The Cruelty of Morning

by Hilary Bonner

Dominic took off his jacket and threw it at the hat-stand by the door. It missed and fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. He didn’t even notice. He was probably the complete genetic opposite to Marcus, she thought vaguely. On auto-pilot she picked his coat up, draped it over a bent wire coat hanger she also found on the floor, and carefully looped the hanger on to the hat stand. He didn’t notice that either. He was already at work, hunched over a favourite monster. The computer was going through its warming-up mode. Expertly Dominic punched in the information it needed to get started. Even the way he touched the keyboard was special, almost as if he was playing a musical instrument. He didn’t hit the keys like a simple typist, he caressed them. She thought of her grandmother, a pianist of whom they used the old cliché ‘she could make a piano talk’. Dominic was like that with a computer keyboard. He knew he could do with it what others had no hope of doing, he was a maestro in his field.

  She watched him insert the floppy disc and attempt to switch to disc drive. He began to play with the keyboard, coaxing the computer to do his will. After a few minutes he shook his head and turned to Jennifer.

  ‘It’s user-protected,’ he said. ‘I can’t do a thing without a password.’

  Jennifer reached in her bag and came up with the copies of Bill Turpin’s notebook with its lines of computer codes.

  ‘Any good?’ she asked. He shook his head again.

  ‘No, this looks like God’s gift to hackers. That’s different. These are codes which provide information to allow an operator to break into other people’s computer systems through a modem. You need the codes and access to the software, one without the other is no good. Catch 22.’

  He paused, and with a flash of his usual irritability added: ‘I told you that.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  Good God, he thought, the woman’s apologising to me.

  ‘What is this all about Jennifer?’

  ‘Trust me Dom, I can’t tell you, not yet. You wouldn’t even want to know. All I can tell you is how much I need your help.’

  Dom? She called him Dom? Something was very wrong, that was for sure.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘But I still can’t help without the password. There’s no way I can get into the disc without it. Look, do you know the person who programmed this disc?’

  She nodded.

  ‘OK,’ he said again. ‘Have you any idea what he or she may have used for the password. Is it worth having a few guesses?’

  She looked at him blankly. ‘Well?’ he said.

  She thought frantically. What on earth would Marcus have used?

  ‘It has to be a word, yeah, not numbers?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, a word of not more than eight letters. It can be just a meaningless jumble of letters, of course, but most people use a word.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jennifer. She became aware that she was biting her nails.

  ‘Try Recorder,’ she said.

  And as she spoke she realised it was stupid. Marcus would not have used the name of his paper, and he hadn’t.

  She tried some more. KRUG, his favourite champagne; EASTON, the street he had lived in when he first came to London; MARTHA, his mother’s name; JAMES, his father’s name. Then all of those backwards, GURK, NOTSAE, AHTRAM, SEMAJ. Nothing. It was hopeless. She had to get inside Marcus’s head. Suddenly she had a brainwave, or at least she hoped it was, because it was so simple, so obvious. What was the one constant factor in Marcus’s life apart from his driving ambition? The answer was a touch arrogant but also the truth – it was her.

  Jennifer Stone.

  ‘Try JENNIFER,’ she cried.

  Dominic glanced at her curiously, but made no comment as he punched her name into the computer. It did not work. Neither did REFINNEJ or STONE or JSTONE or JENSTONE, or any of those backwards.

  She felt defeated. Dominic was continuing without success to try variations of her name and the other words she had suggested to him. She must think back over all the years she had known Marcus. She had to believe that he had used a word with some significance to him. Almost everybody who ever chose a computer password did that, surely even Marcus. So what else was there?

  ‘It’s usually something really obvious, surprisingly enough,’ she heard Dominic say in the distance.

  She was concentrating hard, trying to be methodical. When had she first had doubts about Mark, vague, indefinable doubts? It had been after the trial when she had half suspected he had lied about Johnny Cooke. He had convinced her that she had been confused, and allowing herself to be convinced had been the easy way out at the time. So it all went back to the very beginning in Pelham Bay. Everything that happened seem to stem from there…

  ‘Try PELHAM,’ she said suddenly.

  Dominic did so. Nothing.

  ‘Backwards?’ he asked.

  She nodded. She felt it was hopeless. She would have to go in cold, but she needed more ammunition. She did not have enough to convince him, or maybe even totally to convince herself, and the stakes were so high. She was lost in despairing thoughts, not even watching Dominic or the computer.

  Then she heard him say quietly: ‘I think you’ve cracked it, old girl.’

  He was in. He was working the disc. She knew better than to speak.

  After a few minutes he said: ‘Give me those codes.’

  He studied the copies of the pages from Bill Turpin’s notebook.

  ‘What I can’t understand is why anyone should write codes like this down. They should be in the computer for the user to call up.’

  ‘What if the person who wrote them down never really trusted computers?’

  He looked at her as if she were crazy.

  ‘It is possible, you know,’ she said with a smile.

  It was the first time she had smiled at him that morning, and he realised how pleased he was to see it. Maybe he didn’t really dislike the old bat as much as he thought he did.

  He turned back to the keyboard. She watched him for about ten minutes more, and ultimately could contain herself no more.

  ‘Any joy?’ she asked.

  He swung around to face her, brows knitted in a deep frown.

  ‘I am a genius, not a magician,’ he said.

  She laughed. He found that pleased him too. ‘Look, this is going to take time,’ he said. ‘I reckon that this disc is programmed to plug in through a modem with a particular computer system elsewhere. What exactly and where exactly is another bigger question.’

  She breathed a sigh of relief: at least it wasn’t Marcus’s blessed laundry list. It looked as if she’d had some luck and stumbled across a disc that might at least give her a clue or two. But could Dominic put it all together?

  Her eyes were a question mark.

  ‘The disc can only be put into operation with the right codes. Maybe one of these is it, maybe not.’

  He held the copied notebook in his hand. ‘All I can do is try all the possible codes with all the possible combinations on the disc and give it a whirl.

  ‘I have to interrogate the disc, and if it is that important it will almost certainly be programmed to wipe itself clean if I ask the wrong question or feed it wrong information. It’s not a five-minute job.’

  She just carried on looking at him, expectant. He sighed.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll work better on my own. I can’t stand being watched. Go away and come back in a couple of hours.’

  She looked at her watch. It was already ten o’clock.

  Two hours would be cutting it very fine indeed. She wanted to get it all over with quickly, before Marcus had time to do too much thinking – and the man thought fast.

  ‘Two hours?’ she queried. Her expression was stricken.

  He sighed. ‘OK. An hour-and-a-half – but don’t build up too many hopes.’

  She kissed him on the top of his head.

  ‘You really are a genius,’ she said. ‘I know that because you’ve told me often enough.’

  ‘That’s better,’ he replied.


  She knew what he meant, and indeed she was feeling just a little better as she left him to it. If anyone could succeed it would be Dominic McDonald, that she believed absolutely.

  An hour-and-a-half. She looked down at herself.

  She was a mess, her shirt was crumpled and her hair greasy and lank. She had not even waited to shower and shampoo, and she was aware that she smelt, which was not surprising after the night she had spent with Marcus. She tried not to think about it. She just hoped Dominic hadn’t noticed how she smelt, and in fact doubted that he had. Dominic was unlikely to notice anything like that. She desperately needed clean clothes and a bath, but she didn’t have time to go home to Richmond as she had told Marcus was her intention. She walked the streets until she found a branch of Marks & Spencer where she bought fresh underwear, a couple of cotton tee shirts and a plain black sweatshirt. It was cooler today and she could not stop shivering, but she was unsure whether it was the cold or what she was doing which was the cause of that. Outside in the street again, she slipped the black sweatshirt over her crumpled white shirt. It made her look fractionally more presentable – certainly she felt warmer and more comfortable – and with a bit of luck it might trap her smelliness within its thick cotton. There was a chemist’s shop across the road, where she bought toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo and a jar of her favourite moisturiser.

  Little more than half an hour had passed. She began to walk as slowly as she could make herself back to Dominic’s office, and stopped on the way at an Italian coffee bar. She ordered a double espresso and found to her slight surprise that she was hungry. She and Marcus had not eaten properly the night before and she had skipped lunch as well. Of course when he was on a sexual roll, Marcus never needed to eat at all, or to sleep – she did. She ordered croissants and bacon and egg and fresh orange juice. The croissants were fresh and warm and mouth-melting, the bacon and egg tasted almost as good as it smelt, and the orange juice had definitely been in the form of several round fruits minutes earlier. There weren’t too many cafes in London that served a breakfast like this. She complimented herself on her luck and hoped fervently that it was an omen and that Dominic was also having good fortune and that her plans for the rest of the day would prove lucky too. After another double espresso, the hands of her watch had moved painfully forward to reach eleven-twenty. She paid her bill and headed for Dominic. She was stopped by the receptionist in the hall of his office, and had to wait impatiently while the man called upstairs before clearing a visitor for entry. It was eleven-twenty-seven when Dominic picked up the phone and confirmed that Jennifer was expected. This time with a yellow ‘Visitor’ tag stuck to her black sweatshirt, Jennifer rode to the third floor in the lift. As she opened the door to his office, the minute hand of the big electric clock on the wall clunked once and settled on the half-hour position. It was exactly eleven-thirty.

  ‘How prompt you are,’ said Dominic.

  He was beaming at her, looking positively smug.

  ‘You’ve done it, haven’t you?’ she said.

  It was not really a question, because his face had already given her the answer. He was flushed with excitement. Obliquely she wondered if anything else excited Dominic as much as a computer. What about sex? Funny, she’d never asked Anna. They had talked often about sex. When she was much younger, Jennifer had given the men in her life points out of ten – much to Anna’s amusement. Marcus had always scored at least ten and sometimes eleven – also much to Anna’s amusement – but Jennifer never gave anything else away about him, and Dominic’s sexual prowess or lack of it had somehow not been mentioned. Jennifer had never even tried to imagine him in bed, and could not understand why her mind had jumped to such thoughts now. Perhaps it was tension. She made herself concentrate on the matter in hand.

  Dominic had turned back to the computer and was beginning to explain.

  ‘With this disc, these codes and the right modem, I can now plug directly into the G7 computer system,’ he said.

  Jennifer was no financial whizz-kid. ‘What’s G7?’ she asked.

  Dominic looked amazed. ‘I thought you were supposed to be a journalist, for Christ’s sake. The Group of Seven. The seven biggest money markets in the world. The seven countries that control the world’s finances.

  ‘Naturally they use computers to collate, store and communicate their business. Changes in our Bank Rate would all be communicated within G7 first. They have much more power than most people, including some financiers, think. If an exchange rate is about to be altered, a currency devalued, international loans given or called in – all are done through G7. For a private dealer to be able to plug into their computer is a bit like being fed a fortune on an intravenous drip.’

  ‘Bingo,’ said Jennifer. She had picked that up from Todd.

  Dominic was fair bristling.

  ‘Rather more profitable than that,’ he said. ‘If you were fast enough you could always be ahead of the game. Making money is all about information, and you’d never get better information than from G7. You could make billions. Amazing. Leaves you wondering how many people throughout the world have access to this.’

  ‘Is it legal?’ she asked, feeling stupid as soon as she said the words.

  ‘You’re kidding. This could blow the world money market sky high. Who did you get it from?’

  ‘An old friend,’ she replied.

  He wasn’t really listening. He was busy on the keyboard.

  ‘I thought so, algorithms.’

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘Algorithms. An obvious protection. Means you can’t copy it. I’m afraid of going any further in case I wipe it.’

  He paused. ‘I suppose you want this disc back.’

  She held out her hand.

  ‘No chance of making a quick million quid first?’

  ‘Dominic,’ she said. There was a warning in her voice.

  ‘You’re right of course. I’d get found out. I’m not designed to be a master criminal.’

  ‘No you’re not, and thank God for it.’

  There was feeling in her voice. When he offered the disc to her, she took it with one hand and brushed his cheek with her other.

  ‘Thank you Dominic,’ she said quietly.

  Briefly he took her hand in his.

  ‘Whatever it is you’re doing, be careful Jen,’ he said.

  She felt the tears pricking again. Pull yourself together, she ordered herself, and tried her best to do so. Banter, that was the answer. She flashed a smile at him.

  ‘I never knew you cared,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t kid yourself,’ he told her. ‘My only concern for your welfare is that I have a crazy wife who does care, the silly cow.’

  She left the room laughing. Dominic would probably never know how wonderfully reassuring she had found him.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  She retrieved the Porsche from its parking meter and headed back to Chelsea. She locked the copy of Bill Turpin’s notebook and the computer disc in the car. There was little risk of Marcus discovering it missing before she had completed her plans; she would make sure he had no time to go into his study. As she walked in to the entrance hall of Marcus’s block of flats, carrier bags containing her purchases under her right arm, she checked her wristwatch. It was twelve-fifteen, and she was almost sure Marcus would not be back before one. The porter recognised her immediately and called the lift for her, as instructed by Marcus, pumping in the appropriate code to dispatch her to the penthouse floor. She wondered fleetingly what selection of women he had ushered up to the penthouse over the years, and decided this was not the time to dwell on that.

  As she shut Marcus’s front door, the phone rang, and she picked up the receiver in the hall. It was him, as she had guessed it would be.

  ‘Have you just got up?’ he asked.

  He sounded very good-humoured. He always did when he had got his own way.

  ‘Certainly not,’ she replied.

  ‘I called earlier, you must have heard t
he phone?’ he went on.

  ‘I told you, I needed to go back home to get some clean things.’

  ‘You sound tense.’

  She must be careful, Marcus was no pushover.

  ‘Just knackered, I’m out of practice.’

  ‘Stand by. What you need is one of my knock-your-socks-off Bloody Marys. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  He had gone before she could ask him how long that would be.

  She piled her purchases on the bed in the main bedroom and went into the study. Just in case he did look in there, she decided to check it out carefully. It looked fine, nothing seemed to be out of place. In fact there was very little that could have been put out of place, but she knew that if the Mont Blanc fountain pen were to be moved an inch away from where it normally lay, Marcus would notice at once.

  Quickly she returned to the bedroom, removed all her clothes, and gratefully stepped under the pressurised shower in the en-suite bathroom. It wasn’t over yet, not nearly over, she thought, as she thoroughly shampooed her hair. Then, standing naked on the thick towelling mat, she rubbed herself all over with the newly purchased moisturising cream. She wrapped herself in one of Marcus’s big luxurious towels, and scrubbed her teeth energetically. She put moisturiser on her face and then applied a little mascara and lipstick, gave herself a quick spray of the Cartier perfume she always carried in her handbag, and dressed in the clean underwear beneath her new baggy tee shirt. She deliberately did not put her jeans back on, because Marcus never had been able to resist her legs. She was still brushing the tangles out of her hair when she heard him turn his key in the lock, and she did not go to meet him. He came looking for her in the bedroom and stood in the doorway clutching a huge bunch of lily of the valley in one hand and a big plastic bag of limes, for the Bloody Marys, in the other.

  ‘You look good enough to eat,’ he growled at her.

  She turned away from the mirror, smiling.

  ‘Yes please,’ she said.

  He threw the bunch of flowers at her and she caught them easily. He put down the bag of limes on the dressing table, strode across the room until he was standing behind her, and buried his face in her neck.