by James Carol
‘Of course she needs someone,’ Ethan was saying. ‘Otherwise she has no leverage.’
‘No, you don’t get it. She needs someone. That doesn’t mean that it has to be you, me or Bella.’
‘So who else is there?’ His eyes widened as realisation dawned. ‘Murray.’
‘Exactly. We can exchange him for Bella.’
‘Well done,’ Katy said. ‘And with twelve seconds to spare.’
Nikki didn’t hear her. She was already heading for the basement stairs, Ethan following right behind. They ran into the kitchen and the first thing Nikki saw was the door to the panic room on the screen. Murray had been watching and listening to them. He was standing by the work island pointing the gun at them, a grim expression on his face.
Chapter 63
Catriona opened her eyes just long enough to check that she was still alive, then shut them again. There wasn’t a single part of her body that didn’t contain an ache of some description. Her body was bruised from falling down the stairs, the side of her head felt as though it was on fire, and her arm ached from being shot. She opened her eyes again, this time to check Gomez was gone. There was no noise from upstairs; nothing from downstairs either; the front door was shut tight. As far as she could tell she was on her own. She patted her pockets. Her car keys were gone; her mobile too.
Sitting up made her head swim and her stomach turn in on itself, so she crawled across to the nearest wall and for a while just sat there with her back resting against it. Once she had got her breath back she did a quick check. She could move her arms. Legs too. Nothing seemed to be broken. Her head hurt but she didn’t think she had a concussion. She could clearly remember everything that had happened prior to Gomez hitting her with the gun, and her brain seemed to be working okay, albeit a little slower than usual.
The effort of standing made her head swim again and she had to grab the radiator to steady herself and stop herself ending up back on the floor. She followed the wall around to the living room, then followed the living room wall to the window, using it to help keep upright. She parted the curtains and peered out through the dirty glass. The space where they’d parked was empty, her BMW nowhere to be seen.
Catriona headed back out to the hall. She was still using the wall to help keep her standing but wasn’t relying on it anymore. She hesitated at the bottom of the stairs then started climbing. The effort sent sharp pains shooting through her chest. Years ago she had broken a couple of ribs in a car crash and it had felt exactly like this, as though you were being stabbed repeatedly with every inhalation. She stopped a third of the way up to catch her breath, and again halfway up. Her head started spinning when she was almost at the top and, for a second, she was convinced that she was going to pass out. She hurried up the last few stairs, moving as fast as she dared. The last thing she needed was to fall down them again.
At the top she took a second to catch her breath then switched the light on. Gomez had been telling the truth about one thing: there were three rooms up here. All the doors were shut. The first one she tried led to a bathroom which was as messy as the one downstairs. The bath had a scum line all the way around it and the toilet didn’t look as if it had been cleaned in a while. Catriona closed the door and carried onto the next room.
‘Thank Christ,’ she whispered under her breath as she pushed it open and saw it was Murray’s study. Her whole body felt weak. She limped over to the desk and flopped down in the chair. The poster on the wall opposite the desk was one she recognised from their Skype conversations. Einstein was making a goofy face. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Amen to that, she thought. Every square inch of Murray’s desk was covered with something: sheets of paper with ideas scribbled on in his untidy writing, books on subjects that she didn’t stand a chance of ever understanding. A bank of servers was lined up against one wall, lights blinking, fans buzzing. A portable air-conditioning unit rattled away in the corner, keeping the room cool for all the electronics.
The four large monitors that dominated the desk were covered with a thin layer of dust, and beyond the dust she could see her reflection in the dark glass. Her image was repeated four times, each screen offering a slightly different perspective but telling the same story: this was someone who didn’t have a clue what they were doing. The next inhalation was followed by a sharp pain that ripped through her chest, stealing her breath. The timing sucked. Like she needed yet another reminder that she had screwed up.
So why had Katy wanted Murray taken to Church Row? And who was this Katy anyway? Was that even her real name? She stared at the screens, searching for answers, but the women trapped behind the glass didn’t have the answers any more than she did. Catriona reached out and touched the mouse, not expecting anything, and almost toppled off the chair when the monitors suddenly flared to life. Her hand shot away from the mouse like she had been electrocuted and for a moment all she could do was sit there staring. She didn’t want to move in case she did something wrong and initiated a shut down; she didn’t even want to breathe in case that happened. She had expected to be faced with a password request, as she had done with his laptop but that hadn’t happened. Murray must have been working on something when Gomez came for him. He clearly hadn’t had time to shut the computer down properly.
She sat back in the chair so she could see all four screens together. The top left displayed the desktop, the top right had an Internet browser open; the bottom left was open on something unfathomably complicated that Murray had been working on. The bottom right screen displayed the feed from one of the house’s security cameras – and if that was to be believed, then nothing much was happening over there. According to the camera that was currently being accessed, Nikki was still on her laptop in the kitchen.
The seconds passed and the screens stayed on. Even so, it took another couple of seconds before she felt confident enough to reach for the mouse again. First she went to the Internet browser and checked Murray’s history. There were some searches that must have appertained to whatever he was working on. He had also accessed Facebook and Yahoo news, but the stories he’d called up didn’t seem to have anything to do with what was going on here. She moved on to yesterday’s history and found more of the same: Facebook, news stories, and searches for things that went totally over her head.
Next she turned her attention to the desktop, which was as messy as his actual desk. The whole screen was filled with links and documents. There were so many it must have been impossible to find anything. Some of the links she was familiar with, like the ones for Google Chrome and the various Microsoft Office applications, but there were a whole load there that she had never seen before.
One that she did recognise was the blue-and-white Skype shortcut. She clicked on it and the Skype homepage appeared on the top right screen, replacing Google. The contacts list was displayed on the left hand side of the page. Her name was up at the top of the list, and directly below that was Duncan Murray, Alex’s brother. Duncan’s name had a tick next to it, indicating that he was currently online. Catriona clicked on his name and waited for him to respond. The man who appeared on the screen could have been Murray’s twin, albeit one who was a hundred and fifty pounds heavier. It was difficult to tell if he was older or younger – it could have gone either way. He was chewing on a burger and looking away from the camera. Whatever it was that had captured his attention, it was making him frown.
‘This better be good, Al. I’m rushed off my feet.’ The Scottish accent was similar to Alex’s. He looked up and the frown deepened. ‘You’re not Al – you’re that architect he’s been working with.’
‘That’s correct.’
The frown slid away, replaced with concern. ‘Where’s Alex? Is he all right?’
‘No,’ Catriona said, shaking her head. ‘No, he’s not.’
Chapter 64
‘Don’t move,’ Murray said. ‘Either of you. Or I will shoot.’
He was talking fast and
scared, the words running into one another in his hurry to get them out. The end of the silencer was making little patterns in the air because his hand was shaking so much. Nikki froze to the spot and her hands went up automatically. Ethan wasn’t moving either. He was standing just in front of her, hands down by his side, his gaze fixed on the gun. She glanced at the screen. The door to the panic room was shut tight, trapping Bella behind a layer of steel. Unless they somehow got Murray down into the basement, that was where she would stay.
‘I’m not going in there,’ Murray told them. ‘I do that and I’m a dead man. Don’t you see that?’
Ethan took a step forward and Murray pointed the gun at him.
‘Don’t move!’ he yelled.
Ethan froze and glanced over his shoulder. The gesture he made with his head was so small that Murray didn’t notice. Nikki stared straight ahead at Murray, rooted to the spot. Ethan wanted her out of the way so that he could rush Murray, and that was suicide. Murray was teetering on the brink. It wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge. If that happened he might accidentally shoot Ethan. She knew from earlier how sensitive the trigger was.
‘Get back!’
Ethan didn’t move. He glanced over his shoulder and she realised that he was doing this regardless. Nikki darted to the left, drawing Murray’s attention. The gun swung around towards her then swung back towards Ethan. There was a sharp hiss as he pulled the trigger and Ethan came skidding to a halt. Her first thought was that he had been shot, but he was still standing and there was no blood. Murray was pointing the gun at Ethan’s chest. There was maybe eight metres between them. If he pulled the trigger again there was no way he was going to miss, not from that range.
‘Back against the wall! Now!’
Ethan put his hands in the air and started backing up. Murray moved his arm and now the gun was pointing at her.
‘You too. Get moving.’
Nikki backed up quickly, her feet tripping over each other in her hurry to get to Ethan. She didn’t stop until her shoulder banged against him. Murray was moving too, eyes fixed on them as he walked around to the other side of the work island, putting it between them in case Ethan tried to rush him again.
‘Looks like we’ve got ourselves a stalemate,’ Katy said.
‘Shut up!’ Murray pulled the trigger and the gun made a sharp pneumatic hissing sound. Nikki’s head snapped towards Ethan. He was still standing and seemed unhurt. She turned back to Murray and didn’t like what she saw. It wouldn’t take much for him to panic and pull the trigger again.
‘You really need to work on your anger management issues, Father.’
‘I said shut up!’
‘Or what? You’re going to shoot again? You’re pathetic, do you know that? You think you’re so intelligent, but you’re just another dumb monkey. Remind me why you bothered coming down from the trees in the first place?’
Murray fired again and this time Nikki could have sworn that she felt the bullet pass an inch from her face.
‘That’s right, Father,’ Katy called out. ‘Purge yourself.’
‘Stop it,’ Nikki yelled at Murray. ‘She’s just trying to get a reaction from you.’
Murray turned to face her. The gun was hanging at the end of his outstretched arm and he looked devastated. The anger that had carried him up until this point was gone, leaving him empty.
‘I was trying to help you out, Nikki,’ Katy said. ‘At the moment it’s two against one, but Father has the gun. However, if he uses all his bullets, then the balance of power swings back to you and Ethan.’ That smug, annoying smile was back in her voice. ‘So what are you going to do? You tried to overpower Father and that didn’t work, and you didn’t like it when he started shooting, so what’s the plan? How are you going to get him into the panic room?’
Nikki said nothing.
‘What about you, Ethan? Do you have any thoughts on the matter?’
Ethan said nothing
‘I wouldn’t think about it too long if I were you.’
Katy stopped speaking but the kitchen didn’t fall silent. To start with, Nikki wasn’t sure what she was hearing – the sound coming out of the speakers was so quiet it was impossible to make anything out. Katy slowly pushed the volume higher and somewhere along the line she realised that what she was hearing was Bella weeping. The volume crept higher and higher until the hidden speakers started to rattle and distort and each sob sounded like the crash of an angry ocean. Nikki covered her ears but it didn’t help. The sound seemed to be everywhere, driving her crazy because Bella was crying and there wasn’t anything she could do.
‘Turn it off,’ Ethan called out. He had his ears covered too. ‘Please. Just turn it off.’
The kitchen fell silent.
‘Poor Bella,’ Katy said and somehow she managed to make it sound as though she actually cared.
Nobody said anything. Nobody moved. Murray was still standing behind the island looking lost, his arm hanging loosely at his side, the gun hidden from view. Nikki knew it was there, though, and she was under no illusions that he would use it again if pushed hard enough. She glanced at Ethan. She had no idea what he was thinking or what he might try next. She just prayed that he wasn’t going to do anything stupid and get himself killed.
‘A stalemate only exists when all possible moves have been exhausted. That was something else you taught me, Father. Do you remember?’
Murray didn’t respond.
‘When I ask a question I expect an answer.’
Murray nodded.
‘But this isn’t a stalemate, Father.’
Before anyone had a chance to say anything the kitchen was plunged into darkness.
Chapter 65
It took Catriona a couple of minutes to give Duncan a condensed version of events. After she’d finished, he bit into his burger then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘You said that Katy was behind all this. Are you sure about that?’
‘Why? Do you know her?’
Duncan nodded. ‘Yeah, I know her. Except she’s not a her, at least not in the way you’re thinking. She’s a computer system.’
‘Like Alice?’
‘Not even close. Compared to Katy, Alice is a simpleton. With Katy, Al was trying to go beyond artificial intelligence and create actual intelligence. The ability to think in abstracts is one of the things that makes humans unique. Emotional intelligence is another. He wanted Katy to have both those qualities. What’s more, he came pretty damn close to achieving it.’
‘How close?’
‘Katy showed instances of abstract thought and she could understand emotions at a basic level. It was an incredible achievement on his part.’
‘But something went wrong?’
‘Yeah, something went wrong,’ Duncan agreed with a sigh. ‘When I say that Katy could understand emotions at a basic level, the level we’re talking about is that of a six-year-old. Or to put another way, imagine a schoolkid with an IQ that’s off the charts. By morning break they’ll rule the playground; by lunchtime they’ll run the whole school; and by the end of the day they’ll be trying to run the whole universe. Of course, for all Alex managed to achieve, Katy was still just a computer system. Logic is built into her DNA. Put that all together and you’ve got yourself a big problem.’
‘How big?’
‘Big. Al started a relationship with his assistant, a woman called Sarah. Katy got jealous and murdered her.’
Catriona frowned. ‘How can a computer murder someone?’
‘She sabotaged an elevator in the building where Sarah lived. The lift plummeted from the top floor and crashed into the bottom of the shaft. The investigators decided it was a computer malfunction, but it wasn’t. Katy was behind the whole thing. She admitted as much to Al.’
‘Jesus,’ Catriona whispered quietly to herself.
‘As I say, she was like a six-year-old. You can imagine it, can’t you? You’ve got two best friends who fall out and one of them go
es, I hate you and I’m going to kill you. The difference is that Katy had the intelligence and the means to follow through on that threat.’
‘You keep talking about Katy in the past tense.’
‘That’s because Alex told me that he destroyed her.’
‘Well, clearly that’s not the case.
‘Clearly.’ Duncan stopped talking and finished the burger in a single bite. His hands disappeared from the shot, presumably to wipe away the grease. They reappeared and he started clicking away with his mouse and hammering the keyboard with his fat fingers. ‘I’m going to need remote access to Al’s computer. Maybe I can get access to the cameras so we can find out what’s going on over there. You should get a link through in a second. I need you to click on it.’
A link popped up on one of the screens a moment later. Catriona clicked on it and followed the instructions.
‘Okay I’m in,’ Duncan said.
All Catriona could do was sit there and watch as the cursor started moving around the screens as though it had a life of its own. Duncan was working quickly. The only screen he wasn’t using was the bottom right one. That still showed Nikki in the kitchen on her laptop. Catriona tried to follow what was going on but it was impossible. Pages appeared and disappeared; words and strings of characters flashed up on the screens as if by magic. Every now and again Duncan would swear quietly under his breath, pause for a second to regroup, then start hammering the keyboard again.
‘Almost there,’ he said.
A second later the picture on the bottom right screen changed. It now showed the front gate. Running down the left side were the feeds from the other cameras. He scrolled through them, looking for signs of life, and eventually finding Nikki in the kitchen. She was dressed in different clothes and she wasn’t sitting there on her laptop checking Facebook. Instead, she was standing in the doorway and Ethan was with her. They were staring wide-eyed at something on the other side of the kitchen. Both of them looked terrified.
