Frame-Up (20 page)

Friday, 31
^st
October, 7.05
a.m.

I become aware of the warm body next to me. Without opening my eyes
I snuggle up to him, matching his shape, folding an arm around his torso,
savoring the sensation of his skin on mine, inhaling the lingering scent of
sex on his. It makes me reach down to his penis. It feels soft and pliable,
but after a moment it swells. Silvio stirs and turns on his back. I let go.

"I love you," I whisper in his ear, my breasts pressing into his arm and
chest.

His eyes open slowly, a sleepy smile greeting me. "I love you too,
Ceci. I never dared hoping that you would be mine one day."

"But I am. I want to be yours, all yours … now." My right hand
reaches again for his penis. It is stiff. His smile grows bigger. Suddenly,
he turns me on my back and starts kissing me. I usually avoided kissing
Gary in the morning before he brushed his teeth. His breath and saliva
tended to taste stale. But Silvio’s breath feels good. I banish Gary from
my mind and respond eagerly. He plays with my breasts, fingers feather-light circling my nipples, while his eyes are locked on mine. The urge to
have him inside becomes insistent. I open my legs, murmuring: "Come."

He continues teasing me.

"Please, Silvio, now."

I rush to a climax, cresting before he comes. Blissfully spaced out, I
relish his pulsations inside me. He remains lying on me, light. I’ve my
eyes closed, smiling, as his nose nuzzles mine.

Later we shower together. Over coffee — he makes it on my Lavazza
espresso machine, extra strong — he says: "I like your father, but he is so
English. Even his looks and his flaming red hair. You don’t resemble him
at all."

"No, not in looks, but thankfully quite a bit in character."

"Really? You strike me as a full-blooded Italian."

"Swiss Italian, remember I spent six years in Lugano."

"Italian, Swiss Italian, it’s all the same."

"I doubt many Swiss Italians would agree with that. They consider that
the mountains have made them a tougher breed."

"I’ll take you even if you are only a poor cousin from across the
border. We should never have allowed those burly Swiss cowherds to
hold on to you." A mischievous smile makes his face even more
handsome.

"Don’t knock them. They were the ones who fought all the battles for
your soft seignory. I also bet they sowed quite a few Swiss genes
throughout northern Italy."

"That explains why there are so many ugly people there."

"So, you see me ugly." I punch him lightly.

He takes me in his arms, studying my face. "No, as a matter of fact,
your face is quite pretty."

I feign disappointment. "Pretty? That’s the best you can say? And the
rest of me?"

"That, my beautiful woman, that is a most exquisite treasure trove.
Although the temptation is great to explore it some more right now, I’m
afraid, duty calls. I must go. Will I see you tonight, please?"

I assent but tell him that later at night another task of spying in other
people’s computer files awaits me.

After Silvio has left, I change into my tracksuit and go for a run. The
air is nippy and smells of rain. The first chilling drops splash me as I
return to the street of my apartment building. Then I shower, drink
another coffee with a croissant, and just barely make it to the Snow Hill
Police Station before ten for my first reporting — a condition under the
release on bail.

Back home I finally buckle down to search Long’s e-mail folders. I
work backward in time, starting with his private ‘old mail’ and ‘sent mail’
folders. There are a couple of messages he sent out gloating over my
dismissal. The second one to a friend in Sydney even hints that he fed the
bum rumor to me on purpose to goad me. I dismiss it as boasting.

It is a long and tedious business. Long’s spelling mistakes offer the
only amusement. Although I mainly scan through the files, I’m
flabbergasted by some of the inane and puerile messages he received and
sent out. Why am I amazed? They perfectly reflect his shallow character.
The other aspect I find troubling is that the majority of the outgoing mail
is sent out during work hours. As expected, I find a number of e-mails
with pornographic attachments, some showing prepubescent girls. That
makes me think that maybe I should check for pornographic material in
other folders stored on his computer, rather than the network server. If I
find similar files, I can maybe pay him back for some of his harassment
by giving the police an anonymous tip.

 I only downloaded messages as far back as July, reasoning that I will
hardly find anything relevant to the Sanvino affair earlier on. Deflated, I
give up. I didn’t find a shred of evidence. Not that this necessarily
exonerates him. If I had planned and undertaken such a scam, I would
have made sure to leave nothing incriminating on my computer. So I
should expect the same precautions from him, except that the previous
discovery of insider trading evidence had raised my hopes. But I knew
from the start that this search was only a shot in the dark, and I still have
to discover where the money for the penthouse studio and the new car
came from.

Friday, 10:05 p.m.

Coming home from seeing Silvio over a drink — I purposely ate a light
dinner prior to going to
Il Corno d’Oro
so as not to get another free meal
— I check for phone messages left while I was out. There is only one. I
almost don’t listen to it when I see that it is from Gary and after hearing
it I’m angry with myself for not following my instinct. He sounds
deranged, calls me a bitch, a cunt, an ice maiden — did he get that last
label from Long I wonder? He accuses me of being the cause why he lost
out on the promotion; whether I’m happy now; that he will pay me back
by testifying against me at my trial, and that he hopes I will rot in jail for
a few years. It leaves me shaken for a moment. How can anybody behave
in such a depraved manner? I delete the message and that act feels like
wiping the last bit of regard for him off my mind.

Friday, 11.55 p.m.

I’m back in the alley, logged on under Long’s username. He hasn’t
changed his password since the first time I did. I open his e-mail program.
There are about a dozen new e-mails Long hasn’t read yet, the return e-mail from Garland is not one of them. There are though another two that
catch my eye, the October statements for his two ANZ accounts. I open
the first, which happens to be the foreign currency account. There was a
deposit of over eight hundred thousand Australian dollars on the 22
^nd
of
September; the payer looks like a law firm. I immediately see the
implications of this and it hits me hard. He did inherit, inherit big, in fact.
The account is zeroed out on the 1
^st
of October. The check account lists
a credit of 362,418 pounds for the same date — the pound equivalent of
the transfer from his foreign currency account, followed next day by a
220,000-pound transfer to his HSBC account, the equity portion for the
purchase of the penthouse studio. I’m puzzled why he didn’t pay the real
estate firm directly, rather than first transfer the funds to his HSBC
account. Three weeks later the ANZ account is almost emptied by another
payment to a car dealer — the Maserati.

This discovery leaves me deflated. Long has been my prime suspect,
but these transactions reveal how his recent spending spree was financed.
It almost eliminates him from my list, but not quite. He could still have
been involved as an accomplice and just been circumspect and have
hidden any gains carefully, waiting for the smoke to dissipate before
spending it.

The return e-mail from Garland is in Long’s private ‘old mail’ folder
with the attachment. I save the later on my machine and then open it in
programming mode. The last line contains the password: B4D8H6F2 —
a rather complicated mixture of letters and numbers, not that easy to
remember. I study it more carefully. Only even numbers. Similarly, the
ranking of the letters in the alphabet are also even numbered, B the
second letter in the alphabet, D the fourth, H the eighth, F the sixth. Is
there a pattern here? Yes, the number following the letter is two times its
ranking. B, second, followed by a four, D, fourth followed by an eight. H,
eighth … followed by a six. The pattern breaks. H should be followed by
the number 16. Then I see it. He only uses the last digit, the six, resulting
in the letter F, the sixth, followed by the last digit of 12, i.e., 2. So, given
the first letter, the resulting sequence is uniquely defined. And the first
letter can have an odd ranking. If ever he changes his password while I
need access, all I have to guess is the first letter, not an insurmountable
problem that a few tries cannot overcome.

I log out of Long’s username, and log on to Garland’s, using the
discovered password. It works. First, I again search his trading transaction
records for Sanvino. Nothing. Next, I download all his recent e-mails and
then scan the correspondence folders, covering the last four months.
There is nothing incriminating in them either. The only item that might
have some relevance is an inquiry ten day ago with the bank that holds
the mortgage on his property about the size of the penalty for breaking the
contract early. However, this could simply mean that he may want to get
out of his high fixed-interest contract and refinance his mortgage, taking
advantage of the large drop in current floating and fixed mortgage interest
rates, at least three hundred points lower. But then it could also be that he
is suddenly flush with cash — the profit on the Sanvino transactions.

I notice that one of the folders is labeled ‘e-reviews’. Could that
contain the six-monthly job reviews for the employees? Curiosity gets the
better of me and I open it. There is my name, as one of the last files. I
resist reading it right away and quickly download it too. Then I get out.

Once back in my apartment half an hour later, I again resist studying
the material I’ve downloaded. I have a busy Saturday schedule ahead of
me for which I need a clear head, and that implies getting sufficient sleep.
I would like to have Silvio at my side, to be comforted by him over my
disappointing setback on Edward Long, but we agreed that, given my
plans for the night, we would pass it separately.

Saturday, 1
^st
November, 7:00
a.m.

I shut off the beeping of the alarm. The temptation to simply turn over
and go back to sleep is almost irresistible. I mutter a mild swearword,
push myself up, stretch, and go to empty my bladder. Then I do strenuous
exercises, chasing the last remnant of sleep from my limbs. A hot shower,
breakfast with a strong coffee, and I’m ready to dig into the files I
downloaded last night.

My job evaluation file is beckoning. I can’t resist seeing what Garland
wrote. For the first six-month revue he scores me close to the top on all
performance indicators, except for relationships with my colleagues,
followed by a few comments: bright, quick to catch on to trading systems
and culture, thorough, not taking shortcuts, maybe over cautious;
somewhat aloof toward colleagues, not a team-player; overall
performance promising. Similar ranking on performance indicators for
the second six-month revue, promising performance upgraded to
outstanding with comments of: several large deals successfully
negotiated; excellent relations with clients, can be given account
responsibility; relations with colleagues not improved, consistently stays
away from firm socials; overall prospects: senior material. The comments
for the third six-month revue read: Ranked first in performance, has been
assigned several important accounts mainly of foreign clients, taking
advantage of fluency in several continental languages; relations with
colleagues remain strained, particularly with Long; dilemma: her
promotion to senior level ahead of three male colleagues on same level
could result in resentment. The last entry says: Employment terminated
20/10/08; reason: suspected fraudulent trading; case handed over to
police.

I’m pleasantly surprised by how similar Garland’s evaluations
coincide with my own perception. Performance: A
⁺
; relations with
colleagues: C
^–
. In its blandness it is fair assessment. What he failed to
understand was that my relations with colleagues was largely a reaction
to their attitudes toward me, in fact, it was a defensive stance. But in spite
of judging my prospects tops, he hardly hesitated to sacrifice me at the
first setback. His remark on the dilemma of promotion is rather telling.
It wasn’t that I had less seniority in terms of length of employment, but
rather that I was female. Even he recognized that I was a threat to the
male ego of my colleagues. By firing me, he conveniently got rid of that
dilemma. Will I face the same obstacle at other stockbrokerage firms? It
strengthens my resolve to find employment of a different type.