The Village Fate

by William Hadley

  Back at the desk he confirmed all the house cameras were off. He logged out of the house account and into the cameras at Macintosh Energy. Angus spent a few moments flicking between cameras, the one in the control room showed that everything was good, the security lights were on and there was nobody about. His night vision cameras were working well, they clearly picked up the conveyor feeding silage into the hopper.

  He sat for a moment and looked at the vast tank with its curved dome of gas rising from the circle of concrete walls. Angus realised that somewhere in there, in very small bits was the cause of his anxiety. Maggie soup, that’s what was bubbling away behind those walls. Angus smiled. Maggie had been a great believer in recycling, it had been her who’d first told him about anaerobic digestion and how it was an alternative way of generating energy. It gave him a deep level of satisfaction knowing that his wife was even now, giving off gas in a sustainable way. Eventually she’d be spread thinly across several acres of Belcher farmland. Maggie had hated living in the country, and she especially hated folk like the Belchers. As a final poke in the eye to the despicable woman, Angus would ensure that the next dozen tanker loads of liquid waste were spread thick across Belcher land. They could even have it for free.

  Back to work. He scrolled the timer to Sunday afternoon and matched it with when the house cameras had gone blank, then he froze the display. Angus took his iPhone and started the timer, got up from the desk and collected a torch from a drawer in the kitchen. Without hurrying, he walked down the path to the gap in the trees. He was trying to match Maggie’s pace as he crossed the yard and entered the office. Inside he fiddled around at his desk for a moment and collected his laptop and charger, then assuming Maggie would have had sufficient time to find the right cupboard, he opened a door and flicked off the switch marked cameras. He stopped the timer on his phone, the display showed seven and a half minutes. The video feed would be dead now, he locked the office door and returned to the house the way he’d come.

  Angus refilled his whisky glass and returned to the laptop. He moved the cameras forward seven minutes and thirty seconds then back eight seconds for good luck, no point making things too obvious, and round numbers looked suspicious to him. He stopped the footage and deleted everything from that point forward. If the police looked at the camera recording they’d see that Maggie had returned from church, disabled the house cameras and then walked across to the office and repeated the process. Angus would tell them he didn’t think she knew where to look for the business cameras but, given everything else they’d learned about Maggie, she could well have identified their location on one of her rare visits to the office.

  The camera in the gym bothered Angus. He’d got rid of all the footage and disabled its feed, but still it worried him. He’d already decided to release a limited amount of information to the police but if DS Robinson came back and wanted to see the location of the cameras he didn’t want her to find that one. She’d only start asking questions again.

  Once more Angus got up and left the house, he walked around the pool and across to the gym. He opened the door and realised that if it had been working he would now be in full view of the camera, it had to be on the opposite wall somewhere. Angus turned on the lights and waited while his eyes acclimatising to the bright overhead illumination.

  For the whole width of the far wall mirrors stretched from the floor to the ceiling, except in one place. A section of light oak, about sixteen inches wide and directly opposite the door. It hid the cables and pipes which gave the building it power. That’s where it must be thought Angus, somewhere in that wooden panel there’s a small camera lens.

  He ruled out where the ceiling joined the wall as the angle was wrong. The camera’s view was closer to chest height and it was looking straight at him. At the bottom of the wall a small table supported a Bose CD player and iPod doc. The sound system was impressive but he didn’t remember it having a camera built in. And anyway, from where it was sitting it would have been filming only people’s knees.

  Angus followed the wooden panel up, he saw a small cupboard door made from the same light oak. It was so beautifully crafted it would have been easy to overlook. The only thing at odds with the workmanship was its circular black doorknob. If it wasn’t for that feature the cubby hole would have been invisible. He crossed the room and crouched for a better look. It was at chest height and the angle of view was perfect. He opened the door and looked inside. There must be some sort of lens, but at inspection there was nothing obvious. Then he saw it, a fine wire running from the back of the door knob, around the edge of the door and along to the angle where the top of the box met the wall. The wire had been painted over with a colour which matched the wood itself and the casual observer would have seen nothing. Angus closed the door and studied the knob. At first glance it was a plan black item which could be picked up at any hardware store for less than a pound. Closer inspection showed the centre to be a small circle of tinted glass and behind it hid a tiny lens. Angus had found his camera.

  Finding it was one thing, but removing it and not leaving a mark was another. Maggie, or her security engineer had been lazy. Inside the cupboard, tucked away in a corner, Angus found the original handle, a small round nob matching the light oak of the outer panel and most likely put there when the camera was installed.

  Angus returned to the kitchen for a small tool kit, one he used for jobs around the house. He selected a likely screwdriver and carefully removed the knob, then returned the oak one to its rightful place. The lens popped out but remained attached to the wire, Angus pealed it away from the wood, all the way back to the hinges. He stretched his arm inside the panel and, with a pair of wire cutters he clipped the cable as far back as he could reach. Then he chipped any remnants of glue from the inside of the door and cleaned it with detergent spray. Nobody would know a camera had ever been there, and an important piece of evidence against Claudilia had been removed.

  Before returning to the house Angus inspected the remaining contents of the box. There was an instruction leaflet from Bose, a couple of music CDs, Maggie’s gym diaries and a small padded envelope. Angus left the leaflet, CDs and diaries but took out the envelope. He poured its contents into the palm of his hand. Angus was holding Maggie’s engagement and wedding rings, along with a small USB stick no bigger than a thumbnail. Maggie would never have left and not taken her rings. Thank God the police hadn’t found them a couple of days earlier. His wife, his dead wife, had often joked that if she ever ran out of cash she could always porn her rings.

  He put the rings and the drive back in the envelope and, along with his tools, took them back to the house. It was well after three in the morning and he needed some sleep. This would be the last time he used the spare room. Tomorrow, no, he corrected himself, later today, he’d tell Nadia to move his things back into the master bedroom, and explain that Maggie had gone to the USA to stay with her brother. All very sad but it’s what she wanted, she was not expected back any time soon and Angus had decided to change rooms again.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Day sixteen. Thursday

  After three hours sleep, Angus got up, he showered, shaved and had a light breakfast. He was at the desk in Maggie’s study with coffee and a note pad as the hall clock chimed eight. Later in the day he would change things around in here. It would be nice to have an office in the house again. He wouldn’t use it all the time, but he’d be able to log onto his work system just as well from the house as he could from his desk at Macintosh Energy. If he were honest, he’d been using the site office as somewhere to escape from Maggie for the last couple of years.

  Hamish didn’t normally go into Maggie’s study. She usually shooed him out if he crossed the threshold, but this morning he followed Angus through the door. The little West Highland terrier inspected the various corners of the room. He sniffed the fireplace rug as well as all the chairs and the bin. Satisfied that Maggie wasn’t lurking anywhere, ready to jump out at him, he squeezed p
ast Angus’s legs and curled up under the desk.

  Angus ran through last night’s activity. The cameras were still turned off, the disks wiped of everything since Sunday lunchtime and the unit in the gym had been removed. He opened the padded envelope and poured its contents onto the desktop. He needed a safe place to hide the rings, somewhere they wouldn’t be found. At some point in the future he’d dispose of them, but right now it was important that they were safely concealed. As far as the police were concerned she’d taken a million pounds in bitcoins and whatever money she might have been carrying. But jewellery is easily converted into cash. Wouldn’t it be suspicious if she’d left to make a new life without her everyday rings.

  Angus didn’t want to risk using Maggie’s laptop more than was necessary, so he lifted his own from its case and powered it up. The machine was quite new and a higher specification than Maggie’s, still it took a moment for the various programs to start. Microsoft Outlook chimed an alert for incoming messages, he ignored the icon, registering only that there were thirty seven emails awaiting his attention. Spotify opened to a recent playlist - why does it always do that? - and Skype insisted he should complete his profile, he closed the program. Once he was sure the start up process was complete Angus went to the settings and disconnected from the house’s wifi system.

  Satisfied he was no longer attached to the outside world, Angus inserted the USB drive and clicked the icon when it appeared on his desktop. A moment later the contents of the drive were listed on his screen. There was a single Word file entitled “house”. Innocent enough thought Angus, he clicked the file and waited for the program to open.

  Three lines of text appeared on the screen. The first said User Name, and was followed by an email address, maggieme3now@gmail.com, Angus didn’t recognise that account but assumed it was set up by his wife, the second line was a Password, F40h0u53c!5Hu5a. The final line was entitled Wallet and was just a list of characters. Angus knew what he was looking at, thirty three characters, no capital i’s, o’s or lower case l’s. This had to be Maggie’s new bitcoin wallet. She’d hidden it in the gym “somewhere very safe” she’d told Trevor, and if anyone came snooping she’d get a good look at them through the lens of her hidden camera. Grudgingly he had to admire his wife’s resourcefulness. It was a pity she hadn’t put her talents to a better use.

  Was this where the money from her parent’s house sale was hidden? He reconnected to the wifi and opened an internet explorer. Angus Googled “bitcoin login” and a new screen appeared. He filled in the username and password which took him to the next level. He entered the wallet address and hit return. After a moment, which felt like an hour, the contents of the wallet and it’s recent transactions appeared on his screen. The wallet contained six hundred and seventy nine point nine-nine bitcoins. Angus Googled it’s conversion to pounds. When she died, Maggie had an account worth one million, two hundred and eleven thousand eight hundred and forty three pounds, and forty eight pence. A secret untraceable account which could only be accessed if you had the information held on the USB drive. Angus logged off, removed the drive and sat back. He would need to keep it somewhere very secure. For now he took the stick drive to the house safe. It was built into a welsh dresser in the pantry. He slipped the miniature memory stick into a Rolex box where it sat next to the watch Victoria had given him. It had been a gift on their final wedding anniversary, and something he hardly ever wore; Maggie hadn’t liked to be reminded of her predecessor.

  When Nadia arrived at just after nine she asked Angus about Maggie. The police had called and she was worried. She didn’t like the police. She had grown up in communist Poland where it was the police who took people away, often they never came back. Her family had always avoided anything to do with them. Angus said that Maggie had left him. It was assumed that she had gone to America to stay with her brother. He was sorry to say that he didn’t think she would be coming back. Nadia should not be worried, she’d done nothing wrong, but the police needed to talk to anyone who might have seen Maggie in the days leading up to her disappearance.

  .

  Nadia said that she had been to the house on Friday and cleaned as normal. Maggie and Tish had been in the gym and later she’d seen them outside by the pool. She had done her work, not talked to anyone and gone home at the normal time. Angus explained that he wanted to change a few things, to start with, could she please move Maggie’s clothes into the spare room and put his into the master bedroom. He would be sleeping there from now on, and if Nadia could change the sheets he would appreciate it, but she needn’t do it daily as his wife had demanded, once a week would be fine. He explained that a food delivery would arrive around mid-morning and she should put things away where he could find them. Otherwise nothing need change for her.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Angus arrived at Stratford police station at five to eleven. He asked the receptionist for Detective Sergeant Josie Robinson, he had to wait fifteen minutes while she was found. She came to the front desk and signed him through security, into the heart of the building. Josie led him to “a soft interview room”, not one which smelled of vomit and where the chairs where bolted to the floor.

  “What can I do for you Mr Macintosh?” she asked.

  “Angus, please call me Angus.”

  “What can I do for you Angus?”

  “I’ve got this,” Angus replied pulling a new USB stick from his pocket, “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner but it’s footage from the security cameras at the house. I’ve copied from Friday to Sunday onto this drive. The recording stops just after she got back from church. I’ve checked the system and the camera plugs were all switched off.”

  “That’s great,” said Josie with some surprise. “Where are the cameras located?”

  “They’re all outside the house. There’s one covering the front and the drive, another for each of the side entrances and one on the back which overlooks the pool and path to the gym.” Angus stopped, he let Josie visualise the house and the coverage. “There’s also one in the sauna,” he said in a slightly more hushed voice. “I didn’t know it was there, but there seems to be a lot I didn’t know about my wife.”

  “And what does it show?” asked Josie, as if she couldn’t guess.

  “The outdoor cameras have the general comings and goings over the weekend. I drive off with Hamish on Friday afternoon, Maggie and Tish have lunch by the pool. On Saturday afternoon that bastard gardener turns up and most of their footage is in the sauna,” said Angus. “I don’t know if it helps, and it’s rather embarrassing seeing your own wife with another man. I wasn’t going to bring it but I don’t want you to think I’m withholding anything.”

  “That’s okay,” said Josie. “I’ll make sure that only those who need to see it view that piece of film.” She could just imagine the pleasure some of her colleagues would get from watching the gorgeous Maggie and the gardener screwing each other’s brains out. A few years earlier, when she worked for the Met, a similar film had been brought in as evidence. In that instance copies on CD were being passed around the station within hours.

  “Any other visitors?” asked Josie.

  “Claudilia comes and goes on Saturday, Nadia leaves on Friday afternoon just after I drive away and there was a postman too I think, but apart from that, no. Nobody else came to the house when the cameras were on.”

  “Could you get in without being seen by a camera?”

  “Not really, I guess the SAS could do it by parachute, but all the doors are covered, the drive’s filmed and so is the garden. Anyone coming from the front or back would certainly be seen.”

  Josie stood up and Angus followed. “I’ll take this to a video suite and view it there, then I’ll enter it into evidence along with the statements we’ve taken and our other notes. You’re right to bring it in. It helps us to create a time line of visitors to the house and build a personal profile of Maggie,.”

  “I’m not sure I ever knew the real Maggie at all,
” Said Angus.

  Josie put her hand on his arm as a reassuring gesture. “I have to tell you that I’ve already written up my report and sent it to the Inspector. I’ll add a note about the cameras, but it doesn’t really change anything. Maggie’s disappearance has been reclassified. She’s now listed as a person who is absent rather than missing.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Well it’s subtle but significant,” She admitted. “Basically a missing person is someone who’s whereabouts we can’t establish, and where the context of their departure suggests that they may have been involved in criminal activity. Alternatively they might represent a threat to themselves or someone else. On the other hand, if a person is absent, it means that although they are not where they are expected to be, they’re also not perceived to be at risk. Based on the information we’ve been able to collect, I’d say Maggie is absent.

  Angus just stood looking at her. He wondered if there was more.

  “We’ll continue to monitor the situation and if her phone, bank cards or passport are used we’ll know about it. But Angus, everything suggests she’s been planning this for some time. She’s an adult, which means by choosing to leave, she’s not committed a crime.”

  Angus nodded his thanks and Josie showed him out of the station. Shaking his hand in reception she promised to check in with him in a few days, or sooner if there was any news. As he walked to his car Angus felt sure he had given a convincing performance.

  Josie took the USB stick to the video suite and had a technician check it for viruses, then she helped herself to coffee and settled down to watch the comings and goings at Macintosh Manor. Apart from the footage in the sauna it was all pretty dull. She wrote a note to that effect and emailed it to her Inspector, along with a few lines emphasising the importance of keeping the sauna footage private. If those animals in traffic saw it they’d stop every black Range Rover driven by a woman for the next six months.