The House on Cold Hill (27 page)

He swivelled his chair to the left and looked out of the window again towards the lake. Jade and Phoebe had been playing there just a couple of minutes ago, he’d been watching them. Was the start of a nervous breakdown? Or something even worse?

‘When – when did you take Jade to the riding place?’

Caro looked at her watch. ‘Over an hour ago. I’m going to have to rush, I’m late.’

‘Drive safely,’ he said, lamely. ‘You’re picking up Phoebe, too?’

‘Yes, that’s what I said.’

‘She’s not – already – sort of here or anything?’

Caro frowned. ‘Have you been drinking?’

‘No!’

‘You’re behaving very oddly. I’ll see you in a bit, OK?’

He was staring back out through the window at the vast lawn, which he would have to mow tomorrow, and at the ducks on the lake. There was no sign of Jade or Phoebe. No children. No humans. Nothing.

He’d imagined the vicar this morning. Now his daughter and her friend?

His computer made a barely audible ping. An incoming email.

He hit the keyboard and instantly held his breath as he saw the name. It was from Cholmondley. Perhaps, he thought, with hope momentarily rising, the classic car dealer had found out the source of the toxic email sent to him earlier, and was writing now to apologize for his outburst? After all, he was a businessman, and however angry he might have been, Cholmondley would know he had to keep his website up and running – and for that he needed him.

Then, as he opened the email, his heart sank even lower.

There was a short message from Cholmondley at the top, with a longer one from himself beneath, sent from his personal email address, with his electronic signature, and timed and dated just over thirty minutes ago.

Sent from this computer.

Cholmondley

I imagine you’ve been waiting all day for a grovelling apology. Well, so sorry not to oblige, dear boy, but I just wanted to let you know that I stand by every word in my earlier email. I despise you, you arrogant little shit, with your natty bow tie. Just found out about your criminal record, too. Tut, tut, tut! You kept that one a secret, didn’t you? My oh my, you are a dark horse! Bad boy, you got caught turning the odometers back on second-hand cars. Made to sit on the Naughty Step for that one, weren’t you? Eighteen months in Ford Prison. I’m afraid I cannot take the reputational risk of dealing with someone of your background.

I have sent you in a separate email all the codes and files you will need for someone else to take over the management of your website in a smooth – quite seamless – transition.

Oliver Harcourt,

CEO, Harcourt Digital Solutions Ltd

Once again, he saw to his horror that it was copied to the same wide number of Cholmondley’s rival dealers. And all the files for the website, which would have been the only leverage he had to get paid by the man, had been handed over. So now he had no hold over him. And reading Cholmondley’s reply, it was even clearer than this morning that he would never see one penny of the money he was owed.

Dear Mr Harcourt

This email is outrageous. I will hold you personally liable for any sales I lose through your vile and deeply libellous communications today. For the record I’ve never been charged with, or convicted of, any of the offences you allege. I have no criminal record and I’ve never been to jail. You’ll be hearing from my lawyers on Monday and you will be a very sorry man.

C. Cholmondley

44

Saturday, 19 September

Ollie sat, stunned, staring at the email. He was utterly bewildered and feeling sick deep inside. And close to tears. Just what the hell was happening? He had imagined the vicar; he had imagined Jade and her friend in the garden. Was he now sending emails that he had no recollection of? Should he go and see a doctor?

Another email pinged in, and his spirits sank even lower still when he saw it was from Bhattacharya.

He could scarcely bring himself to open it. His hands hovered over the keypad, his fingers trembling. His whole body was shaking. Normally when he was stressed he’d go for a run or a bike ride. But he felt too sapped right now to do anything other than sit and think and stare.

Chris Webb would be able to find out where the emails had really come from, wouldn’t he? That would be the solution. Get him to show they were being sent from someone outside, who was using this address, and then he could go back to Cholmondley and Bhattacharya.

Unless.

But he didn’t want to go there. Not down that line of thought.

He did not want to entertain the possibility that he might have been the sender.

Or someone or some
thing
here in his office with him.

He looked up at the ceiling with a start, as if he again sensed something there, looking down, mocking him.

Then he opened the Indian restaurateur’s email. It was every bit as bad as he expected. A litany of food hygiene regulations each of his restaurants had allegedly broken. And a livid reply from Bhattacharya.

For a moment he thought he was going to throw up at his desk. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, trying to think clearly. Then he dialled Chris Webb.

‘Chris, I have an absolute emergency here. There have been more emails to those same two clients, and they’ve been copied to other potential clients. You’ve got to help me, we have to do something – my business is being destroyed.’

‘More emails?’

Ollie could hear a roar in the background, as if Webb was watching a football or perhaps rugby match on television. ‘Yes, in the past hour – while I’ve been sitting in front of my bloody computer. I just don’t know what’s going on. You’ve got to help me, please, could you come over?’

‘OK.’

‘I’d really appreciate that. How soon can you come?’

‘I’ll be with you in about forty-five minutes. Meantime, what I suggest you do is disconnect from the internet – or, even better, switch it off completely until I get there. Can you do that?’

‘Yes, right away, thank you.’

Ollie stared at the keyboard, then at the screen, as if scared something new might have appeared while he’d been talking to the computer guru. He did as instructed, selected Shut Down from the Apple menu and clicked on it.

He waited until the screen was dark and the machine was silent, then stood up, went downstairs and out into the garden, feeling desperately in need of some fresh air to try to clear his head. The sun in the clear blue sky barely registered, nor the warmth of the air, or anything around him as he walked down towards the lake, his heart like a massive weight inside his chest. He felt as if all the energy had been sucked out of him and he was just a dark, discarded husk.

He stood and stared bleakly at two mallards, a male and female, paddling seemingly aimlessly across the water. Just what the hell was happening to them all? Had they made a terrible mistake moving here – not just taking on more than they could cope with financially, but coming into some unfathomable darkness?

Should they just move out and put the place on the market? It was something he had considered several times in the past few days. And yet, it seemed absurd to give in, and give all this up, just because of – if Bruce Kaplan was right – some energy at large in the place. Both Bob Manthorpe and Caro’s strange client who had died, had advised requesting the diocesan exorcist – Minister of Deliverance – to come and clear the house. Maybe that was all it needed. And everything would be OK after that. The vicar had said this morning he would put in a request to the Sussex Minister of Deliverance and get back to him as quickly as he could.

His phone vibrated in his trouser pocket and began ringing. He pulled it out and saw a mobile number on the display he did not recognize.

‘Hello?’ he answered.

‘Ah, Oliver, is this a good moment?’

It was Roland Fortinbrass.

‘Yes, it is, thank you.’

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some good news and some bad news.’

45

Saturday, 19 September

An hour and a half later Chris Webb was seated in Ollie’s office, in front of his computer. Ollie hovered anxiously behind him, peering over his shoulder at the screen. It was filled with a maze of rows and columns of numbers and letters that were meaningless to Ollie, but Webb was studying them with fierce concentration, emitting a string of comments out loud as he did so.

‘What the—? Oh, I see . . . But how the hell did you get there? What? What’s this?’

‘What’s what?’ Ollie asked.

‘I mean, that just shouldn’t be there!’

‘What shouldn’t be?’

‘Have you been in here changing any settings?’

‘No, why would I?’

‘Someone has,’ Webb said.

‘Someone? That’s not possible, Chris – I’m the only person who would ever touch this computer.’

Webb grimaced. ‘Could just be a Mac glitch – I’ve got a few clients where something similar’s happened recently on the latest operating system – settings changing of their own accord.’

‘Or could this be evidence of the hacker?’

Webb lifted the large mug of coffee Ollie had brought him, and drank some. ‘Well, this wouldn’t give anyone a pathway in. I think it’s more of an operating system glitch. Jade wouldn’t have been on this?’

‘Absolutely not. I’m certain.’

‘You see, I can’t find any footprints at all. I can see the tracks I left earlier, when I connected through TeamViewer, but there’s no sign at all of any unauthorized user having been here.’

Distracted by movement through the window to his right, Ollie saw Caro coming up the drive in her Golf, with Jade beside her and a figure, presumably Phoebe, on the back seat.

‘It’s a mystery,’ Webb said. ‘I’m sorry, I’m baffled. I don’t know what to suggest. We could put in an extra firewall and see if that stops it.’

‘Chris, I’ve got to do something to salvage the situation. I can’t afford to lose these clients.’

‘Of course.’

‘OK, I’ve had an idea,’ Ollie said, suddenly brightening up a little. ‘Cholmondley and Bhattacharya aren’t aware of each other. So, how about you write an email to each of them, explaining that you are my IT manager and that these emails have been sent from some malicious hacker who must have a grudge against them?’

Webb looked dubious.

‘I’ll compose it and give you the wording. All you have to do is just sign as yourself, as my IT manager. Then I can follow it up by phoning them, when hopefully they’ve calmed down.’

‘OK, sure. But—’

‘But?’

‘I’ll write it, sign it, whatever, but I’m not sure it’s going to be the end of it.’

‘What do you mean?’ Ollie asked.

‘What I mean is I don’t think you’ve been hacked, mate.’ He stared at Ollie.

‘So who do you think wrote these?’

‘Someone in this house.’ Webb raised his arms. ‘Look, I know that sounds crazy to you, but I really don’t think you’ve been hacked. Unless it’s by someone a lot cleverer than me – and that, of course, is always a possibility!’

‘Chris,’ said Ollie, becoming impatient with the man’s intransigence about hacking, ‘those last two were sent while I was sitting here at my desk. Jade was out at a riding lesson and Caro sure as hell didn’t come in and start typing under my nose without my seeing her.’

‘All right, email scan be programmed to be sent at a scheduled time. Perhaps someone typed these during the night, when you were asleep, scheduling them to go at a specific time. Either by accessing this computer or by hacking it.’

Ollie shook his head. ‘Who the hell would do that, Chris?’

‘I don’t know. Have you made any enemies?’

‘No.’

Could it possibly be Jade, Ollie wondered, lapsing into thought? Sleepwalking and now sleep-typing? She was pretty computer savvy, it wasn’t impossible. Yet the language in those emails, the technical information about the Ferrari, the information about the restaurants, she couldn’t possibly have known all that. But who had? And equally importantly, why had these emails been sent? By someone out to destroy him, that was evident. But who, he thought again? Who the hell could it be – and why?

‘I honestly can’t think of anyone I’ve upset. This is just a complete mystery.’

Webb gave him a sideways look. ‘Maybe it’s that pesky ghost of yours again!’

Ollie did not smile.

46

Saturday, 19 September

‘So what did the vicar say, Ols?’ Caro asked, perching on the edge of the battered leather armchair in which Ollie liked to sit and read. At the moment, like almost every other inch of space in his office, it was covered in files he’d not yet put away into the cabinets, and framed pictures he’d not had the time to hang.

Chris Webb had just left, and the fresh emails to Cholmondley and Bhattacharya, bearing his signature as IT Manager, had been sent. Hopefully, when Ollie followed them up, perhaps later today – or maybe leaving it until tomorrow – they would listen and accept his explanation. It was credible. If he used all his powers of persuasion and charm, they would surely believe him.

They must.

‘The vicar’s spoken with the Minister of Deliverance for Sussex, and they’re both going to come here Monday around six, after you’re back from work, darling,’ he replied.

‘Good,’ she said, and seemed a little relieved. ‘What’s this Minister of Deliverance – exorcist – man going to do? Walk around the house swinging a smoking censer full of incense, muttering incantations?’

Ollie smiled, glad that despite everything she’d not lost her sense of humour. ‘I didn’t get the impression it would be quite that dramatic. He wants to come and have a talk to us so he can get an idea of what’s going on, and how to deal with it. From what the vicar told me, he sounds a bright and very grounded guy. And not in any way a sanctimonious “Holy Joe” type. Apparently he’s highly educated, an Oxbridge double first, with a background in psychology before becoming ordained.’