Frame-Up (10 page)

"But that is different. That’s warfare between gangs."

"Please, dad, don’t underestimate the danger. These people are cruel
to the extreme."

"All right, Ceci, I’ll think about it. Maybe they could go to Lucy’s
grandparents in Wales. The trouble is it’s in the middle of the school
term. But what about you?"

"DI Willis restricted me to my apartment. But even if he hadn’t,
investigating this matter forces me to remain in London."

"But don’t do anything foolish, Ceci, will you?"

"I promise, dad." A promise I will most likely have to break, I realize.
Some of the ideas that are gradually firming up in my mind, he would
consider foolish and dangerous.

Lucy offers me coffee and I stay with them till past ten.

Saturday, 10:45 p.m.

Back in my apartment I check for phone calls I might have missed while
I was out. There are two. The first was from my mother, just wanting to
connect. The second is from Gary. He sounds irate, shouting almost
incoherently.

"Now you even got the Mafia on my back. I was threatened, tonight,
in the street. This guy, he hardly spoke English. He said to tell you to pay
up or else. He grabbed my jacket. I tried to tell him we had split up. He
just shouted: ‘Tell her, or else. We’ll get her, and you. No police, got
that?’ He threatened me. He said ‘you’. For god’s sake, do what he wants!
Pay them whatever money you have and get them off my back."

I wonder what to do. Return the call? It would just degenerate into a
shouting match. Would he even be in at this time? Most unlikely. In this
case I could simply leave a message and not get again abused by him. I
dial his home number. It rings six times and then his answering machine
kicks in.

"Gary, I’m sorry that you were threatened, probably by the same guy
who threatened me. I think you’re right. He is Mafia —"

A click and Gary’s voice suddenly interrupts me. "Don’t just be sorry.
Do what he fucking says. Pay out. Hear me? … Why did I ever get
involved with you, you bitch, dragging me into this mess —"

"Gary, I didn’t call to get into a fight with you or get insulted," I cut
in in turn, "but to warn you that this guy is dangerous —"

"Then do what he says. Pay!"

"— so protect yourself by not going out alone at night. Be in a group.
And I can’t pay, even if I wanted to. I don’t have two million. How many
times do I have to repeat that I did nothing wrong?"

"I don’t care. Ask your old man. He is loaded. Just pay and get this
guy off my back." He slams the phone down. It seems this has become his
way to end our calls.

This interchange upsets me more than I want to admit. I can’t forgive
him his irrational behavior. I wonder which scenario is more likely to fit:
the one of the guilty accomplice who suddenly realizes that he is being
dragged under and panics, or the selfish innocent who is frightened and
sees his promotion chances float away. It’s hard to tell. If it’s the first, he
sure turns out to be an outstanding actor, because he sounds genuine. But
then he hid his true self from me for almost two years. And if it’s the
second, I would have expected that our previous intimate relationship
would induce him to show more empathy for my plight, at least let him
believe in my innocence. He is though correct in one respect, I realize:
things are definitely getting nastier.

I turn off all lights and go to the living room. The reflection of the
close-to-full moon enters through the two windows, transforming the
living room into a night scape of black shadows and stripes of bluish
light. The scene lacks depth. It gives the illusion of two-dimensionality.
I sit in my favorite stressless reclining chair, one of my conspicuous
purchases after the commission income began to flourish. With this new
threat, I can no longer afford to wait for the police to find the real culprits
and clear me. It’s time to take decisive action on my own, starting with
ranking the possible culprits, and then devising strategies for
investigating each. Also, my plans need to be flexible and adapt to
whatever I discover as I proceed.

There is no doubt in my mind that Edward Long ranks tops. Hacking
into his files at Lewis should be the first avenue to pursue. The files may
reveal something suspicious.

As all stockbrokers, Lewis is connected to the London Stock Exchange
and the Reuters systems. The machines of all employees are served by the
firm’s local network. Long tends to leave his machine on 24/7, although
the system logs off any machine idle for more than two hours. Three
months ago when he returned from one of his
Club Méditerrané
vacations, I happened to observe him in my mirror as he logged on to his
machine, while I was checking my make-up. The password he used was
easy to remember — Aussie19 — his nickname followed by a number.
I immediately saw that 19 is a prime number. Judging him as lazy, both
in terms of having to think up new passwords and then making sure to
remember them, I guess that he doesn’t change it that often and will
change it in a way that is easy to remember. The two obvious choices are
either raising or lowering the number by one or go to the next prime
number. The first method seems too obvious, I figure, even for a
primitive fellow like Long. I’m pretty convinced that he uses the second
option. Furthermore, it’s a good guess that Lewis’ local network is
accessible from the narrow alley behind the building. So all I need is a
sufficiently powerful laptop and a way to hide in the alley, and Long’s
machine is mine.

I also remember the user codes of most other brokers, including Fred
Garland’s, but not their passwords. To get around that obstacle I would
need to gain access to the local network at the system administrator level.
From the computer science courses I attended at university, I know there
exists free software to spy on traffic in a network, so-called sniffer
programs, which allow the capture of passwords. The alternative is to e-mail Fred a trojan horse in the form of a game or a spicy animation, with
a hidden code embedded that will search his computer for his password
and automatically e-mail it to me. All he needs to do is to play it, and
from shoptalk I know he loves these things.

A good firewall is most likely to weed out a trojan horse delivered
from outside. However, when I joined Lewis I was appalled by their poor
computer security. Time and again, machines of my colleagues got
infected with viruses. I even went as far as to install my own firewall,
which protected my machine not only against incursions from outside our
local network, but also from being infected via other machines within the
network. So I reason that if I send the trojan horse from within the
network by taking over Long’s machine, it will reach Garland’s mailbox.

Unfortunately, my personal high-powered laptop is in the hands of the
police. I make up my mind that if I don’t get it back by Monday
afternoon, I will hire a suitable machine. And the best way to hide in the
alley behind the offices is to be in a delivery van with either no or
obscured windows. Renting one for a week or so is one possibility, but
would leave a record. Buying one seems the safer option, as long as I
delay registering the ownership change or even fail to do so, but it will
make a bad dent in my cash reserves — something I have to risk, I reason.

Before going to sleep, I remind myself to search tomorrow through the
automotive section of Saturday’s
Times
for such a second-hand van.

Sunday, 26
^th
October, 11.55 a.m.

The van is a dirty cream Toyota HiAce, with the lettering ‘call a plumber’
all in capitals and a somewhat faded, out-of-town phone number on its
side panels. Its cargo section windows, except for the one of the back
gate, are sprayed white, showing a few scratches. It has seen better days
and so has its current owner, a scruffy man in his fifties. The vinyl of the
driver’s seat is cracking. The rubber on the floor has a hole in front of the
accelerator, while the one on the passenger side is missing. No left-hand
side mirror. It must have been ripped off, probably by the same accident
that slightly dented the left door panel. The back door opens with a loud
squeak. It has to be slammed hard to close properly. The cargo hold has
rubbish inside. Surprisingly, the tires still have over eight mills of tread
left.

The man shows me the registration certificate. It has his name on it. So
the vehicle isn’t stolen. He takes me on a short drive around a couple of
blocks. The odometer registers 139,456, I assume kilometers. The motor
sounds rough at low revs, but springs to life first try and responds nicely.
The gears stick a bit. Never having driven a van, I feel insecure. I don’t
know whether it is sitting in a vehicle so high above the pavement or the
wet surface of the roads and the occasional strong wind gusts. When I let
go of the steering wheel for a moment on a straight stretch of road, the
van drifts noticeably to the left. It needs a wheel alignment. But for my
purpose, it would do.

"So you want it?" he questions after I park the car. "It may not look
good, but the motor’s in excellent shape. I’ve just come back from a trip
to Newcastle with no problems."

Does that mean he expected trouble, crosses my mind?

"And the tires should last you another fifteen thousand." He eyes me
critically from top to bottom. "What do you intend to use the van for?" he
asks, tone and face revealing suspicion.

It isn’t a question I expected, but quickly invent a plausible answer.
"I’m an artist and have just bought a cottage in Wales. So I’ll be slowly
shifting all my things up there over the next few weeks and I need a van
to carry them."

That seems to satisfy his curiosity.

"This van will do you fine. It has lots of cargo space. Even a double
bed will fit in."

"I guess it might do, but you ask far too much for it." He advertised it
for 1400. "I’ll give you 800." Even that is more than I hoped to spend.

"No deal, lady. I’m willing to let it go for 1200, but no lower. It’s a
steal at that price."

"I don’t think so. I saw another van, in good order with no outside
damage and the motor sounded OK; it just had 30,000 more on the
odometer. Advertised for 1050. I’ll give you the same." This is a lie. His
is the first vehicle I’ve looked at. The few others in my price range are
either much older or way out in the outer suburbs.

"You see, the 30,000 more makes the difference. That’s when the
electricals go wrong. 1200 it is."

"Sorry, 1050 in cash tomorrow morning."

He hesitates for a moment and then mutters: "All right, but I want fifty
down to hold the van until tomorrow."

I give him the fifty. I’ve to write out the receipt myself, but he signs
it. We agree to meet again at 10:30 next morning. By then I’ll be able to
uplift the cash at my bank.

Sunday, 4:00 p.m.

I didn’t return my mother’s call late last night. My grandparents tend to
go to bed early, and the ringing of the phone might wake them. Four
o’clock in London means five o’clock in Switzerland, and late afternoon
is a good time to catch them all, probably drinking tea. My mother
answers. I remain silent about my trouble. It would only upset her
unnecessarily. I ask about Carlo. No, he hasn’t shown up yet. So my
doubts that he would actually go to Switzerland were right. I’m sorry to
have asked about it and by that raised her hopes that he will visit soon.
My grandfather wants to know whether the recent upheavals in the
financial market have affected my job. I reply no, but that I’m thinking
of looking for employment in a different branch, a less stressful one.

Silvio has been on my mind on and off the last two days. I ask myself
again why I hadn’t invite him up to my apartment the other night. What
was it that had held me back? Whatever it was, it now seems unimportant.
All I know is that I want to see him again soon. Why not invite him for
dinner? On the spur of the moment, I call him at the restaurant, the only
phone number I have.

"
Ciao bella
. I would never have dreamed that you would call," he
greets me. His voice reflects genuine pleasure.

I’m pleased that he recognized my voice. "Neither did I, to tell the
truth. I want to thank you for that really wonderful evening."

"We should do that again; soon I hope."

"That’s why I call. Are you free tomorrow night?" I remembered that
the restaurant is closed on Monday and Tuesday. "Because I would like
to invite you to come to my place for dinner if you are willing to sample
my simple
cucina
."