Three Weeks Dead

by Rebecca Bradley

  ‘Sugar?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Sugar. Do you take it?’

  ‘No. Thank you. And sorry.’

  ‘Where were you? You were a world away. Isn’t that supposed to be me?’ He tried to force a smile but it just made the pain in his eyes glint.

  ‘Work. We’ve a lot to do, Jason, to help you. To get Lisa back. My head was there: at work. I want you to get your wife back.’

  The hard-edged glint smoothed, and he moved towards the living room with his drink. Sally followed. Lewis was already in there, settled, comfortable. ‘I appreciate it, I really do.’ He made himself comfortable near his dog and rubbed him – a habit Sally had picked up on. She looked away, moved to the chair on its own, and sat. ‘I couldn’t lose him as well, you know. He’s a part of Lisa, funny as that sounds.’

  He’d seen her looking. Sally bit her lower lip. ‘He obviously adores you, I’m sure he has no intention of going anywhere.’

  ‘You should have seen him when he was younger. Full of beans. He’s lost that spark since…’ He paused, rubbed Lewis some more. ‘Lisa.’

  ‘They say dogs pick up on emotions.’

  ‘Anyway, he was a bugger for running off, and there’s these new-fangled gadgets on the market now where you can find them through your phone. It’s attached to his collar and has a GPS chip in it and my phone is tuned in to it.’ He looked bashful. ‘Like I said, I couldn’t lose him as well.’

  13

  The incident room was already busy and there were people milling about who Sally didn’t recognise. It looked as though a few extra bodies had been drafted in. They appeared comfortable here. Sat at desks working, or chatting to the staff she did know. She hated being late, missing out on something, but her DI had asked her to make that early stop-off so she’d had no choice.

  She dropped her jacket on the back of her chair, leaned down over it, turned her computer on, and attempted to bring the irrational irritation under control.

  ‘That’s not a good look.’

  The voice alone was like nails down a chalkboard to her.

  She turned slowly, hoping to straighten her face. She hadn’t thought she wore her thoughts for all to see.

  ‘Morning, Gordon. What isn’t a good look on me? This jacket?’ She hoped to deflect him.

  ‘Tardiness. I was under the impression you wanted to curry favour with our detective inspector, and yet you walk in whenever you feel like it. And you’ve been here, what? A couple of weeks? Very brave of you. Is it because you think she’ll have your back because you don’t have a dick?’

  Sally looked around, wondering what people would think. Her own mind wasn’t functioning. Couldn’t function. She’d never come across misogyny like this in her career before. She hadn’t believed it actually existed.

  But no wonder he had been brave enough to say this to her face: Martin, whose desk faced hers, wasn’t there, and there were no staff in the immediate area. And yet she felt completely on display.

  She looked at his face. Smug. Arms crossed over his chest.

  Stepping back, away from him, she scrambled for a response, stunned by the attack. ‘DI Robbins asked that I visit Jason Wells to see how he was getting on after yesterday’s events and to see if he could tell us anything else or if we could do anything else for him. So I went. She told me to do it in work time and not knock him up too early, after everything he has been through. He’s–’

  Gordon started to laugh, a sharp bark of a laugh. ‘Have you heard yourself? How the hell did you make it in here with the big boys?’

  ‘I can tell you–’

  He was gone. He’d turned his back and walked away.

  An echo of laughter trailing after him.

  14

  Jason

  * * *

  The police officer was kind to him. Their coming round that morning had surprised him, but if they could find Lisa he would talk to the police all day every day. And that officer, Sally, she was different, she listened and it seemed to Jason that she talked to him on the level rather than talk at him, and he needed that. After they’d caught him walking out of work with the software on him he’d felt like a common criminal. He’d been treated like a common criminal.

  He was a common criminal.

  He’d gone into work with the intention of stealing the software the man had asked for, and after much quaking and self-admonishment, he’d taken that step into criminality – for his wife – and he’d accessed the software, copied it, and before the day’s end, he’d walked out of the building. He would never have imagined himself taking those actions, but he had. He’d gone into work. Tried to act as though it was a normal day, but he felt too hot, clammy. His legs didn’t feel as though they belonged to him. He got up from his desk and paced about, trying to ease the tension down and out through the floor. He wanted to vomit. He kept his eye on the waste-paper bin.

  He kept his mind on the final goal. Getting the software out so that he could get Lisa back and then repair the patch in the banking system. He would never let them have free rein over this. Lisa would kill him if she were alive.

  Ironically.

  The clock ticked by. One slow second after another.

  One cup of coffee after another.

  He couldn’t focus on work and he couldn’t drink any more coffee. Conversations were stilted and disjointed and he failed to keep track of what was said to him. He wanted to wait until as close to the end of day as he could, so that he didn’t have to have the software on him for too long.

  In the end it became too much.

  Jason closed his office door and pulled up his chair as close to his desk as he could. Opening his standalone laptop, he plugged in two USB drives. He knew he’d have to be quick if option one didn’t work. Then he turned to the main desktop computer, which was attached to the company’s server and which held the software he could access. His fingers twitched over the keyboard.

  Too much caffeine.

  Inputting his login details, the screen came to life.

  Once accessed, Jason attempted to upload it to his cloud but it was stopped by Intranet Steward, the internal monitoring system that protected the company.

  His heart went into his mouth, but he knew what he had to do. He worked quickly. He would not leave Lisa in the hands of those monsters – because who knew what would happen to her – so he finished and walked out just before close of business. But they knew. They just knew.

  Of course they knew.

  It was propriety software worth millions.

  The security division were top notch.

  The police were called and here he was.

  15

  But what would happen now? To Lisa? He was supposed to tell the men that the exchange could still go ahead, only now the police would be there and the men would be arrested. Presuming it was men, plural. Did he have it in him to act this out with the people who were holding his wife hostage?

  Hostage.

  The police had said she wasn’t a hostage because she wasn’t alive. But their task was to still get her back for him. What these people had done was intolerable and cruel. The police were on his side.

  But how could they be, if they didn’t see Lisa as a person?

  He had more questions than answers. As he rubbed at his chin he realised he needed to shave; blunt stubble pricked at his palm, rough and coarse to his touch.

  Jason heard whining and saw Lewis sat at the back door. Unsure how long he’d allowed him to sit there, he opened the door for him, apologising. The autumnal day, cool. Leaves the colour of burnt umber fluttered to the ground and joined the blanket of reds, oranges and browns already there, signalling the end of a season which could hold life.

  He left the door open and sat at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, watching as Lewis relieved himself and then chased his football around the garden. He needed to take him out for a walk, but he was afraid he’d miss an important phone call.

  It was then that the letterbox
clacked and something heavy landed with a thud on his floor, as if he were being summoned.

  16

  ‘You’ve been with the police, Mr Wells.’

  They knew. How did they know? Were they watching him? How was he supposed to sell this lie now? What about Lisa?

  ‘No. No, I haven’t! My wife, Lisa, where is she?’

  ‘Don’t lie to us, Jason, or matters will get a whole lot worse for you. If you tell us the truth, then we can work it out.’

  A moment of silence as he took this in.

  Lewis, on hearing his voice, padded in, looked at his master and lay at his feet.

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  Fuck. Oh, Lisa.

  ‘I was arrested.’ He needed to think.

  ‘We know that. The rest please.’ The voice was calm and this scared Jason more than anger would have.

  ‘The company knew I’d accessed and attempted to upload the software to my new cloud account, and when I attempted to leave work before the end of day, they detained me and called the police.’

  ‘You’re waffling. You screwed up.’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t.’

  ‘You got caught.’

  Jason sighed heavily into the phone that had been hand-delivered not ten minutes earlier. Though by whom he didn’t know. He’d yanked at the door after opening the padded envelope, run to the pavement, looked both ways, but whoever had pushed it through his door was long gone.

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  He had no choice but to confess that he’d told the police about them having his wife. He’d told them nothing about them, though, because he knew nothing about them. What information could he provide?

  ‘But they do have your phone?’

  Heat flashed through him and his hands shook. ‘Yes, yes, they do, but – but you took precautions, didn’t you?’

  ‘Of course we did, Jason.’

  He doubled over on the chair and tried to breathe. The air in the kitchen felt thick, heavy, cloying.

  ‘But tell me, what of the software and of your wife now?’

  He jumped up, standing, raising his voice as he spoke. ‘You can’t hurt her, you can’t.’ Lewis mirrored him, standing with a watchful eye. ‘I have the software. I made two hard copies at the same time, just in case. They found one and stopped searching me. I made the second copy from the first so they didn’t realise. We can still do this. You can still get your software and I can still get Lisa back.’

  Lewis whined and lay back down on the tiled floor.

  17

  Sally

  * * *

  The briefing was coming to a close. The DI (and she wondered if she would ever call her by her name, even when thinking about her in her own head) was fair and approachable, but she was also great at her job, focused and straightforward, and every time she spoke, everyone acted. The way it should be, but it made her nervous. There was no bitching and snarling behind her back as there sometimes was about a boss. Now she was running over what she’d already said, confirming that everyone knew their activities for the day.

  Jason’s phone had to be examined. The phone company had to be contacted and his call log obtained and examined, along with any other data either of those searches could provide about Jason or the offender.

  Statements were to be obtained from the SHIRO staff, and there were a lot of statements to take. Including the two young tech start-ups. Apparently the force’s legal department were involved, as SHIRO weren’t being overly helpful with the investigation, even though it was their property that had been stolen. They didn’t want police accessing the site or their equipment to check for any other suspicious activity, i.e. to see if the offenders had any other means of access or other persons under their control. This included the very basic stuff like CCTV. It seemed that the software contained within the company was too valuable for dumb cops to traipse all over, and the guys had involved their lawyers. It was a mess. And it would tie the DI up for some considerable time, so the rest of the team were to be left with the bulk of the remainder of the investigation.

  People who knew Jason and Lisa needed to be spoken with, as did the ground staff at the burial site. The DI even wanted Lisa’s post-mortem checked up on and followed up if necessary.

  She really wasn’t happy at the ‘dumb cop’ line that was thrown at them, and all on top of the theft of a newly buried woman. Sally could now see where her tolerance level was, and it had been exceeded.

  Sally’s phone vibrated in her pocket, she slid it out and looked down at the screen, trying not to draw attention to herself as the briefing finished up; but it was no good, she’d been seen. When she looked back up from the screen, DI Robbins was looking at her as she continued talking. A question in her eyes, brows furrowed in the middle.

  ‘It’s Jason Wells, Ma’am, on the phone we gave him yesterday.’

  DI Robbins stopped mid-sentence. ‘You’d better answer it then, Sally.’

  The incident room was silent. Sally’s stomach flipped over. She could feel the pressure of criticism from Gordon drive into her back.

  ‘Jason? Are you okay?’

  There was a long pause and Sally looked at the screen to make sure they were still connected; the time was ticking along, showing that the line was still open. ‘They phoned me, Sally.’

  Her eye’s widened and she looked to her boss for instructions, but the DI couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation.

  Loudspeaker. She mouthed at Sally.

  Feeling as though her fingers were foreign objects, she pressed the screen where the loudspeaker button was and the room could now hear the call. Talk about being assessed.

  ‘What do you mean they phoned you? On the phone we gave you?’ They would have something to work with.

  ‘No, they posted a new phone to me and called me on that.’

  Damn.

  Everyone in the room was either listening, making notes or looking something up on their workstations.

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘They wanted to know what I’d told the police and they want to go ahead with the software exchange. For Lisa.’

  The DI was now waving her arm between herself and the phone. Sally picked up on her meaning.

  ‘This is good, Jason. We can arrange to make the swap and be there to arrest them.’

  ‘No, you don’t get it. I want my wife back in one piece. I have to do as they say.’

  ‘But you don’t have the software, Jason, it was taken off you when you were searched. They’ll know that. It’s too dangerous to call their bluff without us.’

  ‘I can’t risk them hurting her, don’t you get it? I made a copy of the software. I have a copy to exchange for her. Lisa wouldn’t want me to do this, I know that. She was a good person and that is why I’m telling you. I’m telling you in honour of her. But in order to get her back in one piece, I’m doing the exchange. This is the last you’ll hear from me until it’s done.’

  18

  Sally

  * * *

  The noise was immediate. Like turbulent breakers crashing down on a pebble beach. The sound loud and jarring. The movement frantic.

  Orders snapped out.

  Sally standing in the eye of the storm, allowing it to circle her as she took in her bearings. Her time on the unit hadn’t allowed a level of comfort to set in to the extent that she knew what to do on an immediate level at a time like this, and it was disconcerting. It made her feel like a probationer police constable again, prickling under her skin, itching with irritation at herself. She couldn’t help but look across at Gordon, who at that very moment chose to do the same, and eye contact was made. Cold blue eyes locked onto her and she received the message loud and clear. You’re out of your depth.

  She sucked in a breath and pulled back her shoulders. She deserved to be here; it was okay to learn a new role. Everyone had to do it several times in their careers.

  Even Gordon.

/>   She tuned in to the DI, who was now pacing the room while reeling off tasks. Rapid-fire, without missing a beat.

  ‘I want to know where that phone is at all times. I want someone at his house right now and I want him brought back in. I don’t care how. Arrest him on suspicion of attempting an offence if need be, we’ll worry about how close it fits the criteria later. If he hands that software over and someone gets access to this backdoor key to the bank’s ATM services, then they’re sitting ducks. There is nothing they can do to stop it.’

  Gordon picked up the phone on his desk, dialled, and talked quickly and quietly to whoever it was who had answered. Sally listened, waiting for an instruction she could follow, one she could action.

  The DI ran her hand through her fringe. ‘Contact ANPR, give them his number plate, we want to know where he is if he’s moving about in his car. I’m presuming he has to go further than the end of his street at some point.’

  Sally moved towards her desk, hoping inspiration would come to her. She could do the ANPR task. She could contact them, make that call, be useful.

  Martin, now at his desk opposite her, gave her a warm smile, and winked. She knew he was trying to reassure her, but it didn’t. He then started to work at his computer.

  The DI continued snapping commands. ‘We need to get the Financial Crime Unit on board to understand what we’re dealing with and what we can do if this backdoor key gets into the wrong hands.’

  Sally had no idea where they were based in the building. Central police station was a huge place. Yes, she’d been shown around it when she first arrived from the Public Protection Unit, but there were so many offices and so many departments for various expertise that she couldn’t for the life of her remember where they were. Of course she could use the switchboard and call them, but a conversation like that needed to be in person.