Gatecrasher (8 page)

And what now would become of him? The police seemed satisfied that it was an accident, a coincidence. They seemed to see nothing overly suspicious in what had happened, even considering the burglary. Why not?
Campbell
wasn’t so sure. Especially so since he knew something they didn’t. Should he tell them? This man had said those words to him as the last thing that he could do. Had he been telling
Campbell
something more? Perhaps the man had been involved in the break in at Griffin Holdings that
Campbell
had read about and perhaps that was more sinister and significant than anything the newspaper report had indicated. Perhaps this man had been killed for what he knew. After all, had anyone seen the accident happen? Nobody had admitted to it.

What more to this situation was there to discover?
Campbell
wondered how he would ever find out what with the state of his memory of that night.

The music stopped abruptly and snapped
Campbell
from his train of thought. Maybe that was it. Maybe he shouldn’t trust his shaky memory anyway. Perhaps, after all the fretting and the paranoia, he had in fact heard ‘Stiff and cold’ and was just blowing everything out of proportion. Making connections where none existed.

Glancing at his watch he saw that he had a few minutes before the food would be ready so he and turned on the TV and his home cinema equipment.

That finished, he trotted back through to the kitchen and pulled open the oven door. He scooped the foil tray off the shelf in the oven with a dishcloth over his hands and swung round to slide it onto the worktop as he kicked the oven door shut behind him with his heel.

Slipping a plate underneath the lasagne he tugged the dishcloth away from under it but as he did this, a thread caught on the crimped edge of the foil tray and
Campbell
could only watch helpless as his dinner slipped back off the pate, flipped in the air and spread itself across his kitchen floor.

‘Deep breath,
’ he told himself and took one and then swore loudly anyway. He lifted a hand to his face, covered his eyes and started to shake his head. Swearing again he turned to the cupboard under the sink and pulled out the dustpan to begin cleaning the mess away. He had lost his appetite completely now as he stared at the steaming mess of yellow, brown and red and decided to bin it and sit in front of a noisy, mindless blockbuster of a film.

On his knees with a wet cloth Campbell found himself again cleaning a large patch of lino with a headache and the smell of alcohol in the air which had still not quite cleared and he was glad at least that this time it wasn’t blood. Judging by the price of the frozen lasagne in fact, he wasn’t sure it was even meat.

He noted that the sauce had splattered up over the door of the oven and he leaned over to wipe that too when he noticed something in the inch or so gap between the oven and the floor.

He stared for a minute, frowning. Why hadn’t he noticed that on Sunday when he’d last been down here cleaning? Too hungover probably. Or still drunk.

It looked from his angle like a large key fob. It was black, less than two inches long and looked clean and grease free, unlike the other detritus down there.

He reached his fingers in gingerly, the heat from the oven making him cautious and he tried to drag it but it stuck where it was. He shifted around and worked his hand a little flatter so he could reach in further and this time his fingers got purchase and it began to slide out toward him.

Picking it up he examined it. Dark rusty smears across the plastic left no doubt who had left this here – must, in fact, have hidden it he realised. There was a logo on it identifying the manufacturer and the end of it slid off to reveal a USB key. This was a memory stick.

Tuesday
.
2.45 pm
.

Sarah Knowles sneezed again. The dry dusty air in this room was playing havoc with her sinuses.

She looked back down at the stack of papers in her lap and started flicking through each document in the dwindling pile that had yet to be checked. Almost done, she thought.

Nearly two days she had been stuck in this musty cupboard pulling files off shelves and leafing through each one and what had she found? Nothing. Not one piece of paper out of place, not one single document missing. Of course there wasn’t, she had filed this lot herself years ago. As thorough a job as you might find anywhere. She knew that everything in here would be in order.

She got to the end of the final stack and returned the papers neatly to the box file they had come from and slid it back into place on the shelf.

Finished.

L
ooking at her fingers, she noticed that the skin was peeling at the tips. The dry paper had leached all the moisture out of them over the last few days. Going to need some hand cream, she thought to herself. Going to need some hand cream, a long hot bat
h
and about a pound of chocolate.

Closing the door to the storeroom behind her she strolled wearily along the corridor toward the lift. As the doors slid open, she scowled at the mirror inside and turned her back on it as she stepped in but she’d seen the state she was in. Hair a mess, clothes smudged and dirty from the dust and the print. She sighed and hit a button.

Upstairs she walked briskly through the office, keen that nobody get too good a look at her. She was going to report in and then ask to be excused for the day and intended to make it pretty clear that she would be going home anyway so she might as well be excused.

Stopping at the door she resisted the urge to barge straight in and knocked, perhaps a little too firmly.

‘Come.’

She raised her eyebrows at the closed door and mouthed the word ‘come’. Typical of her boss, she thought, trying to sound so imperious. She opened the door and walked in. Andrew Griffin had the phone to his ear and was telling someone to hold on for a moment.

‘
Sarah.’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing’s been touched, nothing’s been moved, nothing is missing.’

He nodded but his expression remained stern. He didn’t appear to care what she had found. Or not found.

‘OK. OK then.’

She stood still for a moment, a little surprised after all her effort, after being cooped up in the store room for two days, after the secrecy and the ‘don’t go telling everyone about this’ from Griffin himself and now she wasn’t even sure he was listening. Anger began to flare up in her.

‘I’ve pretty m
uch had it with that lot anyway,
’ she said, hooking a thumb over her shoulder. ‘I thought I’d take off early. Shower, change – I’m covered in dust and ink…’

Griffin
looked distracted. Sarah began to back out of the room. ‘That OK?’

He nodded and seemed to snap to his senses. ‘Sure. Great. Definitely. Take yourself  home, stick your feet up. Absolutely. Thanks for your help Sarah. Really appreciate it. Really.’

Confused she left and pulled the door shut and then stood staring at it momentarily. Then she turned and walked quickly for her desk to grab her handbag and coat.  Better get out before he changes his mind, she thought.

*

In his office, alone again with no-one to hear,
Griffin
had taken the phone off mute and began speaking again, his voice low, cautious.

‘So something definitely was taken? Can you tell me what exac
tly? I mean can you find out?’ H
e nodded as he listened to the reply, only partly understanding. Something about the server, a log, keystrokes. ‘Right, sure, ok. Well whatever it takes, but I don’t want anybody else on this. Just you. And I need it soon. Really soon.’

Tuesday
.
3pm
.

‘Cheers Steve,
’ Campbell said and set the huge take-out Starbucks cup down on his desk and began tearing sugar sachets open. He had just cajoled a colleague into doing a coffee-run for the four people that sat on his bank of desks.

The bags under
Campbell
’s eyes had done as much to convince his colleague to go as his promptings had. ‘You’ll be needing the Uberlatte then Danny?’ he’d said refusing
Campbell
’s proffered tenner.

Another unproductive day was passing and the feeling of despondency and self-pity that had characterised his previous morning was being overtaken by worry and a creeping fear.

His first instinct the night before, looking at the blood smeared plastic memory stick had been to call the police. DC Samuel had left a card; let him do his job. But
Campbell
’s mind would not be still and he had sat in silence in his living room, his attention shifting between the memory stick and mostly the empty space in front of him that he stared blankly into for a long time.

There was clearly, undeniably, a link to the break-in he’d read about in the local paper. It was no great leap of logic to realise this was what had been stolen in the break in, or at least that it contained whatever had been stolen. Which meant data. Which meant industrial espionage.

Which, to
Campbell
’s mind, meant something serious.

T
hat it was tucked right under his oven, near where the man was lying and smeared in his blood didn’t allow for chance or coincidence. The gatecrasher had pushed it in there to hide it. And if that was true, then it naturally followed that it must be something worth hiding.

And that there was someone worth hiding it from.

So why not call DC Samuel? Why not run straight out of his front door to the local police station and get rid of the thing?

Because they knew where he lived didn’t they? And, more to the point, they knew that he had it. Because they’d come looking for it.

They. Who the hell were they?
Campbell
thought of a million possibilities but had no real idea. His gatecrasher had obviously known who they were though since how the hell else would he have got hold of this USB? And if he had gone to the effort – when he could barely even speak or open his eyes – to actually hide this, then he must know how much they wanted it back and what they would do to get it.

No,
Campbell
thought. I can hand this over and leave it safe in the police station but I can’t hand myself in can I? No. And then what? Who knows who might come knocking. Setting the police on their trail might ju
st make them angry. Them. They.

All these things he ran through again as he sipped his coffee and tapped at his keyboard absently.

The USB now sat where he had found it, having tried various hiding places and discounting them all, along with the idea of carrying it with him to work, the thought of which terrified him. He had decided that its original hiding place was the best one – certainly it had eluded whoever had come looking for it that Monday morning.

But what to do now?
Campbell
had slept poorly again as the idea that they might come back had occurred to him. Every noise was a footstep, a lock being picked, a door creaking open.
Campbell
had given up on trying to sleep for a second night and left for work early, almost hurrying out of the flat where he couldn’t escape a creeping sense of vulnerability.

He had to do something, he decided. Sitting here worrying about going home again was no good at all. Maybe he was being silly. Maybe the drinking and the lack of sleep and the stress of the last few days was making him think and act strangely. Of course. Perhaps he’d just check up on this himself first, set his mind at ease and then hand over the USB to the police after all. It would probably be a bloody florist or something. A toy shop.

Campbell
felt himself relax slightly for the first time in days. What did he know really? Sure, this seemed sinister enough in the absence of anything but his own paranoid speculation. The problem he had was there were too many questions without answers. What he needed to do was some simple research. That was his job after all.

Tuesday
.
3.15 pm
.

Sarah Knowles sat feeling a little self-conscious at her desk as she sorted through the emails that had accumulated in her absence.

She was uncomfortably aware of her shabby appearance and though she knew she probably felt worse than she looked she still thought that people were looking at her. As well as that she was about to stand up and walk out at least two hours before most other people would and she knew that would not pass without comment. People would feel put out if they thought that Sarah was getting special treatment from the boss. Fat chance, she thought to herself.