Gatecrasher

by Robert Young

  He noticed that she hadn't answered and he looked her in the face again, realising that he was staring now and rather obviously. He cursed his hormones. When he looked up though he noticed that she too seemed to be sizing him up before she met his gaze from beneath her eyelashes.

  'Oh. Yes. Couple of brochures like you said. I didn't really know what else to give you. It would help if I knew what you were trying to find out,' she said.

  Be good if I knew too, he thought to himself and then said 'Oh just a bit of background on the company, you know.'

  She nodded but it was obvious that she didn't know. 'Might I ask what kind of article are you writing Mr Michaels?'

  The pause was obvious, as was the slight raise of the eyebrows that made it clear that he hadn't thought about that particular point. He was thinking fast of a lie to tell and they both knew it.

  'Not too sure yet. I mean the editor told me to look into the burglary, thinks we should cover that sort of thing, you know, local interest and all that. Depends what I find out really.' He talked fast to try to cover up the pause but it did nothing to help. And then he found himself saying something that was against his better judgement but the words just sprang right out of his mouth. 'Would it be alright if I contact you again Miss Knowles? If I need to. You've been very helpful.'

  In fact she had not yet even given him the envelope. But it was the question that caught her off guard. Him too.

  She handed him the envelope and then laughed nervously. 'Its nothing really.'

  'Well I'm grateful anyway. I have your number so perhaps I'll call again.'

  'Sure. No trouble at all.' Sarah said backing toward the door. 'Please do.'

  20

  Tuesday. 6pm.

  George Gresham was sweating profusely and his face burned scarlet with exertion. Pumping his legs he pedalled hard on the exercise bike and stared off into nowhere, his mind working as hard as his body.

  He was waiting to hear from Slater. It was over a day now since they had spoken about what they were going to do next and Gresham was anxious. Anxious because if this turned out to be a dead end, he had no idea where to go next.

  Gresham could hardly believe that they were in this mess and wondered with a shake of the head how on earth they'd got here. Of course he knew how they'd got here; a combination of bizarre meetings, circumstances and common-or-garden fuck ups.

  He'd been introduced to a man named Drennan by Julius Warren - whom he trusted and who vouched for the man - saying that he'd known him years. Drennan had been a bit of a flash git; plenty of talk, and he seemed always to have a smirk on his face for some reason. Like he knew something. Warren didn't have many friends like that and it struck Gresham as odd at the very least. Gresham had him pegged as a bit of an actor. He was always cagey with information, reluctant to say too much. It was a way of seeming important, of having the power. Gresham wasn't taken in though.

  But the man had offered him money and quite a lot of it for what sounded to him like a pretty easy job. Normally that would have got Gresham's radar screeching for all sorts of reasons. Nobody just gave you cash for nothing. If you got offered ten times what the job seemed worth to do it, it was almost certainly worth ten times more than they were offering you. If they told you it was no big deal, then it probably was.

  Despite the fact that he knew that there was more to it than Drennan was letting on (and he seemed often unable to resist alluding to how much more to it there really was) he needed the money badly. He decided that the risk was small enough in this instance. Do the job, grab the cash and get shot of Drennan.

  So the previous Friday Gresham had sent the them in; Keith Slater, Julius Warren, and Tony Cooper. They had gone in late at night, dodged the alarms the way Drennan had told them, pulled off the data from the computer system as Drennan had specified and then trotted back out the door. Drennan seemed to know so much about it that Gresham had been tempted to suggest that he might be better doing it himself but that, of course, would not have been so lucrative.

  It had been fine until the last minute. Buoyed and euphoric at the smooth ease of the job Gresham's men had been making quietly for the exit in the subdued night-lights of the office they had ghosted into only fifteen minutes before when Cooper - who had been the one at the terminal, tapping the keyboard, downloading the data - had peeled off the black balaclava obscuring his face at the very moment that he passed a security camera. He was looking full into the lens before he even realised it.

  Slater, glancing back over his shoulder, had seen it and had called Gresham almost immediately. They had first considered ripping out the camera but knew that was as futile as killing the bee that had already stung you. They had discussed somehow getting into the security system to delete Cooper's image from the record but they didn't know if it was tape-based or digital, or even what other kind of system it could be or how to do it. Every second they stood there debating how little they knew about this and what to do and whether Drennan had said anything about such an eventuality was a second closer to getting caught in the bright glare of police headlights and Gresham had made the snap decision to get out of there.

  Perhaps Drennan could come up with something, perhaps they could go back the next night and this time steal the incriminating evidence and perhaps this time keep their masks on too.

  But Drennan had not been able to come up with anything like that. In fact Drennan had sounded both horrified and angry, cursing their incompetence and threatening not to pay the cash, the smooth fa?ade of control and assurance dropped completely for a moment.

  Still he wouldn't say what the data was and why it was being stolen but he had gone to some length to convince Gresham that the implications of this were grave indeed, that Drennan's employer would not view such a mistake kindly. Though he would not be drawn on exactly how unkindly he would view such a mistake, Gresham had been threatened often enough to see it when it was looking him in the eyes.

  Finally Drennan had let Gresham talk himself back into favour so that Drennan's employer would not involve himself in the matter any further than necessary and that, provided the USB was delivered as arranged, the cash would also be forthcoming. There was a condition though that Gresham could not duck out of.

  Cooper's mistake left them all exposed and they could not afford exposure of any kind. Something would need to be done about that. Something swift and final.

  And so it had. But here his boys had messed up again. Warren had been sloppy about it, because he had been too concerned with letting them see that he was willing to get his hands dirty and not nearly concerned enough about doing the job right. Because he didn't understand the danger that Cooper had placed them in and because he didn't understand how much Gresham needed that money. Because he was young and eager and foolish.

  He could worry about slapping Keane back into line later. For now the focus was on getting this mess cleared up. Warren had reported in on Monday afternoon to tell him that Cooper had been found dead. Or at least had turned up in hospital and then died.

  But if Cooper had vanished into someone's house - as it looked like had happened - and then turned up in a hospital somewhere before finally dying, well that left enough time for talking. Gresham wanted very much to know what he had or had not said to whoever he'd stumbled on that night after Keane had finished with him.

  That's what he'd told Slater at least. But there was something else too that had come to his attention. Something far, far more worrying than the off chance that Cooper had spilled his guts to some stranger.

  Gresham stopped pedalling and bowed his head down to rest against the handlebars of the exercise bike. Sweat dripped down from his forehead and ran down his back and his chest. He was trying to work out some of his frustration but he still felt wound up and now he was exhausted too. Where was Slater?

  The phone rang a few minutes later as Gresham wandered through to the shower. On hearing the ring he dashed to take the call.

  'Where the hell have you been?
' he growled.

  'Sorry George, I -' Slater began but Gresham cut him off.

  'Never mind. Drennan called me. Said that Cooper got brought in to the hospital with someone the other night. Already out of it and died shortly after. The guy who brought him in...?'

  'Who?'

  'Same guy who lives in the flat you went into. He knows something.'

  'Well that's a break. At least we know-'

  'Shut up Keith. It's worse than you think.'

  'Worse how?' Slater sounded suddenly apprehensive.

  'I can't find the USB.'

  'Say that again boss?'

  'I cannot find the memory stick Keith. It's gone.'

  'Oh shit - How?'

  'I'm not certain but I have a good idea.'

  'Cooper?'

  'Yes, Cooper. He knew something was up straight away. He knew he was in trouble. Point is I reckon he had it away before you lot left my place on Saturday morning. Insurance.'

  Gresham remembered the four of them racing back to his house in the middle of the night after it had happened, the frenzied negotiating with Drennan, the arguing and sniping and the worry as they sat there thinking it over and over. Cooper had got quieter and quieter the whole time.

  Gresham had put it down to worry then but now it seemed more like Cooper had been scheming already. They'd already given Gresham the stick to hold but in the excitement and distraction it had slipped his mind. Only after Warren had called him to tell him that Cooper had turned up dead had he realised that it was gone. His relief turning to fear and panic as he stared at the empty space in his kitchen drawer where it should have been, he had moved methodically through the house trying to think where he might have moved it, if his wife might have done so, if he'd actually put it somewhere else. But all the time he knew that he wouldn't find it and soon he realised why. Cooper must have taken it back again when he began to understand the trouble he was in. A bargaining chip. Perhaps the only leverage he would have.

  'Oh,' Slater said.

  'Yeah.'

  'So what now then? What do you think he's done with it?'

  'My guess is he had it with him on Saturday. He didn't have time to come up with a plan by then or find a good place to hide it. If he still had it on him in the Hospital then it would have shown up by now and Drennan would be asking us why it had turned up there.'

  'You've spoken to Drennan about this?'

  'No. He wants us to hold onto it anyway so I let him think its safe. He's more worried about what Cooper did before he died. All I know for certain is that whoever lives in that flat knows something and I don't like it when other people know more about my business than I do.'

  'Right George. I'll sort it out.'

  21

  Tuesday. 6pm.

  There was nothing unduly strange about Andrew Griffin leaving the office at the same time as the rest of his workforce. It was true that he would often leave much earlier to attending a 'meeting' which would invariably involve a round of golf or a long boozy lunch with a business associate. Or indeed nothing other than simply going home to his young family a little early, but then that was one of the perks of being in charge. He worked late into the evening just as often as this as well. But sometimes he did the same working day as everybody and joined the rush hour crush to get home.

  On this occasion however, though nobody else took any particular notice other than to offer a polite farewell or hold the door as he left, Andrew Griffin felt particularly conspicuous.

  He looked smart and immaculately presented as ever, his shoes polished, tie straight, collar and cuffs sharp and crisp. He carried his briefcase at his side with him though it contained nothing other than a notebook and fountain pen, a copy of the Telegraph, some accounting reports and an apple.

  In fact there was nothing about Andrew Griffin that stood out at all as he joined the evening throng and began his journey east, away from his Berkshire home. He felt for all the world however, that everyone was watching him, that his mood was obvious, his tension pronounced and visible. He was edgy and tense and thoroughly preoccupied, his attention divided between what he was going to have to say and the tunnel-vision focus of getting through the crowd to his hastily arranged appointment as quickly as possible.

  The afternoon had been long and fraught. His personal assistant had confirmed that there was nothing taken from their extensive paper records but of course, all the signs indicated that it was computer data that had been targeted. He had to spend empty hours waiting for confirmation of this as he waited to hear back from the computer technician that he had charged with investigating it.

  Then, at last, the call had come. The technician had identified the specific block of data that had been accessed, had confirmed that the machine had "carried out an instruction to duplicate to external media" as the technician had put it. It was part of the other man's job to know the codes and references used in the data and what it signified but the names and transactions referred to were beyond his understanding. They far pre-dated his employment in the company and his working remit anyway. He had no reason to know. Best that way.

  Griffin had asked that the information be passed to him to examine and had played down its significance, although the tension in his voice may have betrayed him. Checking through what had been stolen he knew that this could, in the wrong hands, bring down more than just him and his lovingly-built company. He knew that the risk needed to be neutralised as quickly as possible and for that there would, inevitably, be a cost.

  22

  Tuesday. 6.30pm.

  Keith Slater hunched his shoulders up higher and drew his head and thick bull-neck down into the collar of his jacket. The autumn felt like it was giving way to winter already. The cold in his car was bitter and he couldn't turn the heating on without the engine running and that was out of the question.

  He peered across the street through the dim evening toward Campbell's flat and stared again, intent on the house although he could neither see nor hear a thing. Nor would he for a while yet. On arrival in this street he had been scanning for a space to park, watching for Campbell's front door at the same time and had almost bumped a parked black Golf when he spotted his target walk out his front door. He couldn't be certain it was the man he wanted of course. Not having met him before, but he had left the correct front door and fit the description that Drennan had passed to them from the hospital administrator.

  Slater had needed to take a moment to calm himself, seeing the young man leaving already as he sat there trying to find a spot to park. This was not in the plan. So Slater improvised.

  Following at a slow pace he watched as Campbell rounded the corner at the end of the street and head for a bus stop. Slater found a place to pull in to the kerbside fifty yards ahead and then followed the bus for twenty minutes, doing his best to avoid overtaking whenever the bus pulled in at a bus stop despite the impatience of the cars behind him to do so.

  He'd followed as far as Hammersmith and there it became impossible to continue the charade amid the hectic traffic, junctions and crowds. He thought he'd caught sight of him alighting the bus, and then as he waited at a red light had been certain that he saw Campbell again just before he disappeared into the tube station.

  After that, Slater had one option alone and that was to head back to the street and wait for the young man to return home.

  Gresham wanted him to make his move and fast, which meant that at the first opportunity he was going to have to grab Campbell or coerce him into the car. Slater was alone and it would be harder to do the job without a second pair of hands. He considered calling Warren to come and back him up but then thought that it could barely look much more conspicuous the two of them manhandling Campbell into the car in front of his well-to-do neighbours.

  Sitting there now, counting off the minutes and hours, Slater began to see every curtain in the street twitching and every passer-by or car that rolled past was staring at him, taking a mental note of his appearance, his car, mode
l, make and number plate.

  It wasn't quite dark enough yet anyway, just a soft, early-evening dimness. Too early in the evening, too much activity. He needed the cover of late night darkness and people tired and sleeping or hypnotised by the television before he could do anything. Maybe he did need Warren after all.

  Rubbing his palms briskly and feeling himself begin to shiver he glanced quickly at his watch and cursed. He began to think of all the houses and flats around him and all the evening meals being cooked and he tried to work out how long it was since he had eaten and whether he could leave his post to get something hot.

  But he could afford no mistakes. He must be vigilant and alert and get this done. He would not mess this up the way Warren had done.

  Slater was finding himself growing increasingly frustrated with everyone. Warren, this Campbell guy, bloody Cooper. Even Gresham.

  Julius Warren had got them all into this through his contact with Drennan whom Slater hadn't liked from the start and had told Gresham as much. The guy was a slimy bastard and though Slater didn't have him pinned as a copper there was something about him that didn't fit. He was too smooth but at the same time, there was no question the guy wasn't a snake.

  Warren had screwed the whole thing up for them just as badly as Cooper had the night before and Slater found himself wishing that he had taken care of Cooper himself.

  Gresham should know better too. He seemed to have been blinded by the pound signs in front of his eyes on this particular job and Slater couldn't understand that. Still, he had decided that rather than leave them all to it he could at least make sure it got done properly even if he didn't like it. So far though, he was loathe to admit, he hadn't even been able to do that.

  Most frustrating of all, the key to this was off somewhere out of sight. Where was he? Out somewhere with friends, hot food, cold drinks. Maybe he was at a computer terminal somewhere looking through the contents of the memory stick. Slater could well imagine that he had it after Cooper had taken it from Gresham one day and then turned up dead without it the next.