Digital Circumstances

by BRM Stewart

  The first beer vanished in no time at all in a blizzard of small talk about the flight and what Glasgow was like these days, and we had another.

  Colin was looking good. He was over fifty now, and his hair had gone very white, balding on the crown. His face was tanned, of course, and relaxed with crinkly smile lines everywhere; he’d grown a neatly trimmed white beard. He was smaller than me too, and looked incredibly fit. ‘In the sea every day, Martin. Golf three times a week – ‘ he indicated the course – ‘and walks round the town. We usually have dinner out down at the marina – we’ll take you to our favourite tonight. Life is brilliant here. Good broadband – ‘ he caught my look and held up a hand: ‘All completely innocent these days. No…’ His voice tailed off, and then he shrugged. ‘Just the sheer enjoyment of life.’

  We heard the front door and a greeting shouted, returned by us. Bags were put down heavily, accompanied by sighs of relief, and then the curtains across the open patio doors parted. We stood up. ‘This is Elaine,’ Colin said. She smiled at me and we embraced, with two air kisses.

  ‘I’m going to get a beer, darling. You guys want anything else?’ She was English, slightly Yorkshire.

  We nodded.

  ‘I’ll prepare some bread and cheese for lunch, bring it out. Need to go to the loo. Back in ten minutes.’ And she vanished into the darkness of the flat.

  Colin smiled at me, and I raised my eyebrows appreciatively. His smile turned into a cat-with-cream grin. ‘That’s Elaine.’

  She had a lovely, happy face, with messy highlighted brown hair and bright eyes. She was tall – taller than Colin – and wore a patterned dress that was loose and long, but didn’t hide a full, curvy figure and nice legs. She was at least fifteen years younger than Colin.

  Colin and I chatted about the company and the old days, the people we’d worked with – things we’d probably never done at the time – and Elaine brought us more beers. He was cautious at first when she was with us, as if worried that I would say anything out of turn. She brought out a tray with crusty fresh bread, oatcakes, cheese, pickle, tomato and salad. And more beers. I was slightly pissed already, and relaxed as a result.

  Colin and Elaine spoke about how busy the town was, and whom she’d met in the supermarket and at the grocer’s, and what a nice day it was. ‘It’s lovely this time of year, Martin,’ she said, ‘but can get a bit too hot in the summer. We’ve no aircon.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Colin said, ‘I think we’ll buy a portable unit this year. It’s getting insufferable.’

  Elaine adjusted her sunglasses and leaned back on the sofa, crossing her long legs and nibbling at her oatcake, washing it down with a sip of beer. I looked at her again, up and down her body, and found myself catching Colin’s eyes – we smiled at each other.

  ‘So, Martin,’ she said. ‘How did you and Colin meet?’

  ‘Back in the late nineties,’ I said, frowning at Colin, him nodding; careful careful! I would have to leave some things out, and I could see he wasn’t fully relaxed as I spoke. ‘I had set up a computer business with a school pal, way back in the late eighties. We were doing well, but everything was moving in a much more serious direction – actually it wasn’t nearly so much fun any more.’ We gave a rueful grin at each other. ‘Everything was online by then, and security was a big issue. We’d always managed to stay ahead of the game, and we learned fast, but we knew we needed a proper, educated guy who understood all the worms and the Trojans and the security risks.’

  ‘And Colin was your man.’ She reached to hold his hand briefly.

  ‘Yes.’ It seemed best to leave the inference that Colin was there to help protect people from online threats, keep their online transactions and bank accounts safe. But Colin and I knew the true story: he had found the contacts that had led us down the road of cybercrime.

  ‘Interesting times,’ Colin said.

  ‘We were making a fortune,’ I went on, ‘and then Colin decided to turn his back on it all for this life.’ I spread my arms to take in the surroundings and Elaine herself. ‘Don’t know what the attraction was.’

  Elaine did that thing again, leaning over and briefly holding his hand, smiling broadly, then sitting back to nibble cheese and sip beer, shaking her long hair away from her face.

  ‘How about you,’ Colin said. ‘Still enjoying it all?’

  I held his eyes, and the amusement fell away from both of us. He knew fine that I had never ‘enjoyed’ that side of the business. ‘I think I’m ready for a change.’ He nodded; he understood.

  We made more small talk, and Colin came down to the car with me while I got my case.

  ‘How did you meet Elaine?’ I asked him.

  ‘I met her in Gib, last summer. I visit the place from time to time – the banks are discreet, you know – and she was on holiday with a friend, a female friend, staying near Torremolinos. We bumped into each other a few times that day, in town and then up at the summit in the café, and we sort of stuck together on the walk down, into the caves. We got on well. She found out I was single, and she said she was separated. She was a teacher, and very pissed off. We made arrangements to meet up a few days later, and I drove her down here to show her the place, and she er... sort of stayed over. She stayed for the rest of the summer, and decided to pack in her job and come out here to stay with me. She had to give a term’s notice, so we had a long gap – and I was worried she would come to her senses. But she didn’t. We Skyped every day, and she came out to a new life with me.’ He laughed. ‘She’s fantastic. Gorgeous. Great fun.’ I realised I had no idea whether Colin had had any relationships with women in Glasgow.

  We walked back with my case and rucksack to the flat that connected with his via the balcony, and which he owned as well and let out to people he knew, including Elaine’s pals: one bedroom, no TV, the only internet connection via his Wi-Fi, but all perfectly fine. He left me to get freshened up and changed, and then I just sat on my part of the balcony, looking out over the golf course.

  So… what could my life be like here, with Helen? I projected ahead, not thinking of the difficulties in our relationship.

  Colin came through the iron gate on the balcony to join me, handing me a gin and tonic – ‘You still drink these?’ ‘Damn right’ ‘Cheers’ – and we sat for a time.

  ‘I have a problem, Colin,’ I said. ‘They’re not letting me go. They got me to do a wee job last autumn, in Portugal – just rummaging around on some guy’s computer and installing a keylogger – in and out in a couple of hours. But the guy was murdered a few days later. He had connections to organised crime and fraud.’

  ‘I saw the story.’

  ‘What did you hear about it?’

  ‘Not sure of all the details, but from the local press it seems that money vanished from his account, and it was only there being washed. They didn’t believe it was nothing to do with him, didn’t believe he wasn’t leaking names and details. So they shot him.’

  ‘Sandy set it up, through an intermediary. It really scared me, Colin. I’m trying to realise my assets, trying to tuck the money away, not get dragged down by the liabilities that Talbot pinned on me. I need my money somewhere safe, but I need to be able to get my hands on it. I have to live.’

  ‘They’ll notice. Ken Talbot has clever accountants working for him.’

  ‘I know. My financial adviser has been doing things softly softly, tracking down businesses and cut-outs, trickling things out, but I’ve asked him to up the pace. So, yes, they’ll notice. But they’re not the fucking CIA – they haven’t got eyes and ears everywhere.’

  We sipped our gins, and watched a couple of golfers drive off from the tee out in front of our apartment, across the small burn, then climb into their golf cart and speed away. Did Colin lie awake at night, expecting a knock from some hit man who wanted to get even for something we’d done? How had he first reacted when I’d called his mobile?

  ‘How did you get out, Colin?’ My voice was soft.

  He coughed
. ‘Two ways. One, I knew too much for them to hassle me: I’ve got documentation, papers, names, dates, a whole map of Talbot’s organisation tucked away with a bank in Gib. I have a solicitor whose company have instructions on what to do with it in the event of an accident to me. Talbot and Sandy know this. I told them roughly what I had, and what I had taken out of the company. I wasn’t greedy, and I’m sure they respected that. So they didn’t chase me when I slipped away. Have you seen Talbot recently?’

  There was something else he wasn’t telling me, but I let it go for now. ‘No, not for years. Sandy runs the company to all intents and purposes now, along with a twat called Graham Turner; there are the guys along on Argyle Street still, but we’re using the same system you left us with for the other stuff. I do the business on that, and I supervise, troubleshoot, keep myself up-to-date, give advice. Haven’t seen Ken Talbot since the accident. Sandy hints that he isn’t a well man, heart trouble, but I don’t know.’

  ‘The accident. That broke him, I think. So – you say Sandy set up the Portugal job?’

  ‘I think he was behind it, but I was approached by a woman: small, blonde – absolutely stunning wee thing. And a guy, big, heavy features – called himself Jimmy Anderson. He looked like he was running it, and she played dumb at first, but she was the one that came over to the house with us, had the house key and the password to the computer: he was just there to frighten me. Her name is Charlene.’ I looked hard at him. ‘You know them?’

  ‘No.’ Not a flicker of hesitation, but I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth. Colin had lied to me for most of our working relationships: I didn’t know what he looked like when he was being honest.

  We fell silent again for the rest of the gin.

  ‘I can’t help you,’ he said at last. ‘You can stay here as long as you like, but I can’t help you get out. And I’m really sorry about the past, truly I am, and I’d like to make it up to you, but I can’t help you with Sandy and Ken Talbot.’

  ‘I’m not asking for help in that way. Just advice – financial advice.’

  He nodded. ‘No chance of an ID change?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. Did you manage that?’

  ‘Sort of – I have a couple of identities for different bank accounts, different credit cards, a few different addresses – properties I own – but only one passport: never mastered the whole Bourne Identity thing – didn’t really need to.’ He took a deep breath. ‘My advice is probably the same as your adviser would give you: get the money into online banking, different banks, different accounts – different usernames, different passwords – some in Gib, a sort of nest egg – we can go down there for the day if you like. But keep moving most of it around; the UK government is suddenly getting twitchy about tax avoidance, people and companies using offshore accounts. It may be just political opportunism, but you never know – you might get caught it the fallout. And get ready to run, away from your life in Glasgow. When you do, take multiple journeys, double back, try to use cash for ferries, car hire. Get well away, somewhere they won’t think you’ll go. Somewhere remote, cold.’

  I nodded. ‘Do you ever see anyone suspicious wandering about, checking on you? Maybe the CIA have found out about the cybercrime.’

  He smiled. ‘It’s the FBI that investigate cybercrime, as you know, and they tend only to worry when US citizens are involved as victims, and as far as I know we didn’t ever screw over any American businesses or individuals. If I was paranoid about all the possibilities, I would have to shoot myself – it’s no way to live. No, Ken Talbot and Sandy know that I’m not a threat to them, not while I’m happily ensconced here, and they leave me alone. I’ve earned them more money than I ever took from them. They’re gangsters, always have an eye out for the main chance, but they don’t fight hopeless battles. I never knew Talbot to take revenge just for the sake of it. If you make reasonable efforts to get away, get your money safe, he won’t pursue you – not worth the hassle for him. Probably. It would help if you tucked away some details about him though, as security.’

  I nodded at that thought, and wondered whether I could start to document all the infected computers we had set up, all the people and businesses we had compromised – would that work as security, or just make me more of a liability to them? ‘How about Talbot’s rivals in Glasgow – if one of them gets a hold of information about you?’

  He pursed his lips and then shook his head. ‘Nah. Not worth worrying about. If it happens it happens.’ He stood up, stretching. ‘I’m going to have a wee siesta – we’ll go into town in a couple of hours, get some food, I’ll show you around. Beach tomorrow. Gib on Wednesday. OK?’

  I nodded. Sounded like a plan. Options? Including what Colin and I had discussed, I had a total of one option.

  *

  We took my hire car, just Colin and me, and set off early. The hour’s run down the motorway was fabulous, and the familiar huge shape of the rock came into view surprisingly soon. We followed the road past it and back, and joined the traffic jam heading into Gibraltar, stopping on the Spanish side of the border in a big, expensive dust bowl of a car park, and then walking in, my eyes fixed on the rock, the marina, the sea of people around us. I knew what the rock looked like, of course, but wasn’t prepared for the whole environment, the mass of humanity pouring across the border.

  We got through passport control without a hitch, waited at the edge of the runway that separated the main peninsula from the Spanish side while a small jet came in, and then crossed it and went along past modern housing, including rather run-down blocks of flats, down a tunnel through the old city walls with a busker playing a saxophone, and found ourselves in a long London street dropped into the Mediterranean. London bobbies walked about here and there, and the air was filled by a curious blend of English and Spanish – I saw one bobby talking Spanish to a café waitress who replied in English, and so it went. We passed Marks and Spencer’s, and stopped at a cafe, paying in pounds.

  Colin had arranged the meetings with three banks. Gibraltar had basically become a centre for online banking, online gambling, money laundering and Internet fraud. Everyone was discreet: if you could prove your own identity, and show them the money was real, you were in. Two banks gave us accounts with online access; another was a deposit account where I would have to turn up in person, but under a different name. I reckoned my money was safe, and mostly accessible. How traceable it was, I wasn’t sure: I just needed to do lots of little transfers through different accounts in different names, so that it would be as difficult as possible to track it back or forward. As and when I decided to get away from the company, whatever the circumstances, I would be well off.

  From a computer in the bank I transferred some money over from my UK accounts; other money would go by a different route. I’d let the money settle in Gibraltar, but maybe move it on later. All I needed was Andrew, back in Glasgow, to track down my shares and move them around, out and over.

  I began to feel better after that, more secure. And not too morally bankrupt, because I’d resolved that some of the money would go to Davey’s family.

  From the top of Gibraltar rock, after a visit to the café and looking wonderingly at T-shirts that proclaimed ‘British since 1704’ on the front, we stood looking over the Mediterranean to the east, across the merchant ships at anchor, and then walked round to look across to Africa, and then round to look over the sprawl of the city and the port, and an EasyJet flight coming in away below us. It was an interesting place, but something about it didn’t sit well with me. And those famous apes were an irritation, sitting around like bored, surly teenagers, glowering as they were photographed, trying to get into the café to shoplift.

  ‘How are relationships these days?’ I asked.

  ‘Gibraltar and Spain? Still tense – usual thing: governments like to have an enemy. Still the usual restrictions: only UK flights can land here, mobile phones registered in Gib won’t work in Spain, stupid stuff. But almost everyone who works here comes
over the border in the morning: they depend on Gib, so they have to make it work. It’s a crazy place.’

  We took the long walk down the rock, in and out of caves, doing the history and the pre-history bit: world war 2 gun emplacements, Neanderthal dwellings. Again, I felt the whole history put my life in perspective.

  As we walked back across the runway and the border, Colin was reflective. ‘Have you simply asked them if you can retire gracefully?’

  ‘They made it clear a long time ago that I couldn’t get out. I thought of asking again, after that business in Portugal. But even if I retired, they’d be able to get back to me for ‘one last job’. No, I have to grab the money and run. Otherwise I’ll end up doing jobs for him forever.’

  ‘How’s Davey doing?’

  ‘Still the same.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  We reached the car, and fought our way back into the traffic jam streaming out of Gibraltar. As we drove back up the motorway, I glanced back at the rock. We drove in silence.

  *

  Late that evening, when Elaine had gone to bed and Colin and I sat on the balcony, our skin covered with mosquito repellent, sipping a last gin, I asked him about the online fraud. We were both pretty drunk by this point.

  ‘How did it all happen, Colin?’

  ‘It was my idea. After I got the job with B&D, I made contact with a couple of hackers from London – I’d met them at another conference: I was doing the rounds, exploring options. I was flat broke and my record ruled me out of a lot of jobs. They did the coding and set up the system more or less as you see it now: we never had to meet after the set-up, never even make contact except in an emergency.’ He took a deep breath. ‘They had the contact with Gregorius. I never knew who that was, never saw anything online about him. It didn’t worry me. I stuck to my plan. Gregorius paid us a fee for each computer we sold him, and if he wanted to keep it on his network he paid an on-going fee.’