"Ian Stewart - Environmental Friendship Fossle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Ian)

Drugs, pornography, whatever. Not an airport locker or a bus station one--those are checked regularly
by the authorities. A garage key would be unlikely; he wasn't rich enough to own a car. Though it could
be someone else's garage."

Salima stared at the key, as if willing it to give up its secrets. It did. I saw the smirk spread across her
face.

"Come on, girl. Give."

"Buy me another margarita."

"Deal." I beckoned the waitress over. Salima liked hers frozen, no salt. On the rocks for me, with
salt--bad for your heart, I've heard. I'll risk it.
"A gym," said Salima, once her drink had safely reached our table. "Very likely a university one. You see
this bit where it's been scraped?"

"Yes. So?"

"They put a strap on it so you can Velcro it round your wrist. The tag runs through a metal ring. Someone
took the ring off, scraped the metal."

I stared at her. "You can tell all that from a few scrapes and scratches, Ms. Holmes?"

"Not exactly. I've used a key just like this myself. At the gym on Pok Fu Lam road."

"Do 70-year-olds train in gyms, Salima?"

"My grandad ran marathons, Michael."

The key didn't fit locker 244 in the men's changing room at the gym on Pok Fu Lam Road, but I got the
janitor to open it anyway. It contained one sweaty sock and a packet of condoms, only two left out of a
dozen. Still in their foil wrappers, which was a mercy.

I wondered about the women's changing-rooms, but that would have made it difficult for Tsong to gain
access. Ruling that possibility out for now, I asked the attendant whether there were any other university
gyms. He told me there were two more. One was in Happy Valley; the other, in Sha Tin, was closed for
renovation. An hour being shuttled from official to official secured me master keys to both buildings. On a
hunch, I started with the one being renovated.

The key fit--no need to try the other possibilities, then. Locker 244 contained a tin box. I picked the
lock, and inside was a media card from an outmoded digital camera--either a Ricoh or, more likely, a
cheap Shanghainese copy. Not drugs, then; those had never been more than an outside chance anyway.
Something much more interesting.

My heart was thumping fit to burst--and I didn't think the salt on my margarita was to blame.

The card went straight into my pocket, sealed inside a static-free envelope. This was what Tsong had
taken so much trouble to conceal. I wondered what was on it. I couldn't understand why, having hidden
something as small as a media card, he had taken such a risk with a tusk. I totted up possible reasons.
One: a tusk wouldn't have fit into a gym locker. Two: he was 70, when logic is not at its peak. Three ... if