by BRM Stewart
‘Five thousand pounds,’ she said.
I took a deep breath, pressed my palms hard against my thighs to stop my fingers quivering. ‘Fine,’ I said.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘OK,’ she said, picking up her handbag and standing up. ‘I’ll see what can be done. Give me a couple of days, then I’ll be in touch to take this further.’
I stood up and we shook hands. ‘Good to meet you, Martin.’ Her grip was firmer this time, and her eyes held mine, before she turned away and walked out of the hotel.
I sat down, my hand shaking as I finished my lager. It was going to be a long two days. And maybe at the end of it I was just going to be hauled in by the police and locked up for years.
*
I treated Helen to a meal out in her favourite fish restaurant in the Merchant City, and promised her a luxury weekend in Skye. But I could see she still wasn’t happy. She knew something was going on, knew that I was keeping things from her, knew I wasn’t relaxed and happy. My trip to Spain, the whole business in the Algarve, had built a barrier between us. Incredibly, I wondered whether our relationship was over: could that be? I thought I still loved her, but had I killed it all because of the crime that surrounded me?
‘Catherine saw you earlier,’ she said suddenly over her wine glass. ‘At the Hilton.’ Her eyes were wide on me.
‘Oh – never saw her.’ Thinking fast, going for the big lie because that’s often what works. ‘They’re clients of ours. They have the big Hilton corporate system of course, but also their own internal one for the conferences they run there.’ Absolute bullshit, I thought, not remotely believable – but Helen nodded. ‘I was just talking stuff over with one of their sub-managers – nice lady.’
She nodded again – I’d got away with it. Maybe. Her phoned beeped with a text message, and she fished it out of her handbag. She unlocked it, and her eyes grew wide again, and then narrowed.
‘What’s up?’ I asked.
She turned the phone to show me. It was a photograph of a small, blue Portuguese fishing boat, with a small blonde girl in short shorts, wearing a baseball cap, leaning over a man and smiling – the man was me. The photograph had been taken as we sailed across to the house in Portugal, when Charlene had stood up and stumbled.
‘You didn’t mention romantic boat trips with the wee blonde.’ Her voice was calm, cold.
‘This is a set-up,’ I said. ‘That was the day we went over to do the computer job. She stood up and pretended to fall towards me – must have been for the photograph.’
But then I saw on Helen’s face that this wasn’t the main problem. ‘You didn’t tell me she was with you that day.’
I blustered. ‘I didn’t think it mattered. I thought you’d be irritated if you knew. Helen!’ At this point she snatched the phone back and pushed her chair back from the table.
I thought she was walking out, but she went to the toilets. Five minutes later she was back, her make-up obviously repaired, topping up her wine glass and taking a big drink. Oh shit. I cradled my head in my hands. Someone had taken that picture, and then sent it to Helen with the express purpose of destabilising our relationship. Why? Did they realise how precarious that relationship was right now?
Shit shit shit.
*
The next day, after a chilly evening at home, I went into the office, and grabbed a coffee while I asked Claire about the plans for her wedding. She told me Sandy was in and wanted a word, so I knocked on his office door – Colin’s old room – and went in.
I noticed he was getting bigger these days, more of the muscle turning to fat and multiplying, his face a bit florid. He looked up from his computer and waved me to sit down. We both sipped coffees, and looked at each other.
‘How are things, Martin?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Everything is working away like it should.’
His eyes narrowed, picking up that I really wasn’t happy.
I decided to get it off my chest. ‘The bottom line is, Sandy, that you got me involved in something in Portugal that I don’t understand, and I helped steal information from a guy who got murdered a couple of days later. And someone send a photograph to Helen – a photograph that shows I lied to her, which is bad enough, but which also looks like I was having a wee something with a tasty wee blonde girl. It’s causing difficulties with my relationship with Helen.’
Sandy spread his arms. ‘Shit happens, Martin.’
‘Who was she, Sandy? The wee blonde girl, Charlene.’
‘She works for some people who work with us. She knows Ken – from the old days.’
‘From the old days? She’s only in her mid-twenties!’
‘Yeah.’ He raised his coffee cup to his lips, his eyes on me, narrowed.
‘How is Ken, by the way?’
Sandy grimaced. ‘Not good. He spends all the time in his house in Bearsden, hardly goes out. He’s tired and old.’
‘How about his business interests?’
‘I’m handling those,’ Sandy said, without a pause. He was still directly looking at me.
I decided not to pursue that. ‘Life’s complicated,’ I said. ‘It’s not good at the moment.’
‘Is that why you’re selling off your shareholdings?’
I shrugged, trying not to panic that he’d noticed what I was doing, as Andrew had said he would. ‘Just moving some assets around. Keeping my options open.’
He shrugged in turn. ‘It’s not a good time to sell. Are you still thinking of retiring, Martin?’
I gave an unconvincing yawn. ‘Would that be a problem? We spoke about it before, I remember, but things have moved on.’
His eyelids drooped as he looked at me. ‘Tell you what, Martin, I’ll make a deal with you. One more job for us and then you can retire. We won’t stop you.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Sandy. That thing in Portugal was creepy – I don’t want to get into something like that again.’ Part of my mind wondered whether he could ‘stop me’ now, but I was pretty sure he could make my life hell if he chose; at the very least he could have me beaten senseless, and probably killed.
‘One more job. It’s part of a link with European interests, and doing a favour for some friends. Then we’ll let you retire, clear of debts. B&D will be bought by another firm, and they’ll take on all assets and liabilities. You’ll be clear, free. Go where you like, do what you like. I’m told the south of Spain is nice.’
I debated this inside my head. Maybe… ‘Who are these “European interests”?’
‘A group of Romanians. They’ve got various things going on out there, and they’re interested in the sort of thing we’ve got going on here. I’ve offered to explain what we do, how we work. In turn, they will explain how things work over there – they’re connected.’
I mulled that over; East Europe was in many respects the centre of cybercrime, so I wasn’t sure what I would be able to tell these people. But maybe they didn’t trust their own friends, or were trying to branch out on their own into the west. Sandy’s pitch made some kind of sense. And if he was about to let me get clear then I had made a mistake in contacting Amanda Pitt. I wasn’t in a position to get away just yet, though, so I nodded. ‘OK, Sandy.’ He smiled. ‘When are they coming over?’ And what would happen with Gregorius if I left?
‘They want you to go over there.’
‘Oh. OK.’ I had never been to Eastern Europe before.
‘In a couple of weeks. I’ll organise the details, let you know.’
‘How long for?’
‘Depends.’
‘OK. As long as this is the end of it.’
Sandy smiled over the rim of his coffee cup. ‘I promise.’
*
Amanda Pitt phoned the office three days later, and Claire put her through to my desk. ‘How did you get my number?’ I asked.
Her tone was sour. ‘I’m a detective, Martin. I find things out. I detect.’
‘So…’ And I let that hang, unsure, frightened almost.<
br />
‘We can work together,’ she said, her voice matter-of-fact. ‘Can you meet me in the Counting House at four o’clock this afternoon – near the St Vincent Street entrance, down the road from your office.’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘Good. Bring me a personal cheque for £5000 made out to Rose Brown.’
*
She was there in the huge, very busy pub bordering George Square, in a corner on her own with a glass of coke – at least, I assumed it was just coke. Once I’d spotted her, I got myself a beer and squeezed through the crowd to her table. I was relieved to see that she was on her own, that I wasn’t going to be arrested just yet.
Her manner was brisk. ‘I’d like a note of your bank account and sort code.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m going to pay you for the information you’re going to give me.’
‘But I’m…’
‘Otherwise someone will wonder what I gave you in return. They may even suspect I gave you sexual favours.’ She gave a pantomime shudder. ‘God forbid.’
‘Thanks very much.’
‘You’re not my type, Martin – as you know.’
‘So we’re on.’
‘Yes. In this – ‘ she handed over a pastel blue cardboard folder, stuffed with sheets of paper, printouts and hand-written notes – ‘is most of what we have on Talbot and his business connections across the city, and wider. We’re investigating what we can, tracing companies real and dummy, shareholders, real and dummy. We thought you were a dummy, but you’re real.’
‘Thanks very much,’ I repeated. I drank some beer, and showed her my bank card: she copied the details into her phone, then put it away. Then I handed her the cheque, from my personal account, made out to Rose Brown. She scanned it before putting it away in her purse.
‘A lot of the companies are not designed to make a profit. We don’t know much about B&D.’ Her eyes looked hard at me. ‘I assume this is what you’re going to tell me about.’
I nodded.
Amanda went on: ‘We also note that there has been a steady flow of share dealings in recent months from some of Ken Talbot’s companies on our list – the real and the fake. We thought that he was getting ready to finance something major, maybe arms or drugs, but it’s been you, hasn’t it? This is all about you getting out, with your money, and blowing a hole in Talbot’s empire so he can’t come after you.’ Her voice had a scathing edge to it.
‘It’s not quite like that,’ I tried to protest. ‘As well as the assets in those companies –‘ which I’d never bought, but I didn’t feel it was useful to tell her that – ‘I have massive debts, and they aren’t mine. These debts were nominal when we signed up, but they’ve become real. I’d be broke if it all came down.’
She frowned. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but you are a criminal. How much money do you think you legitimately hold?’
I drank more beer. ‘Look, I’m not getting into an ethical argument with you, of all people. My conscience is clear. I was dragged into this by accident – all we wanted was to run a small computer shop, earn some money, do what we loved doing. None of this was part of the plan.’
Her brown eyes were blank as she looked at me. She didn’t know the whole story, and I couldn’t begin to tell her.
I shook away the past. ‘Look, I’ll take this. I’ll get you the details you need about the online stuff. It’ll take me a while to pull it together.’
‘I’ll give you a week. Don’t leave the country.’
‘Actually I am going away… holiday, Eastern Europe. In a couple of weeks. But I’ll be back, and I’ll see you then.’
‘How about something in good faith? Apart from the money.’
‘I’ll email you stuff tonight.’
‘You want my…’ and then she paused. ‘But you know my email address.’
‘If it’s on your Facebook profile I do.’
She closed her eyes momentarily.
‘Don’t you guys train people on how to stay safe online?’
She nodded glumly.
*
I phoned Andrew and met him that evening in Blackfriars at a table by the window, and gave him the folder from Amanda Pitt. He flipped through the sheets of paper, and nodded. ‘Yes, this looks pretty comprehensive. This will help. I take it things went well with the policeman.’
I nodded. ‘Just fine.’ I was tense, my heart thudding, the adrenaline racing through me. I tried to hold it all in check, because there was still a long game to be played here.
‘So you want me to keep doing what I’ve been doing?’ he asked over his gin.
I nodded. ‘I’m going to Romania in a couple of weeks for a few days with work. When I come back, I want to shift all the money you can get out for me over to the bank accounts where I can get them. Don’t worry about leaving loose ends or some stuff – just get what you can. I’ll pay your fee, and then I’m out.’
I’d go somewhere with Helen, repair our relationship, start the next phase of my life. I’d be relatively well off. We could be happy together, we really could.
‘Be careful in Romania,’ Andrew said.
I nodded. ‘It’ll be fine.’
That evening, I emailed Amanda Pitt with a very carefully worded document: I didn’t want her bosses rushing off at half cock to raid B&D and spoil everything before I could get away.
I told her the basic outline of what we did at B&D, but not the details of any companies we had compromised. I made up a story that we had a network of hackers who were buying and selling lists of credit card numbers, email addresses, and mobile phone numbers, and were compromising and selling details of machines that could be used in botnets, to mount cyber attacks on institutions and governments. I didn’t mention that we actually had a single link through to this Gregorius character.
I said that I would email her much more detail when I got back from Romania.
After I sent the email, I stared at my computer. Had I handled this the right way? Had I given her enough but not too much? Would I be able to get clear, or would the Scottish police just drag me down with the rest of Talbot’s empire? Should I have just sat tight and assumed that Sandy would honour his promise to let me go after the Romanian job? How would Gregorius react? What could he do to me?
Finally I gave a shrug. I didn’t trust Sandy, and I didn’t trust Amanda Pitt either. But I’d started the process. I couldn’t go back now. The clocks were ticking.
Chapter 14
Glasgow and London – the nineties
Bill Gates had discovered the World Wide Web, and Steve Jobs was back at Apple. Professionally speaking it was an exciting time, everything was opening up, everything was changing.
In my lucid moments, I thought up daft ideas for websites, and designed them. Everybody wanted to do things on the Internet suddenly. I spent all day dealing with email – much of it meaningless – and evenings writing code. I discovered I could write programs that got through the rudimentary security in Microsoft’s browser and pick up email addresses. Once I wrote an email to a batch of these addresses, pretending to be Lloyds Bank, asking for their full details as a ‘security check’, even though it was unlikely they actually banked with Lloyds. Three people sent me the information by return, and another two ‘corrected’ my information by giving me the actual names of their banks and their sort codes, and their account numbers. I was amazed.
But my personal life was like my flat on Argyle Street: cold and empty. A cleaner came in once a week, though I had no idea how that had been arranged or who gave her a set of keys. I slept there, coming home late after several beers alone in the pub, having a glass of wine before going to bed, to help me sleep. Then strong coffee in the morning to get me up.
Davey and Jane got married. My mum and Alan got married. I sat drunk through both weddings. Davey didn’t trust me to be his best man, got a stumbling Frank to do it instead. I didn’t mind: he was right – I could barely handle being there, never mind speaking.
One side of life was going really well, the rest was crap.
Sam interrupted my thoughts. ‘Are you finished for the day, Martin?’
I looked at my watch. ‘Shit, Sam, sorry – didn’t realise it was so late. You get off, I’ll lock up.’ She had a life out there, I had nothing to go to. Except the pub.
‘I’ve closed the till.’
‘Thanks.’
But she didn’t leave. She stood looking at me with almost a sad expression on her face, and I looked back at her. ‘Are you wanting something to eat? You haven’t had anything all day.’
‘I suppose I should. How about you?’ I would normally get hungry around eleven at night, and have something in the pub. I’d never asked Sam to join me, and she’d never shown any hint that she wanted to.
‘We could share a pizza,’ she said.
I looked at her again. She’d filled out a bit over the last few years, in a good way. She still had the Goth look, but it was less angular and angry. The black jeans and the black T-shirt were tighter, her lips less black, her face less white, the hair cut back a bit to show more of it. There was only one small nose ring, and only three rings in each ear. As I watched her, I suddenly felt a sexual desire. But no, I didn’t want a relationship with her: we had nothing in common except working here. It wouldn’t be fair to use her for sex. And Charlie had been there before. And, of course, she had never shown any interest in me.
‘Want me to phone out for a pizza?’ she asked.
‘Yeah – great,’ I said.
We shared a Quattro Formagio, and then went across the road to the pub, her with her usual vodka and coke, me with my beer. And another round, and another. It was always like this: I wanted to stay where it was warm and there were people. I didn’t want to go home to that void.
We talked, possibly for the first time. We talked about the business, and I mentioned ideas for expansion, sharing some ideas, telling her that she’d be OK if she wanted to stay with us – did she want to stay with us? Oh yes, she was happy here.
