Trading Reality

by Michael Ridpath

  We went inside the shell of the small building. Everything was black and wet. The plastic casings of the electronic equipment had melted and twisted. There was paper ash everywhere. Some things had survived, especially at the end furthest from where the fire had started. Some of the files strewn all over the floor were charred but still legible in places. A shelf of books seemed still to be intact. The smell of burned wood and plastic was everywhere.

  I sighed. Another part of Richard’s life destroyed. I gestured to Kerr and Cochrane to walk with me to the house. Rachel followed us.

  ‘Tea?’ I asked.

  ‘You look as though you need something a bit stronger,’ said Kerr.

  He was right. I found a bottle of Richard’s whisky, and poured myself a glass.

  ‘Want some?’ I asked Kerr.

  ‘Just a wee one.’

  Cochrane shook his head.

  The whisky felt good. I was shaken and tired, but I wanted to know what had happened.

  ‘Well, it was definitely arson,’ said Kerr, sipping his drink. My eyes rested on his red nose, criss-crossed with flecks of blue. ‘But so far we haven’t found anyone who saw anything. The fire started around three o’clock. Everyone was tucked up in bed. It would have been easy for someone to creep up to the house in the shadows of the rocks along the shore. The tide’s been up since then. No footprints.’

  ‘And everything was destroyed in the fire?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  He held up an orange folder. It was wet, and black at the edges. But the papers inside were clearly legible. The title of the folder was in smudged black felt-tip pen. I could just make it out.

  BOWL.

  ‘Look at the top sheet,’ said Kerr.

  I did.

  27 March

  Richard,

  VR kills people. Some poor fucker in America wrapped himself round a tree after using one of your machines. You knew about it, but you didn’t tell anyone. You shut the kid’s father up.

  Well, here’s the evidence of the accident. And, unless you undertake to keep all VR machines away from the public on a permanent basis, we will tell everybody about it.

  You have one week to decide.

  Doogie.

  Attached to the note was a copy of the letter from the Bergeys’ lawyer. I passed the two sheets of paper to Rachel.

  ‘Jesus!’ she said.

  ‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ said Kerr. ‘Did you know about this accident?’

  I explained what Willie had told me about the letter from the Bergeys’ lawyer promising to sue FairSystems, and the later letter withdrawing the threat.

  ‘So, this looks like blackmail,’ said Kerr.

  ‘It does.’

  ‘Have you heard from Doogie Fisher since Richard died?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. In fact, I know nothing at all about him apart from what you and Superintendent Donaldson told me.’

  Kerr looked at Rachel. ‘Did you know about this?’

  She shook her head, still staring at the letter. ‘No, Richard never mentioned it. But I’m not at all surprised Doogie would do something like this.’

  ‘Neither am I,’ said Kerr taking the folder back. ‘We’ve already had words with Doogie Fisher. It looks like another wee chat is in order.’

  ‘Did you find anything else in the boathouse?’

  ‘Not yet. Most of the papers have been destroyed, but it’s amazing what documents we can recover these days.’ He scowled. ‘We shouldn’t have missed this first time round. It was in among a wad of technical stuff. We’ll go through every scrap of paper this time, don’t worry.’

  I thought for a moment. I knew very little about Doogie Fisher, or BOWL, but I wasn’t too keen on him publishing details of the motorcycle accident. It wouldn’t do FairSystems’ reputation any good at all. Indeed, it would be bad for the whole virtual reality industry.

  ‘Can you go easy on this man Doogie?’ I asked. ‘At least until I’ve had a chance to talk to him. I wouldn’t like him to publish this letter.’

  ‘No way, pal,’ said Kerr. ‘We’ve got a murder investigation under way here. I won’t let some petty blackmail slow it down. I’m going to have a word with our friend Doogie right now. And don’t try and talk to him first.’ He looked at me sternly.

  ‘Do you think this might represent some sort of motive for Richard’s murder?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s difficult to see how, directly,’ said Kerr. ‘But it’s clear that your brother and this Doogie were pursuing some sort of vendetta. They could have met at the boathouse to discuss this note, and had an argument that got out of control. Who knows? But I’m going to find out.’

  With that, he left, leaving Cochrane to join the group picking through the charred shell of the boathouse.

  As I shut the door on them, I turned to Rachel. She was sitting at the kitchen table, thinking.

  With all that was going on at FairSystems, I hadn’t had time to ask her about BOWL. Suddenly, I was very interested in it.

  ‘So, tell me about Doogie Fisher,’ I said, sitting down opposite her.

  She stirred, and her eyes focused on me. ‘Doogie used to work at FairSystems,’ she began. ‘I first met him when I was at Edinburgh University. He was with Richard and me in the Department of Artificial Intelligence. He was brilliant. Obsessive. He would work flat out on a problem for weeks on end until he solved it.

  ‘Then he kind of dropped out. He became a full-time political activist. He was involved in all the demos, against the poll tax, against the BNP, or just against the police. When the press talked about agitators from outside an area coming in to stir up trouble, Doogie, as often as not, was one of them. As you can imagine, the university wasn’t too impressed.’

  ‘Did this happen suddenly?’

  ‘Oh, no. He’d been a member of the Socialist Workers Party since school. His father was a steel worker at Ravenscraig until he lost his job after an accident. Doogie was convinced it was the company’s fault. He broke the legs of the manager he thought was responsible. He did two years for that. He’s a bitter man. He hates the way the country is run. He thinks the Tories are out to shaft the workers and the unemployed for the benefit of the English middle class.

  ‘Then, about four years ago, Richard tempted him to join us at FairSystems. He said yes.’

  ‘Why would Richard have done that?’

  ‘Doogie was special, and Richard recognised that. There are very few people in the country with Doogie’s intelligence, and his understanding of VR. We needed him. And it turned out very well at first. A disrespect for authority is healthy in programming, and Doogie had lots of that. He was also hardworking, he had a real passion for what he was doing. He threw everything into VR; he would usually work a seven-day week.’

  ‘Just like you,’ I interrupted.

  Rachel smiled. ‘Even worse than me. He became interested in the psychology and philosophy of virtual reality; what it really means to spend long periods of time in a virtual world. And I think some of his conclusions disturbed him. I remember him saying that VR would just become another way for the Establishment to manipulate the masses. Here is a new technology that he believes in, and suddenly it turns out to be just another means of social control. When he originally joined Richard, FairSystems was no more than a small team working on a scientific problem. He began to realise that if it all worked out well, FairSystems would become a large profitable company, just like those that he had always hated. It depressed him. That’s when he joined BOWL, the Brave Old World League. Have you heard of it?’

  ‘The police mentioned it. It’s a strange name, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. In the book, the government controls the proles through the “feelies”, a kind of virtual reality.’

  I could vaguely remember reading the book with its warped view of Utopia. ‘And BOWL thinks VR could be used in that way today?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘It’s a bit extreme, isn’t
it?’

  ‘A wee bit,’ Rachel admitted. ‘But for a while now, some quite respected academics have been worried about the effects that modern technology is having on society. You know – children spending their lives playing computer games, sex and violence on TV, that kind of thing. I think BOWL see themselves as anticipating the effects of future technology on all of us.’

  ‘And Doogie joined this mob?’

  ‘Ah ha. And he did it in secret. He passed information to them about what we were working on at FairSystems. Doogie was never very stable emotionally, he was working very hard, and he seemed more and more unbalanced. Some of his work became unreliable. I don’t know whether he made mistakes on purpose, or whether he was just falling apart.

  ‘Richard was sympathetic at first, and tried to ease the pressure on him. They had known each other for a long time. But then he discovered that Doogie was passing on confidential information to BOWL. He went apeshit. I’ve never seen him so angry. You know how patient and controlled he normally was. I suppose he didn’t like the betrayal. Anyway, he and Doogie had a huge row, Doogie walked out, and they were bitter enemies from then on.’

  ‘When was all this?’

  ‘Oh, about a year ago.’

  ‘And what’s Doogie been doing since then?’

  ‘He’s put everything into BOWL. He’s become obsessed with the evils of virtual reality, and he picks on FairSystems in particular. Over the last few months, he’s led a radical wing of BOWL to more violent forms of protest. We were sent letter bombs. So were a couple of other VR companies. We never proved it was Doogie, but both we and the police knew it was him. He also tried to crack our computer system.’

  ‘Is he dangerous?’ I asked. ‘I mean, would he do something really violent?’

  ‘You never know with Doogie. I used to like him. He believed in something, you know. But, yes, I think he could.’

  ‘Do you think he might have killed Richard?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Rachel, shaking her head. ‘Maybe. He certainly hated him.’

  I pondered that for a moment.

  ‘What about that note?’

  ‘Well, it must be blackmail. But he was wasting his time. Richard would never have given in to it.’

  I was sure she was right. But there was still something I didn’t understand about the note. ‘How do you think Doogie got a copy of the letter in the first place? It should have been safe in Willie’s files.’

  Rachel frowned. ‘I don’t know. I know he’s got hold of sensitive information from FairSystems before, but I thought he did that by breaking into our computers remotely. You know, over the telephone wires. We’ve tightened our computer security as a result, and I would hope he can no longer get in. Besides, this letter would only have been in hard-copy form, there would be no reason for it to be stored in our computer system. No, either someone gave it to him, or he found some way of physically breaking into the factory.’

  ‘Well, let’s talk to him.’

  ‘Doogie?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know where he lives?’

  ‘In a flat in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Good. Let’s go and see him tomorrow morning.’

  Rachel drove me into Glenrothes that afternoon. I still felt weak from the shock of the fire, and my back ached like hell. But I had promised to see Sorenson, so see him I would.

  He was in Richard’s office. He offered me a chair, and asked Susan, Richard’s secretary, to bring us a cup of tea.

  ‘I heard about the fire,’ Sorenson said. ‘I also heard you almost got yourself killed. How’s the hand?’

  ‘It hurts,’ I said. ‘But it will heal.’

  ‘Have the police any idea who did it?’

  ‘Maybe. They found a note to Richard from Doogie Fisher. It mentioned the accident in California. He said he would tell the press about it unless FairSystems withdrew VR from the public.’

  ‘Really?’ said Sorenson. ‘Doogie Fisher was the crazy who used to work here, wasn’t he? The guy who joined that bunch of weirdo technology-haters.’

  ‘That’s right. Did you know him?’

  ‘No. I became chairman after he had left. But I’ve heard people around here talk about him. There was that letter bomb that was sent here a few months ago. They never found out who sent it, but Doogie Fisher was everyone’s favourite.’

  ‘Well, I think he’s Inspector Kerr’s favourite for starting the fire.’

  ‘Does that mean they think he might have murdered Richard?’

  I sighed. ‘I don’t know.’ I rubbed my eyes with my hands. I was too tired to think that through. Richard’s death, FairSystems, the fire. They were all a whirl. I needed time to let them settle in my mind.

  ‘You look about all in,’ said Sorenson.

  I straightened up and smiled feebly. ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘Well, I hope they clear it up soon. The sooner the uncertainty ends, the better. I‘ve told David and Rachel to make sure that everyone co-operates with the police on this.’

  He slurped his tea. The dainty cup looked out of place in his big hands.

  ‘I spoke to your father last night. I guess you two can’t agree on what to do with the company?’

  I wrenched my mind back to FairSystems and its future. ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I want to sell, he wants to keep it.’

  ‘May I make a suggestion?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Let’s hold off selling the company right now. We still have time. We know we should be able to make it through till September. Who knows, we might get more contracts in the Fall. Apparently, Richard thought there was a chance Jenson Computer might come through with some big orders towards the end of the year. The shares are only at four and a half. Too low to sell. Let’s just keep going for a couple of months, stabilise the company, and then see where we are. If nothing else, we’ll probably get a better price.’

  I looked at him doubtfully.

  ‘Look, we probably will end up selling after all,’ he continued reasonably, ‘but I think we deserve to give the company a chance as an independent entity.’

  I was wavering. Sorenson could see it. ‘Of course there is the management issue,’ he said. ‘Rachel and David don’t exactly get on. It doesn’t make for the sort of decisive management we need.

  ‘So, I’ve been thinking. How would you like to be acting managing director? Just for three months. After that, either we sell the company, or we hire someone permanent.’

  ‘Me?’ I was stunned. ‘I can’t do it. FairSystems is a public company. I’ve never managed any company, let alone a public one.’

  ‘I think you can do it. I was impressed yesterday by your ability to pick up what’s happening around here so fast. You’re young, you’ve got initiative, and you can take decisions. Most of the successful small technology companies I’ve seen are run by men under thirty. A middle-aged professional manager would stop this company dead in its tracks. We need someone who can take risks, and you can.’

  ‘But I know nothing about the technology,’ I protested.

  ‘Then find out. Your father says you have a good mathematical brain; as good as Richard’s. Use it. Besides, the place is full of people who know the technology.’

  It was true, I had excelled at maths at school. But I hadn’t wanted to follow my father and elder brother into mathematics and the sciences, so I had concentrated on history instead, to my father’s great disappointment.

  ‘What does he think about the idea?’

  ‘Your father? He thinks it’s a good one,’ said Sorenson. ‘I guess he likes the idea of you looking after Richard’s company. Seeing it through for him. And he trusts you.’

  I thought about Sorenson’s offer. It did have some logic to it. But I still had my doubts.

  ‘Let me tell you about another company I was involved with a few years ago,’ Sorenson continued. ‘Melbourn Technology, a British company based near Cambridge. They made security devices for mobile phones, which prevented eavesdropping on sensit
ive conversations. The technology was world-class, and the potential market was huge, and growing. But the company was losing money, it had run out of cash, and its venture-capital backers were losing patience. So, they called me in.

  ‘Well, the founder of the company was a highly intelligent fellow, great with the technology, and he wasn’t a bad businessman. But he was too cautious, he didn’t have the guts to make the big changes required. So I brought in a thirty-year-old I knew from the cellular telephony business in California. He knew nothing about the technology, and he had never run a company before, but he knew the market, and I knew he had what it takes. The venture capitalists raised their eyebrows, but since the company couldn’t get any worse, they had nothing more to lose.

  ‘Anyway, this guy opened up a marketing operation in the US, moved manufacturing to Singapore, and within three years had floated the company on NASDAQ at a valuation of a hundred million dollars.’ He smiled at me. ‘So, you see, it can be done.’

  My pulse was racing. There was no doubt that I was excited by the idea of running FairSystems, and Sorenson’s support gave me enormous encouragement. But I needed time to think it over. And there was the question of getting time off work.

  ‘Can I think about it?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Sorenson. ‘But think quickly. Let me know by Friday. There’s a board meeting next Monday, and I’d like to be able to confirm you as acting MD there. I’ll stay here to mind the store till then.’

  10

  I parked the BMW in a quiet street in Tollcross, a scruffy residential area of Edinburgh to the south of the castle. The car was standard Harrison Brothers issue, fine amongst the leafy streets of west London, but a mild embarrassment elsewhere. A group of students walked up the road chatting and laughing. I knew the area vaguely. Richard had rented a room round here for a couple of years when he was at the university.

  Rachel led me up to a large grey tenement building. We entered the narrow hallway, dodged a bike, and climbed the stairs. Three floors up, we came to a door with ‘D. Fisher’ printed on a scrap of paper taped underneath a bell. She pressed it.