Day 11
So, what's going on with Sage? Why the secrecy? Why the easy lies? Why does she get saluted like an officer? Who is she?
The Nano writing has slowed to a crawl and I'm finding that wall that comes so close to just giving up and it'll take some determination to get through it.
Diana opened the file and lifted out all the papers inside. Outside was a still and calm night with a sky high and clear, velvet black littered with shining stars beyond the curtained window of Diana's dining room. She glanced through the Gardiner Trust information and found, as she suspected, nothing. Then the copies of the funding application with her own signature in various places and her own handwriting crushed into boxes that were too small. Still nothing.
Then the final authorised approval confirmation pack, signed by Diana, several of the Safe Haven trustees and countersigned by Gardiner Trust representatives.
There it was.
Diana stared at the piece of paper. She put it down on top of the pile on the table beside the now empty box file and she went to the kitchen to make a fresh coffee. But as she turned the kettle on, she changed her mind, turned it off again and reached into a cupboard for something stronger than coffee. Fishing out a tall glass, she added coke, tia maria and a generous shot of vodka. A Black Russian, that she affectionately called, "An Ivan" was just what she needed.
In a drawer to one side of the kitchen, Diana kept old Christmas and birthday cards so she could recycle them into gift tags, and sometimes just because she didn't want to get rid of them just yet. She liked to look and remember when they got used again. She pulled the pile out and flicked through them, looking for a particular card, sipping at her black Russian slowly until she found the birthday card she was hunting for. She took the card and the glass into the dining room and sat back down, placing the card, now open, beside the form.
"Diana,
Merry Xmas,
Hope it's a Good one!
Sage"
Diana fished Sage's note from that morning out of the bin and smoothed it out, placing it with the other two pieces.
Somewhat illegible and hastily scrawled, but sitting right there beside the Gardiner Trust forms it could have been. The capital S was almost identical and the G in Good on the Christmas card was there too.
She went back to the kitchen drawer and rummaged through the cards until she found a birthday card to add to the pile.
"D,
Happy Birthday,
See you at the weekend, fancy the Falconers for birthday dinner?
S."
Again, the S was so close it was almost identical and the end of Falconers was scrawled the same way as the end of the signature.
Was Could Sage's surname possibly be Gardiner? The signature on the form was S G-squiggle, so Diana wasn't sure if this was an actual Gardiner who could be signing the forms, it was possible. But, more to the point that looks like Sage's scrawl and that had been a Gardiner Trust identity card in her pocket, and she was sure it had been a Gardiner branded badge on her shirt. Why hadn't she mentioned it?
