Gatecrasher (5 page)

But now, after several years, Griffin Holdings Ltd was a name to be respected in the import and export industry. Which made the latest incident all the more frustrating for the CEO who stood now in his office, pacing the carpet and chewing his fingernails anxiously. No matter how often he turned to look at the telephone on his desk it staunchly refused to ring.

He was waiting for a phone call to report on exactly what it was that had happened that weekend. At three o’clock on the previous Saturday morning he had been roused from his bed by a telephone call telling him that there had been a break in at the company headquarters. From the soft warmth of his bed and his wife there in his Berkshire home the decision to stay put and deal with it later had appeared perfectly sensible. Burglars and stolen computers were an irritation, particularly in the middle of the night, but little more and in any case, they were insured.

He had made a cursory visit during the daylight hours the following day but he made it obvious that there was little that he could do and he contented himself with growling at the security people to make sure they locked up properly tonight.

Whether that decision would have changed anything there was no way of knowing. But it was becoming clear now that nothing so simple as a broken window and a few snatched PCs had gone on that weekend. There was precious little damage done and more ominously, nothing seemed to have been taken. Nothing tangible at least, nothing physical.

He had ordered that a quick inventory be done to see what had been taken – was it computers they were after? Or had they come for the more valuable servers perhaps? Something else? So far, his staff told him, it seemed like nothing had been taken. Many of his subordinates, now frantically checking through the offices and delegating his instructions down the line were optimistically chirping that perhaps they had been scared away somehow, by the alarm or the security people, before they could take anything.

Griffin had nodded his agreement with cheery positivity but was sure that wasn’t true and the knot of tension twisting in his stomach was getting worse every minute that he waited and his phone remained silent.

Computers and furniture and other fixed assets were not the only saleable commodities to be found within the walls of Griffin Holdings Ltd.

Any idiot will tell you, Andrew Griffin thought to himself as he began to chew on a fingernail, that information is power.

Monday
.
10am.

Campbell
was sitting in an episode of The Bill.

The office was tucked in the corner of a larger open-plan expanse of desks and paper, a meeting of varnished wood and grey-painted steel but the paint had long since become chipped and the pine-effect of the wood was all veneer hiding cheap woodchip beneath. It was fooling nobody. Amid these drab surroundings
Campbell
could understand why coppers were such miserable bastards.

Sitting on a plastic chair with no armrests and exhausted cushioning
Campbell
felt tense and uncomfortable. He had not slept well the previous night. The answerphone message kept replaying itself in his head over and over again. Images of the man lying face down on the floor of his kitchen, the thick dark pool of blood, all flashing through his mind.

‘How are you today?’

Campbell
looked up and tried to raise the corners of his mouth into a smile but it ended up looking nothing like a smile at all but an expression that said more than he could about how he was today. He shrugged instead of answering as the non-smile dropped from his face.

The policeman on the other side of the desk shot him a sympathetic look and tried to look efficient, to give the impression that this wouldn’t take too long.

‘Right well I’ll take down a few details first of all. I’m Constable Scott by the way. Call me Dave.’

‘
Sure.’

‘Drink of something first? Tea, coffee?’ he offered.

Campbell
was grateful for the Constable’s patience and soft approach. He felt as if he would bruise easily today. He thought that he could do with two or three coffees but then he noticed the plastic cup on the desk in front of him and looking around him, noted a lack of any ceramics. No mugs. Another coffee machine.

‘Do you have water?’ he said.

‘No problem.’ Constable Scott said and vanished from the desk, shutting the door behind him.

Campbell
was here to give his statement about the events of Saturday night, or those at least that he could remember. The fact that he had thought of little else since it had happened was not enough to have jogged anything loose so far. He could remember working his way around the living room, playing the host, the reluctant raconteur. Laughing, talking, joking. Drinking. Making eye contact with the blonde girl whose name he could not recall.

And then that sound. It had made his scalp tingle and hairs rise on his neck as he stood there in that room. Afterward though, knowing what had made the sound
–
what had muffled and smothered the breaking glass
–
made it all the worse and he could still hear it as sharp and clear as he had two nights before.

But as well as he could recall that sound, the other memories were vague and fuzzy like a bad recording, the focus and clarity fading out in certain patches, going blank in others. Then coming back into sharp focus.

Campbell
could see the brunette woman, could see the man on the floor and blood spreading dark and sticky around his head. He could see the navy blue of the man’s hooded top, the dark brown hair matted and slick with blood. And then it went blank again for a minute and then again that image of the head struggling to lift from the floor, the brunette woman going out of the room again, people leaving quietly.

The door ker-thunked open behind him and Campbell jumped a little. A white plastic cup landed in front of him but he didn’t look up, trying to regain his composure before the policeman looked him in the eye again.

He swallowed. ‘Thanks.’ he said, pleased when his voice came strong and clear.

The constable smiled and sipped from his own cup.

‘Sooner we start, sooner we finish.’ Constable Scott said picking up a pen and straightening the paper in front of him.

Campbell
nodded and sipped his water.

For the next hour and thirty minutes
Campbell
answered questions as the policeman prompted him through the sequence of events of the preceding Saturday evening. He seemed to believe him when he said he couldn’t remember things, perhaps recognising the anxious look on
Campbell
’s face for the fear and confusion that it was, rather than for guilt.

They went over it twice and
Campbell
signed his name and told Scott the names of four people whose numbers he could remember who he swore would be able to corroborate the story, to confirm that nobody knew the man, that nobody had even spoken with him.

‘Ask anyone,’
Campbell
said imploringly, ‘Honestly. Nobody knew him.’

‘Of course Mr Campbell. As you say. In fact that’s very much the problem at the moment.’ the policeman replied with a frown.

When they had been over everything and the paperwork was put to one side, the Constable looked at his watch and then at
Campbell
. ‘Sorry to have kept you.’

‘That’s ok,
’
Campbell
replied. ‘So that’s it then? I mean, you’re happy? With what I told you. It’s all…’

The policeman waited for him to finish the sentence, the note of desperation obvious, the desire for him to say that yes, everything was fine, we believe you. ‘Fine for now. Naturally we need to check a few more things out. Speak to people.’

‘Of course.’

There was a pause as
Campbell
’s disappointment hung in the air and the Constable refused to do anything about it and then spoke again. ‘Listen, we’ll probably need to look over the place. I mean we will. For definite. I know you said you cleaned everything but even so.’

As he had done earlier,
Campbell
’s cheeks reddened a little. Cleaning the grisly mess had seemed the most obvious thing to do the day before. Now he fretted that it just made him look more suspicious.

‘We might be able do it now if you like?’ Constable Scott said.

‘Well… OK. Sure.’

‘I’ll have to bring a superior along. Let me just see if anyone’s free.’ he said and trotted out of the room again.

Campbell
had already called the office to tell his boss that he would be late this morning, offering only scant information about exactly why he was going to the local police station. That scrap alone would have started a feeding frenzy amongst the gossips and dodging them for another hour was alright with him. Especially if he could get things tied up with the police, he thought. Show them everything was as he said it was. Then when they’d spoken to some of the other guests and his story checked out he’d be in the clear again. Wouldn’t he?

He realised this was as positive as he’d been since it had happened and the awful hangover, the paranoia and the lack of sleep had compounded his dark mood. Once things were cleared up he’d be ok, he told himself. Perhaps he’d even call in sick and get some more sleep. That would make him feel better, a few hours sleep.

He had just started thinking over viable ways of getting the rest of the day off when the door opened again. A tall man in a dark suit with a pale blue shirt and pink tie followed Constable Scott into the room and offered
Campbell
his
hand
and a forced smile.
Campbell
took the hand but no reasuurance.

‘Mr Campbell. DC Samuel. How are you?’

Campbell
had long since given up trying to answer that question without either lying or sounding miserable so he shrugged again.

‘Of course. Nasty business. Constable Scott here tells me that you’d like us to come and look around?’ the detective continued.

‘Yeah. I mean he said we could do it now, you know, get things out of the way.’

‘Indeed. Let’s.’ Detective Constable Samuel said and span on his heel leaving Campbell and Constable Scott to conclude that they were expected to follow.

*

Campbell sat in the back of the big Vauxhall and told the story to DC Samuel, feeling all the time like he was accused of something that nobody had yet decided to mention and very self-conscious that the two men would be looking for holes in his story. Then he realised that he was so uptight in trying to tell the story exactly the way he had to Constable Scott that it might be considered too similar, as if he had rehearsed it and could now repeat it like a script. That just made him more uptight.

He finished talking, DC Samuel having nodded his way through it with minimal interruption, and settled back into the seat trying to still his racing mind. Had he seemed suspicious? Had he missed something that the two policeman would later discuss when he wasn’t there? Had he said more to DC Samuel than he had told when giving his statement? Did they suspect him?

The more he thought about it, the more ridiculous it sounded. And how much did he really know about what had gone on in that kitchen? Could someone at the party have been responsible after all and was
Campbell
about to take a fall for them because he was too naïve and too stupid and too eager to drink and drink to be able to get out of this mess?

Unlocking the door to the flat he noticed how dry his mouth was now and how much his head hurt. He began to mentally inventory his bathroom cabinet, trying to remember what painkillers he had there and to think about how much he needed a cold glass of water. He thought about offering tea to the policemen but then wondered if that would look as if he was trying to suck up to them. But how would it look if he didn’t? As if he’d rather they weren’t there at all and that they’d hurry up and go. Which was true of course but-

Campbell
froze.

Across his hallway lay a navy blue fleece sweater and a jacket, the lining torn.

His three foot tall yukka plant lay lengthways on the carpet beyond that, soil scattered around the broken pot it had once stood in, almost as if the fired clay had simply burst. The long thin leaves splayed out on the carpet, pointing like fingers to the living room at the far end of the hall.

It was there that most of his possessions were tossed and scattered about the floor.

A cold, cold breeze nipped at
Campbell
through the broken window at the far end of his home. He stepped slowly inside.

Monday
.
10.30am
.

Keith Slater was a heftily built man who stood six foot two in his socks and had a neck like a normal man’s thigh. He was quiet and thoughtful a lot of the time, an extremely cold and efficient professional others and was exceptionally gentle with his own children of which there were four.