by Steve Reeder
“Tea,” said Michele. “And something to eat. I’m starving.”
I looked around and spotted a coffee shop a block down on the corner of the main road and St Mary’s Street.
“Over there. That should do,” I said.
Michele followed my pointing finger with her eyes and nodded her agreement. Checking for traffic we crossed the street and made our way down to the tea shop under a sign that said “Croxley’s” and written in smaller letters, “Tea, coffee and freshly baked cakes”.
Outside on the pavement were three tables against the window with three chairs at each. Tartan tablecloths adorned the wooden tops with a vase with fresh flowers on each. One was occupied and one was still laden with used cups and small plates smeared with cream and crumbs, as if people had just left.
I poked my head in the door. All five tables inside were occupied. At the counter a middle-aged redheaded woman looked up at me from the counter and smiled a welcome. I waved a greeting and then showed Michele to the clean table outside and telling her that I would be back in a moment, I went inside again in search of the gents. The redhead, who said she would take two menus out to my friend, directed me to the rear. It was a relief to finally empty my bladder after more than three hours of walking around Edinburgh, pleasant as it had been.
Before going back out again, I swallowed two more painkillers. My arm was aching something awful. Strangely enough, this was the first broken bone I had suffered since my fourteenth birthday when I had fallen off a twelve-speed racing bicycle that had been my birthday present. The kids at the party had been well impressed.
I was halfway out of the teashop door when I noticed that someone was sitting at the table with Michele. It was Jethro Jones.
Jethro looked up and saw me standing over him.
“’Allo, Simon, me old mate,” he said, sticking out a hand.
I shook his hand with some mistrust. “Jones. Fancy seeing you here.”
Jethro grinned at Michele. “Doesn’t look too ‘appy to see me, does he now?”
“I’m sure he has his reasons,” Michele replied disdainfully.
“Pot of tea for two, please,” I said to the redhead who was hovering with order pad in hand.
“I’ll have a lime milkshake please, luv,” added Jethro. “And a slice of the carrot cake too, if you don’t mind.” She jotted the order down and then collected the dirty things off the table next to us.
“So, Jethro. What’s going on? I was expecting to see you when you brought Rodber back?” I asked taking the remaining seat.
“Yeah, sorry ’bout that. See, I had me reasons for not ‘anging about, like.” I waited but he didn’t seem inclined to elaborate further. “I heard you had an unexpected ‘oliday out in the sun, like.”
“Where did you hear that?” I asked.
“Word gets around, Simon. You hear things.”
“Uh huh. What happened with Rodber?” I asked.
“I got him back to you.”
“Stop arseing about, Jethro. Tell me what happened after we left you in Bognor Regis.”
Jethro fiddled with a teaspoon for a moment. Probably deciding how much of the truth to tell me.
“Me and my mate had a talk with that Hussein fellow and he told us where to find Josh-boy.”
“Just like that?”
“Well, no. We had to be a bit persuasive, like. Threatened to blow his leg off with a length of det-cord.” Jethro laughed. “At first he didn’t believe us, but after we showed what it can do a table leg he got the message.”
“So you went and saved Rodber?”
“Yeah.” Jethro smiled at me. “Then I brought him back to you.”
“How long did the trip take you?” I asked.
“Not long. Why do you ask?”
“I just wondered how long you interrogated Rodber for before dropping him off at the farm.” He looked a bit sheepish. “Come on, Jethro, you haven’t asked for your money yet. That was a mistake. And having a friend waiting with drugs, det-cord and so on, just in case? So I figure you and maybe some friends are playing a hand in this game yourself.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s a lot of money, isn’t it?”
“So why are you following us now?” Michele asked him.
“Just keeping you safe, darling, there are some nasty blokes out and about.”
“Are you sure you’re not one of them, Jethro?” I asked. “Along with a skinny kid in a purple shirt?”
“No way, gov. All light and goodness, I am.” He chuckled. “The purple shirt won’t bother you anymore. He’s sleeping peacefully on the park bench outside the national gallery. But you’re right; I represent some people who can offer you a lot of money for what Rodber left behind.”
“You’re too late, Jethro. Julia agreed a deal with Hussein yesterday. The agreement is being signed as we speak.”
Jethro looked startled but delayed any retort as our tea and his shake arrived. Redhead wished us happy eating, even though Jethro was the only one with anything to eat and left us to it.
“Bollocks to that, mate,” Jethro finally burst out. “How’d you find the designs then? Josh Rodber didn’t tell you, did he?”
“He did not tell me, that’s true. I was enjoying a summer vacation in Algeria, if you remember,” I replied sourly.
Michele poured us both a cup of tea.
“Oh. Yeah. Listen, Simon, I didn’t have nothing to do with that, OK?” He looked fairly earnest, so I decided to believe him.
“I never thought you did, Jethro. But tell me something, what happened to Rodber, when you collected him, I mean?” He looked at me suspiciously. “ I’m just curious Jethro. If you were threatening to blow Hussein’s leg off with det-cord, then why not get what you want from Rodber the same way?”
“Yeah, well… we did actually. I mean, not get violent with him.” He looked faintly ashamed, but continued. “When me and my mate got to him, and he was being held only just around the corner from that fake embassy by the way, he was not in a good way, if you know what I mean, yeah?”
“Not exactly, Jethro. Do you mean he had been tortured… or what?” I asked.
“Not beaten up, or anything, no. But, like - out of it, you know? Drugged. Not making any sense at all. So we thought we could use his confused state of mind to our advantage, like. I questioned him, telling him we had come to rescue him, like. That we had been sent by Julia Rodber and that he could relax now and tell us everything, that Julia needed to know.”
“And?” I prompted him.
“All we could get out of him was muttering about Pandora’s Box.” He laughed grimly. “On and on about bloody Pandora’s Box. Drove me right scatty he did.” Jethro shovelled the last of the carrot cake into his mouth, shaking his head in frustration at Rodber’s oddities.
“Well, Jethro, you can stop worrying about it now. It was in a safe deposit box at his bank all the time.”
Jethro nodded glumly. ”I’ll just have to report my defeat then, won’t I?”
“Who precisely do you report to?” Michele asked him.
“Ah, darling, that would be letting the cat out of the bag, now wouldn’t it?” He stood up, brushing cake crumbs from his jacket. “Thanks for the cake, Simon. And the shake. Perhaps we’ll see each other around sometime.” He grinned as he walked casually away. Michele and I watched him go.
“Do you think that that will be the last we see of him?” Michele asked.
“No. I think not,” I replied, shaking my head.
“Why? If he thinks the designs and plans have been sold to someone else, then what is there for him to hang around for?”
I couldn’t help smiling. “He didn’t believe a word of what I told him, honey. He’ll be around when we least expect it.”
“Then why all that nonsense about Pandora’s Box?”
“I’m not sure. But I think that what he told us is true, that Rodber did say something about Pandora’s Box. He just can’t figure out what it means. But he doesn’t believe tha
t we found anything yet either.” Michele looked delightfully confused now. “Honey, I think he told us that to help me understand where Rodber has secreted those designs of his. He wants me to find them, so that he can come and steal them.”
“Really?” she asked. I shrugged. “Does Pandora’s Box mean anything to you?” she asked.
“Not a bloody thing.”
“Then we’re no closer, are we?” Michele said with disgust.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, sweetheart. It’s one more thing we didn’t know twenty minutes ago.”
We sipped hot tea and watched the tourists wandering about for a minute.
“Tarryn didn’t go back to her mum, did she?” I asked.
Michele shook her head. “No, she was still at the farmhouse when we left, but that was nearly a week ago. Why?”
“I think I need to have a chat to the young lady,” I replied.
Glancing at my watch I saw it was past two o’clock already.
“Drink up, Michele. Let’s get back and find out what the boys have been up to at the track.”
Chapter 24
Michele, Julia and I flew back to Kent leaving the others to pack up the gear and drive the vans home. Russell and Brett both decided to follow my advice and take a three-day break. Russell had gone to stay at his aunt’s house in the Highlands and Brett flew to Spain to attend a two-day course at the world-renowned Kenny Roberts’ motorcycle racing school.
Neither rider had fulfilled his qualifying position the day before. Russell had qualified a very respectable seventh and then fallen off on the fifth lap, while Brett had started tenth and slowly slipped back to finish outside the points.
The results were disturbing to all of us especially after the amount of hard work everyone had put in, but I had a more pressing problems on my hands now. Hussein would be coming for the designs soon and as yet I had no clear idea where to find them.
Pandora and her box aside, I had only a vague idea of the type of places to look. We had searched all the physical possibilities such as the offices, his bank, and his attorney. The entire farm had been turned upside down and every nook and cranny looked at, into or under. Nothing. I had scrutinized Rodber’s computers including his personal laptop but found nothing even closely connected to oil exploration and drilling equipment.
We were all back at the Rodber farmhouse by six that night. Tarryn had made dinner for us and then departed to a local club to meet someone called Gary. Julia watched her little sister leave with a disillusioned eye, ate the meal and went to bed. I knew how she felt. I was exhausted. The missing documents could wait until the next day. By nine thirty we were soundly asleep too.
Perhaps not so soundly. I woke at three a.m. with barely remembered dreams of Pandora who had looked remarkable like Tarryn. When I had questioned Tarryn she swore to me that her father had not given her anything to hold or keep for him. Nor had he told her anything that meant anything to her regarding our problem. If Pandora’s Box was a code of some sort then it had to be a key to something. But what? The only thing I could think of was a password to something on one of Rodber’s computers, except that we had gone through his computer files again and again and found nothing. Suddenly I recalled that the last time I had seen Josh Rodber before he was kidnapped, he had been working on his laptop. And it had been plugged into a phone line. How had I not remembered that? But then again, what did that mean? Had Rodber been emailing somebody? And if he had, was it the designs? If so, to whom had he been emailing them, and why was there no record of the files on the computer? Had he, after sending the e-mail, deleted the files from his laptop? If so he must have trusted someone a lot.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t asked Tarryn about Pandora’s Box because I hadn’t known about it when I had questioned her. Perhaps the dream had some meaning? Hey, at three in the morning I was ready to believe anything. Besides, I have always been a great believer in the power of the human subconscious and perhaps my subconscious was telling me there had to be a connection between Tarryn, Pandora’s Box and the dream it had just provided me with. I would tackle Tarryn in the morning.
Then again, why not now? I could hear her creeping in from her date with Gary, trying hard not to make the stairs creak as she did her best not to wake anyone.
I eased out of bed and slipping on a pair of running shorts and a sweatshirt, I opened the bedroom door. Tarryn was just about to enter her own room.
“Oh. Hello,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” She smiled a goofy grin. I hoped that meant too much alcohol rather than some narcotic substance.
“Get inside,” I said.
“Your room or mine?” she said, giggling.
I opened her bedroom door and shoved her firmly in.
“We have to talk, Tarryn.”
“Hey, don’t come all big brother on me, Simon Roberts,” she said, pulling her top off.
“Keep your clothes on. I’m not interested in who you’ve been swapping bodily juices with just now. I want to ask you about you father, in particular what you know about Pandora’s Box?”
“It’s a fairy tale of some sort, like if you open it you can’t put it back. Bit like sex really, once you start you can’t stop. But then I guess you know that by now, don’t you?” She flopped onto her bed, her skirt riding up over her panties. She was pretty far gone. I pulled the bedspread out from under her and draped it across her.
“What’s the matter, racer boy? Don’t you like my tits?” She pushed the covers down and unclipped her bra. “See, they like you.” She was getting weepy now.
“Tarryn, I like you just fine,” I said covering her up again, “but you and I are never going to happen and you know that. Now listen. Did your dad ever mention Pandora’s Box to you?”
“Why don’t you want me?” she cried. “It’s all fucking Gary wanted. He couldn’t keep his hand out of my panties.” She sobbed. “Bloody men.”
She began to cry herself to sleep, and realizing that this idea had been a mistake, I left her to it. Perhaps it was a bit cowardly of me but I wasn’t getting involved in the emotional problems of a teenage girl.
Breakfast was a strained affair. Julia and her sister were not talking to each other yet neither knew why. Tarryn would not even look at me and did not mention our early morning conversation. Perhaps she didn’t even remember it. Only Michele was pleasantly talkative at first, but the tension in the air soon put a damper on any two-way participation. My preoccupation with the Pandora thing made my contribution to the conversation somewhat unsatisfying too. Eventually Michele gave up and announced that she was taking the train into London for the day. Getting no intelligent response, she all but slammed the door on her way out.
“What’s going on?” Julia asked, looking firstly at me then Tarryn.
Tarryn shot me a pleading look, but she needn’t have worried: I was not getting involved in family issues. And Tarryn’s teenage sex life was very much a Rodber family concern.
“Just can’t work out this designs plans problem we have is all,” I replied. “There just doesn’t seem to be anywhere else to look. And we don’t have that much time to find them.”
There was a momentary silence, and then Tarryn said quietly, “Dad never mentioned any Pandora’s Box to me.”
“Pandora’s Box?” Julia asked. When no one answered her she sighed deeply and left the table saying she badly needed more coffee and someone sane to talk to.
Tarryn and I looked at each other warily.
“I’m sorry about last night, Simon,” she said.
“Yeah. Me too.”
“Could we just forget it happened?”
“That would probably be best,” I said. “You should talk to your sister about Gary, and things, you know?”
“You mean sex and boys and things?” She giggled.
“Yes. Things. Like what to do about teenage boys with ten hands.”
“Oh, Gary’s not so bad, just acting like a typical teenage boy,” she said sadly.
“Well, just make sure you don’t act like a typical teenage girl then.”
“Yes, Granddad.” She laughed. “It’s just too much temptation, all those boys chasing after me.”
“You could start by not wearing tops like the one you’ve got on.” She had dressed that morning in a tight pink top with “Weapons of Mass Distraction” printed across her impressive front.
Deciding to search Rodber’s computers again, I opened his office, now dusty from lack of use, and powered up the desktop PC.
Three hours later I knew more about Rodber’s past business life than I ever wanted to know, but no more about the location of the missing documents. The list of e-mails had pretty much dried up seven months ago when he had handed over control of Rodber Engineering Design Plc to the new CEO. I would have to go through his laptop again for private e-mails.
I closed my eyes and recalled the last time I had seen him before the kidnapping. He had been sitting right here where I was now seated, with the laptop on the desk. The telephone cord was plugged into the laptop. When I had put my head in the door to say goodbye, he had been frantically typing on the laptop. He had looked up at me and grunted something, then smiled with satisfaction, but not at me. No, it was to himself. What had caused that gleeful look? I racked my brain to remember the exact details but there had just been too much water under the bridge since that day. My best guess was that he had just completed something on the laptop that pleased him. He had unplugged the phone cord and was closing the laptop as I left. What did that tell me? Nothing. Except that whatever it was that he had been doing was very likely the last thing he had done on the laptop before the fateful trip with Bud. The last thing he had ever done on the laptop.
I shut down the bulky desktop computer and locked the office behind me. It was time to take a closer look at Rodber’s Compaq laptop, paying particular attention to those final e-mails. And any mention of Pandora of course. With any luck I’d find that he had emailed the documents to someone named Pandora. But that was hoping for too much.
The laptop was locked away in Rodber’s master bedroom, so I had to track Julia down to get the key, and ask if she didn’t mind my taking the computer. I found her in the living room idly watching horse racing on the television.
