by Mark Edwards
George Banks shook his head. ‘I’m going to leave that decision to our new masters. I’m willing to accept that this was a mistake, that maybe you forwarded this virus by accident. Your record has been impeccable up to now. Everyone tells me what a good worker you are – how bright and reliable you’ve always been. I understand you’ve just got married and have a child on the way. Personally, I can’t see what you could gain from sabotaging your own employer. But for God’s sake, Jamie, you’ve got to be careful.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Maybe you’d better take a few more days’ leave. Some of your colleagues lost a lot of files and are – understandably or not – unhappy with you.’
‘OK.’
Jamie stood up and George Banks opened the door. Before Jamie left the office, George said, ‘It goes without saying that if I find out that you did do this on purpose, you’ll be out of here so fast you’ll catch fire.’
‘Yes sir,’ Jamie said bleakly. ‘But I didn’t.’
He walked through the office with his head down, ignoring the whispers and stares. He picked his bag up from his desk and walked towards the exit. Mike followed him to the lift.
‘What happened?’ he asked, eager for gossip.
‘He told me to take a few days off.’
‘He didn’t sack you?’
‘No.’
‘Did you do it on purpose? Striking a blow for the workers and all that?’
Jamie hissed, ‘Of course I didn’t do it. But I know who did.’
‘You do? Who?’
‘My neighbours.’
Mike looked surprised. ‘How could they have?’
The lift reached the ground floor. ‘They broke into my flat and put the virus onto my PC then emailed it from there. Chris works in computing too so he’d know how to do it.’
‘Fucking hell.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s just…unbelievable.’
‘Tell me about it.’
Jamie strode off, leaving Mike behind. For a second there, as the lift doors pinged open, he had been on the verge of asking Mike to contact his thug friends. Only a mixture of fear and willpower had stopped him from doing so.
He walked out to his car, taking his keys out of his pocket and rattling them in the palm of his hand. As he went to unlock the door he caught his breath. There was a long, deep scratch along the side of the car. He felt his heart fly up into his mouth. He rubbed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. When he looked again the scratch had gone.
He had been so certain he had seen it. It had been there, right before his eyes, a thick silver line etched deep in the blue paintwork.
Jesus. The noises in the flat. And now this.
He drove home, convinced he was going mad.
Nineteen
‘I asked for Dodds.’
‘I’m afraid Constable Dodds is on leave, sir.’
‘Well, what about Sutton then?’
‘Who?’
‘Constable Sutton. He was with Dodds when he came round. When I first explained to the police about all the fucking shit our neighbours have been putting us through.’
‘There’s no need to use that language, sir.’
‘Why the fuck not?’ Jamie clenched his fists, bit down on his bottom lip. ‘I’m on the verge of going down there and…doing something.’
The young policeman put his hand on Jamie’s shoulder. ‘Sir, calm down.’ He gestured towards the kitchen. ‘Why don’t you make a cup of tea?’
Jamie didn’t want tea. He sighed and sat down on the sofa. The policeman pulled up a chair and sat in front of him.
‘So you don’t know PC Sutton?’
He shrugged. ‘I haven’t been in the Force long, sir. Sutton might have transferred to another station. It does happen.’
‘But it was only a few weeks ago.’ Jamie put his head in his hands. Right now he felt like he only had the most tenuous grip on reality. He imagined himself at the edge of a deep, deep pit, clinging on desperately, his knuckles white with the strain, his fingernails breaking as he clawed the earth, trying not to fall into the darkness.
‘Well, I’m here now, sir. Why don’t you tell me about it.’
‘I don’t want to have to explain the whole thing all over again. That’s why I asked for Dodds or Sutton. They know what I’m going through. Why is Dodds on leave? Is he ill?’
The policeman – whose name Jamie had forgotten the moment it had been uttered – shifted in his seat. Jamie could tell he was growing impatient. ‘Policemen are allowed leave too, Mr Knight.’
Jamie put his head in his hands. He simply didn’t have the energy to tell the story all over again. He hardly had any energy at all. The only things that were keeping him going was his outrage and anger, twin engines of fury burning and smoking in his gut.
‘Somebody broke in here while we were away at the weekend. They tampered with my computer, installing a virus on it. Then they emailed that virus to my workplace, my upstairs neighbour and God-knows-who-else. I’m waiting for my friends to start phoning me to tell me how much they hate me.’
The policeman took out a notepad and a pen. ‘OK. Any signs of forced entry? Were any windows broken, doors kicked in, locks broken?’
‘No.’
‘Was anything taken?’
‘No.’
‘Any damage caused – apart from the computer virus?’
Jamie shook his head. ‘No. God, I know this sounds ridiculous. But I also know that someone was in here. They wrote something on the computer screen. The word ‘danger’, drawn in the dust, mocking me.’
‘Ah. Can I see it?’
‘Of course.’
They stood up and both peered at the screen.
‘I can’t see anything, sir.’
The screen was shiny and clear. No dust. No words.
‘I don’t believe this, Kirsty must have cleaned it. Oh, that stupid…’ He bit his tongue.
‘Sir. You’re shaking. Are you sure you don’t want a cup of tea?’
‘Will you shut up about tea!’
The policeman’s mouth formed an O of surprise. Jamie saw his hand go beneath his jacket, ready in case Jamie got violent. How the hell had it got to this point, the point where he was yelling at a policeman? This was all wrong. He sat down again and the policeman relaxed.
‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’ He lifted his head. ‘I’m so stressed out by all this. I promise you, somebody was in here, and I know who it was. My downstairs neighbour, Chris Newton. He works with computers. He might know how to program a virus. If not, he’ll certainly know someone who could.’
‘What do you do for a living, Mr Knight.’
‘Well, I work with computers too.’
‘So you also know people who could create a virus?’
‘Yes, but…’ He trailed off.
‘And would you know how to do it yourself?’
‘I suppose so.’
The policeman tapped his notebook with his pencil. ‘How did this person get into the flat? You say there was no sign of forced entry. I take it all the doors and windows were locked.’
‘Of course they were. And I don’t know how he could have got in. Maybe he’s got a key. He’s got a key for the outer door.’ A thought sprung into his head. ‘Maybe the previous occupants gave him a spare key in case they got locked out.’
‘It’s possible.’
‘Yes. That explains it! That’s why there’s no sign of anyone breaking in.’
‘Well, can you ask the previous occupants? Or give me their name and telephone number and I’ll do it.’
‘I don’t know their telephone number. In fact, I wouldn’t have the first idea about how to contact them. They were gone before we even looked at the flat. The sale was handled entirely by their solicitor and the estate agent.’
‘You must know their name.’
‘I can’t remember it. It was a foreign-sounding name, I remember that.’
‘Because if we can contact these people and they tell
us that they did indeed give a key to your neighbours downstairs, that’s evidence that they had the means to get in here.’
Jamie brightened at the sound of that word. Evidence. And then a chill went through him. If Lucy and Chris did have a key, who knows how many times they had been in the flat?
‘I’ll find the house buying documents. Wait there.’
He ran into the spare room, where all their documents and old bills were kept in a battered bureau that had been in the family for years. When the baby was born it would have to go to make room for the cot. It was a hideous thing anyway.
Jamie pulled out a fat foolscap document wallet and carried it into the living room, where the policeman was examining the DVD collection.
‘Here it is. Ms L Pica. But the only address given for her is this one. Hmm, the flat was only in her name. No mention of her boyfriend.’
‘That’s not unusual.’
‘I guess not.’
The policeman made a note of the name. ‘OK. We’ll see what we can do. But any help you can give us will speed things up. To be honest, at the moment we have absolutely no evidence that a crime even took place.’
‘But I was away when the emails were sent. I have proof of that.’
‘Is it not possible to program a computer so it will send an email at a future date? And besides, don’t you have a smartphone?’
Jamie paused. ‘Yes….’
‘Well, there you go. Frankly, sir, at the moment, as far as the law is concerned, you’re wasting everybody’s time.’
As soon as the policeman – whose name, Jamie found out, was Lockwood – had gone, Jamie phoned the solicitor who had handled the sale for Miss Pica. He was put on hold for five minutes before finally getting through to him.
‘I’m afraid Ms Pica left explicit instructions that her new address should not be passed on to anyone.’
‘But it’s important. I have to talk to her.’ He started to explain about the break-in and what the policeman had said, but the solicitor interrupted.
‘Whatever story you have to tell – and I imagine it’s a very long story – it won’t change the fact that I cannot give you the address.’
He hung up.
‘Bastard,’ Jamie shouted. Then he had a thought: Surely Ms Pica and her boyfriend must have left a forwarding address with one of the neighbours just in case any mail turned up here for them? That was what Jamie had done at his last address, just in case anything turned up after the Royal Mail stopped redirecting their post. Who was the most likely candidate? Maybe Brian and Linda, though he didn’t really want to talk to Brian at the moment. He would try Mary first.
On his way up the stairs, he remembered what Lucy and Chris had said about the previous owners of the flat. They said they were noisy and difficult to get on with. Not so much hypocrisy as a malicious lie. He could imagine Lucy at work, telling her colleagues how awful it was having to live below Jamie and Kirsty: They put us through such hell; I can’t sleep; I’m sure they do it to spite me. And her colleagues saying, Poor you, poor Lucy.
What were the odds that the Newtons had put the previous occupants of the flat through exactly the same kind of hell they were now inflicting on Jamie and Kirsty? They probably had awful stories to tell about Lucy and Chris. I bet that’s why they moved out, he thought. They couldn’t stand it any more. They gave in.
His heartbeat accelerated. They would be able to back him and Kirsty up. Then the police would have to listen. If Ms Pica and her partner got on so badly with the Newtons, it was unlikely that they would have entrusted them with a key. That was bad news, because it left the question of how Chris had got in unanswered. But it would still be worth talking to them. At the moment, Jamie felt like hardly anyone believed him when he told them about the Newtons. It seemed too far-fetched to be true. But if someone else told the same story, not only would other people have to listen, but Jamie would no longer feel paranoid that he was dreaming all this up.
He knocked on Mary’s door and paced around in the hallway waiting for her to appear. But there was no answer. He knocked again but to no avail. He decided to go up and try Brian and Linda.
Linda opened the door. In her forties, she was still an attractive woman, with pale red hair and bright blue eyes, a striking combination. She conformed to Jamie’s stereotypical idea that male writers always attract good-looking women, beauty drawn to intellect. He couldn’t imagine her behind the counter of Boots. It was a fact that clashed with the other things he knew about her – which wasn’t much, admittedly. Of all the people in the block of flats, she was the one he had had least contact with.
‘Brian’s in his study,’ she said. ‘Come in.’
‘Is he angry with me?’
‘What for? The computer?’ She smiled. ‘He hates computers anyway. Blames them for most of the ills in society. I think he was actually quite pleased when it all went wrong. It proved to him that he was right after all.’ She called out: ‘Brian, Jamie’s here.’
Brian came out of his study, wearing a par of reading glasses that made him look about ten years older than he was. ‘Hi Jamie. Got the day off work?’
‘The whole week, actually.’
‘Very nice.’
‘Hmm. How’s the computer?’
Brian laughed. ‘Dead.’
‘Oh.’
‘Hey, don’t worry about it. I was thinking of getting rid of the bloody thing anyway.’
‘What about your book? Wasn’t it all lost?’
‘No, I had it all printed out so it’s just a matter of retyping it. In fact, doing that has allowed me to make a lot of improvements, so really you did me a favour.’
‘Oh. Good. Perhaps you should invest in an external hard drive, so you’ll have everything backed up in future.’ Jamie was relieved. He had been worried that not only would the downstairs neighbours hate him, but the ones upstairs would begin to as well.
‘How’s Kirsty?’ Linda asked. ‘You both must be very excited. The patter of tiny feet and all that. If you ever want a babysitter, just give me a shout.’
Jamie wanted to ask Linda why she didn’t have any children of her own. She was obviously keen on babies, from the way her eyes lit up when she talked about them. And Brian was a kids’ author. It was another fact that didn’t fit. The most obvious answer was that they were unable to have children – for biological reasons – and he didn’t want to bring up such a sensitive subject.
‘Has Kirsty got the week off too?’ Brian asked.
‘No. She’s at work. I get more leave than her.’
‘Lucky you.’
Jamie was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘The reason I came up – apart from to see if your computer was alright – was to ask if you have a forwarding address or telephone number for the couple that used to live in our flat.’
Linda shook her head. ‘Letitia and David? No, we don’t.’
‘I seem to recall they moved out in a real hurry. We didn’t know about it until after they’d gone.’ Brian removed his reading glasses. ‘Mary was closer to them than us. She might have an address for them.’
‘She’s not in.’
‘I just heard her front door close,’ said Brian.
‘Really?’
Jamie thanked them and went back down the stairs. This time, Mary answered her door straight away.
‘Jamie! Hi!’
Despite her enthusiastic greeting, she looked like she had a cold. Ginger obviously hadn’t worked for her. He knew he ought to enquire after her health, but he wanted to get straight to the point and ask her his all-important question.
‘Come in,’ she said, before he could open his mouth. ‘I was just making a tea. Do you drink herbal tea?’
He was going to be asking a favour. It would only be polite to say yes, even though he thought herbal tea was revolting. ‘Yes, that would be lovely.’
He followed her into the flat, looking around for Lennon. ‘Is Lennon here?’ he asked.
‘No. He’s out
and about somewhere.’ She took two floral-patterned mugs down from the cupboard.
She chattered away about the cat while she made the tea. Camomile. Jamie tried not to grimace when she handed it to him.
‘You know the people who used to live in our flat?’
‘Letitia and David?’
‘Yes. I don’t suppose you have a forwarding address for them? Or a telephone number? It’s just that some mail has come for them and it looks quite important.’
Mary looked at him as if she were trying to see inside his mind, to ascertain if he was telling the truth. He blinked innocently.
‘Yes, I have got their address,’ she said. ‘Postal address, not an email unfortunately.’
His heart leapt.
‘I was forwarding their mail to them. I’ll forward the mail you’ve got as well, if you want.’
‘No! I mean, no, it’s OK. I’ll do it.’
She studied him for a long moment, then said, ‘Alright.’
She picked up her address book – decorated with a picture of a fat white cat – and copied the address onto a piece of card. She handed it to Jamie.
‘Scotland?’
‘Yes. Quite a remote village, as far as I’m aware. They told me they wanted to get as far away from London and people as possible.’
That sounded very much like evidence to Jamie. Wanting to get away from people. Isn’t that exactly what you’d want to do if you’d had a bad experience with your neighbours? He sometimes fantasised about it: living in the remote countryside, among sheep and chickens, no people nearby to cause you grief. Except he was determined not to be driven out of his home. He was not a quitter.
‘Thank you for this,’ he said, holding up the scrap of card.
Before he left, Mary gently caught hold of his arm. She looked into his eyes. ‘You’re not in any kind of trouble are you, Jamie?’
‘No. What makes you ask that?’
‘You just seem a bit stressed out.’
‘No. Everything’s fine. Just got married. Baby on the way. We couldn’t be happier.’
She clearly didn’t believe him, but she didn’t push it. Instead she said, ‘If you ever need any help, Jamie, you know where I am.’ She squeezed his arm.
