Gatecrasher (13 page)

‘Don’t make me come in there,
’ he said and jabbed the bell again and then, with a quick look around to check that the street was still empty he turned and headed for the rear of the flat. He began to run through a new scenario in his head now, imagining the rude awakening that
Campbell
was about to get.

Daniel was having a dream which featured two of his work-mates, a TV personality and someone who he was certain was an old school friend but who he did not actually recognise at all. They Suddenly he noticed that Sarah Knowles was part of the group. How he had not noticed before he couldn’t think but it didn’t seem strange to him all the same. She had made eye contact with him and was smiling and seemed eager to talk to him.

Feeling a little self-conscious and awkward he found himself trying to find a good reason to talk to her. At the same time he became aware that the scene made no sense and that in fact this must be a dream and with the realisation he began to come round.

Then there was a sharp shuddering jolt and
Campbell
was instantly, jarringly awake.

‘BASTARD!’ Slater roared, all caution thrown aside, all thoughts of staying quiet and unnoticed now forgotten. His temper lost, Slater pounded his fists down on the duvet, raining heavy blows into the crumpled cotton before throwing it across the room in his fury.

His teeth were clenched and his breath hissed between them, spittle flecks flying from his snarled lips. His nostrils flared and his eyes shone with rage.

‘FUCKING BASTARD!’ he shouted and slammed both fists down again.

Campbell
shot a hand up over his eyes, which were still sensitive to the light. He felt a sudden pain in his arm and turned his head to look up, squinting through the glare.

Above him stood a man who had gripped his arm to steady himself as the tube train jolted to an unexpected stop. Opposite, a flustered young woman picked herself from someone’s lap, all red cheeked and embarrassed, and someone in front of him gathered his newspaper from the floor of the carriage.

‘Sorry mate,’ the man said as he righted himself and released his grip on
Campbell
’s arm. Looking around he noted that the train was stopped on the platform and people were standing waiting to get off. He had slept one stop past his own so when the doors opened he jumped up and dashed across to the opposite platform and rode back the other way.

Stopping for coffee and some hot breakfast to take to his desk,
Campbell
began planning what more he needed to find out. The office would be quiet for an hour at least and he could get some more research done here and with better tools. He could maybe look up what involvement Asquith and Horner still had in
Griffin
if any, exactly where their lives had taken them, what their other business interests involved. Begin to build a picture.

But something else nagged at him. For all the backg
round he was building, all the
detail he was filling in, there was really only one thing that was going to tell him anything of substance and the thought filled him with trepidation.

It was time to look at the memory
stick.

Wednesday
.
6pm
.

He had found a quiet side street to make sure that he would be able to hear clearly and not to be drowned out. He had also spent some ten minutes pacing and trying to compose himself, trying to come up with what to say, a line of argument that would convince her but not scare her off or send her running to her boss. Or worse.

After it had rung twice he had a sudden jolt when he realised that she may well have left already for the day. He had been so worked up about what he would say to her that he had barely even stopped to notice the time. His nerves were already shredded and he didn’t want to have to wait another night.

‘Come on…’ he pleaded with the unanswered phone.

It rang again.

‘Griffin Holdings, good evening.’

‘Ah, you’re still there. Thank god.’ The relief in his voice
was
obvious.

‘Hello? Who’s this?’

‘Sorry, is that Sarah Knowles?’

‘Yes.’ She sounded apprehensive. Bad start.

‘Sarah its Owen Michaels… we met last night. You were kind enough to give me some information on the company.’

‘Oh yes. I hope it was of some use.’ A little
friendlier
.

‘Very helpful, yes. Look, I wonder if I could speak with you…’

‘Mr Michaels, as I’ve already told you, I’m not the person that deals with the press.’

‘I know that. Look, hear me out, please. It’s really very important. I need to talk to you. I didn’t say I wanted to ask you questions about this.’
Campbell
felt a sudden urge to tell her everything all at once, to tell her his real name, that he had lied to her, that he knew far more than she could begin to imagine. He held his tongue and drew in a deep breath.

‘What is this about Mr Michaels? I’m not sure I should even be talking to you.’

‘Wait!
’
Campbell
felt the panic rising. If he messed this up, he had no idea what to do. His thoughts raced. There was silence on the line and he wondered if she’d gone for an awful moment.

‘What is it?’ H
er tone was sharp now, irritable. She was out of patience.

‘I know what was stolen in the break in.’

For a second
Campbell
was probably as surprised as she was at the outburst. Neither spoke. Long seconds passed in silence. Would she bolt? Run to the boss? Think this was some kind of threat or blackmail?

‘
And I think I know why,
’ he said, laying the rest of his cards on the table.

A
pause. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

She was biting. He could hear just an edge of intrigue in her voice.

‘Your boss may be involved.’

Each breath felt agonisingly long, tortuously drawn out as he waited. Each heartbeat took an hour as his words hung on the airwaves.

‘Sarah?’

‘I’m here.’

‘Will you meet me?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘To talk. Its extremely important.’

‘No. What do you mean, that
–
’
she paused ‘he may be involved?’ She obviously didn’t want to mention her boss whilst standing in the office where she might be overheard.

‘
The break in, what was taken. He might be behind it.’

‘How? I’m afraid I don’t follow you.’

‘Sarah, I can’t explain everything now. It would be easier if we met. I need to show you something. I just – I need you to look at it, maybe tell me I’m wrong, tell me I’m way off. Frankly I’d be delighted if you did.’

She went silent again and once more the doubt crept over him. Perhaps he was pushing too hard now. Perhaps she just thought he was an insistent journalist trying to fool her into giving him the story he wanted. Or maybe she’d just been keeping him on the line whilst she called somebody over to listen in. He opened his mouth to speak again, fighting the urge to shout, to beg, to plead with her to help him.

‘Where?’ she said.

Wednesday
.
6.30pm
.

It was dark when he got in the door to his flat and a little cold so he set the kettle to boil and trotted through to his bedroom to change out of his suit into jeans and a sweater. Looking around the room he thought that his room looked a little different – more untidy? – than he remembered leaving it. No, he thought. It was always a mess and he was tense and paranoid. Of course that was how he’d left it.

He didn’t really know whether Sarah would actually show up to meet him. He had let her nominate a neutral venue as a gesture designed to demonstrate that he could be trusted. She was suspicious of him; that was obvious. Whether she believed his cover story about being a journalist but simply suspected his motives, his journalistic integrity, or whether her mistrust ran deeper than that he couldn’t know. He could have been anyone of course, and she a lone woman asked to meet with a strange man… what else could he expect her to be but suspicious of him?

By agreeing to her terms of time and place he hoped that he had given her some small cause to trust him. To grant him at the very least the benefit of the doubt. But would she even show up at all? He had fretted over that since ending the call. It was a gamble, he’d known that, and until she actually showed up, he wouldn’t know if it had worked. Again the paranoia had him seeing her turn up surrounded by company officials and police, pointing an accusing finger at him from the doorway.

He checked the memory stick again; still hidden, still invisible. He switched on his laptop computer again and made another cursory check that there was no trace of the data that he had accessed on the stick itself just as he had on his PC at work, eager to remove any trace at all, to leave no trail.

As he shut the machine down and began to pack it back into its tough leather case the shrill sound of his doorbell cut through the silence of the flat and he could almost feel the sound of it reverberate through his chest.

Nervously he went to the door and peered through the fisheye. He was surprised to see a woman standing there. Wrong doorbell? He pulled open the door and found himself staring into the blue, blue eyes of a pretty young woman.

She said hello but
Campbell
’s eyes were paying more attention than his ears. Her golden hair was scraped back from her forehead and arranged in an elaborate twist, which left a spray of hair falling away from her head like flowers in a vase. She wore fitted black trousers and a tailored shirt with large collars that was unbuttoned halfway down. Underneath the shirt, which clung to her slender frame, the pinstripes tracing its shape, was a plain black top cut straight across the chest.

He quickly snapped his head back up and looked her in the eye again hoping she hadn’t spotted it. In his confusion he almost asked her if she knew Sarah but stopped himself.

‘Hi. Can I help you?’ he said and tried to make it sound breezy, nonchalant.

‘
Hope so
,
’ she said and flashed a dazzling smile at him. He nodded at her to go on, aware that speaking now would almost certainly result in him saying the wrong thing. He told himself to relax.

‘I’m having a bit of a nightmare actually. There’s this guy who’s been following me since I got off the bus up the road.
’
She hooked a thumb back over her shoulder in no particular direction. ‘I thought I was being a bit mental at first you know, paranoid. But then I started walking along this road and he kept follo
wing,’ she explained,
em
barrassed that she might be over
reacting.
Campbell
peered out into the street but could see little past the hedge in his front garden.

‘I’m really sorry. Would you mind if I just came in for five minutes or something until he goes away? I know it probably sounds silly…’

‘No, no. That’s not silly.’ He tried desperately to think of what to say. He was reluctant to let her in and get involved in this, not when he was supposed to be heading out to meet Sarah. But he couldn’t just leave this girl alone, scared and asking for his help. And the longer he stood there, the more awkwa
rd he began to feel. ‘Of course,
’ he spluttered finally. ‘Come in. Please. Come on –‘

He stopped, frowning as the girl stepped backwards and from the side of the door appeared one of the burliest, most threatening looking men
Campbell
had ever seen.

‘ – in.’

‘I thou
ght you were never going to ask,
’ said Keith Slater as he clamped a huge hand over Campbell’s shoulder and thrust him roughly back inside, sending him sprawling onto
his back. ‘Close the door Angie,
’ he called over his shoulder and stepped into the hallway.

Wednesday
.
10.30pm
.

‘Drennan, its me.’ The accent was clipped and well spoken, the delivery abrupt.

‘Ah, good morning.’ A breezy, self-assured tone, or a valiant attempt. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’