phone down. “I meant he’s a bastard, not you, I don’t know you, it’s not your fault.” It was too late.

“Shit.” I slammed my hands on the desk, which hurt them and caused me to exclaim once again. “They’ve given a false PO box number.”

“They’ve given what looks like a false company name and false technical contact’s name, so I suppose we should have expected it.”

“Damn.” I was exhausted. “I’m never going to find them, am I? This is hopeless. I’m going to be stalked by them for the rest of my life and I’ll never know who they are. I thought you’d sort it out. I’d given up hope with Maggie’s and my investigations but I believed you’d be able to do it.”

“I will get it, Izobel. I promise. I’ll think of something. It might be time to think of some illegal ways forward.”

“Exactly. I mean, they’re not legal themselves, are they?”

“I think they’re completely legal, unfortunately.”

“Provision of false information, invasion of privacy, misrepresentation…” These were the phrases Maggie would have used based on television drama. I hadn’t a clue what they meant in a legal sense.

“Whatever. Don’t worry, I swear I’ll find out. I just need some time with my babies alone.”

He called his computers his babies. I shook my head.

“Let’s get something to eat.”

“And drink.”

I followed him out of the computer cave up the stairs to the next level. “Where are we going?”

“To my flat. I live above the shop.”

“Great area to live in.”

“Isn’t it?”

We entered his living area and I was forced to compliment him again. It wasn’t so much a flat as what lifestyle magazines would call a “space.” I’d always mistrusted people who were into interiors, always thought it showed that they had no interest in their own interior life, but this was different. The space didn’t make Ivan seem like a void. Quite the opposite.

He paused, evidently expecting the exclamation that must always come.

“Amazing place.”

“Thanks. What do you want to drink?”

He busied himself with my gin and tonic, while I wandered around. You could wander, it was that big. It was a long, rectangular room that extended laterally across two of the street’s terraced houses. It was low-ceilinged, but must have been light during the day because of the skylights. Within the space, there were areas for cooking, eating and playing. The kitchen featured a freestanding oven and stacked Le Creuset. I thought only married people had Le Creuset. Then there was an oak table big enough for ten. It was a table for entertaining, which made me think that maybe Ivan did have friends after all, unless he just held techie conventions with other spods or used it for arranging his computers in an elaborate placement. He did call them his babies, after all.

I continued scanning the room. Nothing was too slick. I hated those flats that look like they’ve been done up by developers and so check all the obvious design boxes: mosaic tiles in the bathroom, check; cooker by Smeg, check; big pink American fridge, check; accessories by Philippe Starck, check. This place, to use my magazine jargon again, was an eclectic mix of old and new. Everything looked like it had been lovingly chosen in a junk shop or foreign flea market. It made me think of city breaks in Madrid and Paris, weekends away in Norfolk, rooting around antiques fairs before a slap-up meal in a pub with a roaring fire. It made me think of good times.

Then there was the sitting area. Between the huge chocolate-colored velvet sofa and its equally fat burgundy corduroy companion sat an opaque fish tank. A few more mini versions of the same thing were dotted on the shelves between books (real novels, not the computer manuals I might have expected).

“Really amazing,” I said. “Your flat’s very”—I struggled to find an inoffensive way of expressing myself—“untechnical.”

“I think because I work with computers, it’s important to me to have a counterpoint to this at home. That’s why everything’s warm and wobbly here.” He laughed. “You’re such a snob, Izobel. I can tell exactly what you’re thinking.”

“Which is what?”

“Ivan’s not such a boring techie after all. How strange, I thought his home would look like a teenage boy’s bedroom, all PlayStations and pizza boxes.”

“No, not at all. What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the fish tank between us.

He flicked a switch and the tank lit up. I did too upon seeing it. The cloudy glass box filled with colors and movement; it looked as though flowers were billowing and blooming within it, a nature video come to life. All the colors were ones that I never thought you could replicate: the soft pink of an English rose, the shiny green of ivy, a cloudless sky that makes you happy and young.

“It’s an installation,” I said, not knowing what else to say faced with something so mesmerizing. “Who did it?”

“I did.”

“You’re an artist?”

“No, I’m a computer programmer turned systems administrator. This is just something I do because it interests me. It’s a way of turning what I do at work into something else and I like bridging my two worlds.”

“But it’s lovely. Do you sell your work?”

“No. Like I say, it’s not my work.”