The Unseen (22 page)

Sean twitched his nose. “You walk a precarious path. For all we know, Crystal and Zoby might be the same person. That person could even be Caswell. If SPI is run as a sting to gain shareholders, Caswell will know it’s only a matter of time before he’s clocked. If he’s shrewd, and I think he is, he’ll have an escape route set up. He’s a wide-boy and won’t call it a fair cop. He’ll try disappearing to the Bahamas or some such place.”

“When that time comes, then you block his escape. But until then, don’t interfere with my approach. At the same time, there is no harm in you being close.”

“What if it’s not Caswell?”

“Then we look at the other two suspects, Snibbard and Faulkner. Snibbard was once arrested for rape. Faulkner has convictions for Internet card fraud.”

Sean turned down onto the M1 and headed for Watford. “You’ve been doing your homework.”

“Not me, Alice.” Victoria turned back into her seat. “I’m not the only one involved in this.”

“And you believe Alice would let you walk in as possible bait for Zoby?”

“On this one, she’d expect it.”

Richard sat in his small office on the top floor of the Milton Keynes industrial unit, his fingers absently twiddling a gold-plated pencil. He felt smug, spoilt for choice. Who did he screw next, Jovana or Vicky? Both of them offered serious money. Maybe they’d do three in a bed. He smiled at the thought and considered how many Viagra pills he would need to sustain himself for the duration. The pencil stopped in his fingers and he sneered. Decision time. Who would die immediately? Who would die later? Money. He picked up the pencil again. Whoever produced the money first would be the witness; the one who hesitated, would die. If he sexually goaded both on the way, it would make testimony to his bravery that more galling for the survivor. Afterwards he would give her to Zoby, or maybe, even himself. He had always found female subjugation most satisfying to his masculine problem. He would particularly enjoy it in Zellar’s case, on account of the demands she had made in promise of her money.

For a moment he watched the pencil turn in his fingers. It was a habit borne from concentration, the slow twiddling of his pencil, his talisman. It was the single item he retained from the life of Harry Woods, a ten-year-old who had won a scholarship to Westminster. It remained his first and only prize. In two, maybe three days time, Harry would need to re-emerge from the shadows. Without raising the bank’s suspicions, he had already transferred most of his assets into Harry’s New Jersey account, including half the funds from PKL. To draw on that account Harry had a legal passport and no current history to hinder him. The only thing that Harry did not have at present was a body.

The ringing of Caswell’s mobile brought him out of thought. Faulkner spoke.

“Richard, we might have a problem. That Fagan fellow, he’s nicked an in-house DVD with SPI on.”

“So what, he’s a pleb. That’s the sort of thing they do. He’ll never reach level ten, never see it.”

“Possibly, but I’ve just run through the CCTV security tapes because he was wondering round the building, then I checked what he did down here. He nicked the induction DVD with the ‘buy more shares’ prompt, then replaced it with another disk. If he was just stealing, wouldn’t he have nicked a complete set rather than an odd disk?”

“Extra thick people do that sort of thing.”

“And extra clever people bluff that way as a cover up. If he just wanted to play games, why was he wondering round the building looking at computer screens?”

“I’ll be down.” Richard stood and headed for the display floor. He had taken little notice of the husband, only a rich woman flashing her tits and legs.

Faulkner sat at the control desk tapping his finger on the software box. “What do we do? Working people are mainly polite and respectful, they don’t go walking through doors marked ‘keep out’.”

“OK, let’s assume they are police. What we research here is legit providing we don’t use it on the public. The guy’s stolen a DVD. That’s no evidence for a court,” Richard said, his mind suddenly in survival mode.

“They came here as members of the public. If they’re police, then we’re fucked. This is serious, Richard, very serious.” Faulkner shook his head. “I suggest we start cleaning the system now.”

“OK, if you’re that worried,” Richard said, trying not to show his own concern. “Go onto the Net and download our sanitising code to all public outlets. Phone the hotels; tell them all games are offline due to a virus and system failure. No one will argue it’s bullshit. Then activate our cleaning programme. We need all hard drives reformatted then overwritten with clean material.”

“That will take hours.”

Richard shrugged. “Say they are police, and there is no proof of that, by the time they’ve had the disk analysed and obtained search warrants, it will be days before they’re back. By then PKL will be saintly clean. Fagan could never prove that DVD was shown to him here. Neither could they prove it was shown to anyone else. It may hit PKL, but so what? We got plenty money. You and me, Derek, we’ll just start again.” Richard grinned.

Faulkner put hand to forehead. “I knew this would happen. We couldn’t scam it forever.”

“Philosophically taken.” Richard slapped Faulkner’s shoulder to express solidarity, then leant back against the control desk. For a moment he swallowed. It was time to start the endgame, time to move out. “The downside is Snibbsy. I hate to tell you this, mate, but you’d better start watching your back. You’re in charge out here and Snibbsy might blame you.”

Faulkner looked baffled. “Why? I’ve done nothing.”

“I know that, but Snibbard’s got a funny mind. I should have told you earlier. Snibbard may behave like a perverted little wanker, particularly where women are concerned, but underneath he’s a total freak. He thought Lizzie Sinclair was going to cough on us so he did for her. Once he got the taste he followed on with Helen Carter and Sarah Finch.”

“Fuck off will you? Never.”

Richard shrugged again. “Well, I know for a fact he raped those girls in Glasgow, because he told me.”

“Sidney Snibbard! That bloody toad wouldn’t have the nerve.” Faulkner shook his head again.

“But he did. And the last girl, if you remember, was stabbed. That frightened him. But I believe it also gave him the taste for blood. There’s an evil side to SPI and Snibbard’s been using it. He’s found a psychopath whom he’s nicknamed Zoby. It wouldn’t be difficult through private chat-boxes to flush out a total shithead. Apply SPI and you have yourself a remotely operated killer. Snibbard wouldn’t have the nerve, true. But he could remotely use someone else to rape and kill.”

Faulkner was looking at him with open mouth, his head shaking slowing from side to side.

“It’s difficult to believe, I know. I would not have done so myself unless I had positive proof,” Richard said. “I found a memory stick amongst our master files, hundreds of digital photos of the murdered women.”

“You’re fucking having me on, tell me you’re having me on. Why would he put them there?”

“To blame us. I didn’t place them there, you didn’t. I’ve never raped a woman, you’ve never raped a woman. Snibbard has. He’s the only other one with the combination to the safe. He’s the only one perverse enough to have those women killed in the manner they were. I don’t have to tell you how close I was to Sarah Finch.” Richard brushed his brow, looked away as he took a sharp intake of breath. “She helped me in the early days. We even talked of marriage.” He sighed, shook his head. “I believe you went out with Lizzie and got friendly with Helen?”

“You don’t think for one moment I had any involvement in their deaths?”

Richard looked back as if shocked. “No, Derek, of course not. And I’m only telling you about Snibbard because I have a high regard for you.”

“We should go to the police.”

“And fuck up everything we ever worked for? You would be incriminated, I would be incriminated. Snibbard would blame us for the murders and the SPI. You may have noticed from the papers that miscarriages of justice are quite common in this country.”

“Fuck.”

“In a nutshell, that’s why I’m saying, watch your back. If you have any doubts, I’ll show you the photos that Snibbard left in the safe.”

“I’ll come to London with you.”

“No. You’ve got work to do here. I’ll clean up at head office and we’ll meet there tomorrow. If that pair are police we’ll come out of this clean. Then we’ll deal with Snibbard.”

Faulkner’s face was ashen when Richard left and drove back to London. Now he had put his plan into motion he needed everything to fit perfectly.

Share value and interest in PKL was only maintained through SPI. With that gone, the sales would plummet. Zellar could have all she asked for, so could the Fagan woman. All he wanted was their money followed by their bodies. If Vicky was a policewoman then she could be the witness. Zellar could be the sacrificial offering; her price for feminine depravity. He had twenty-three of the twenty-five WorkWell flash drives containing SPI in a safety deposit box plus a copy on his laptop. The final two programmes would be ready in the next two days. It was vital Wileman had the full complement to officially put the WorkWell programme worldwide. Then Harry Woods, using his secret copy to portray him as a trusted supplier, could send SPI influences wherever he wanted. Richard was confident the stock markets would soon turn his few millions into billions. It all depended on Snibbard. Poor Snibbsy, poor Faulkner. As for Jovana and Vicky, “Got a mission for you, Zoby,” he said out loud as he headed down the motorway. “Except you ain’t going to have the fun this time, this time it’s mine.”

Richard arrived back in Shoreditch after the office had closed and went straight to terminal three. Using the main server he brought up the public relations info and tapped in Fagan. He was thinking if the Fagans had come from the Brighton hotel, would they have gone there under cover as police simply to get access to Milton Keynes? He doubted it. There were quicker routes to PKL investment, it was still possible they were genuine. He hoped so. It meant a million pounds of Fagan’s money remained available.

The monitor flicked through categories before stopping on a list of potential investors. There was only one Fagan on Saturday at the Morrison Hotel. He had given an address in Watford.

Richard checked with the phone book then connected to the hotel’s PKL rep. “Lucy, it’s Snibbard here,” he said. “I need some information.” He listened to her silence.

“Mr Snibbard from Shoreditch?” she questioned.

“PKL project manager in person, Lucy. Last Saturday you had a Mr Fagan who showed interest in investing. Did he have his wife with him?”

“Let me check my records, sir.” He heard her tap on keys and waited. Her voice came back seconds later. “I’ve no record of a wife but there were two daughters, Rebecca and Sophie Fagan. Both won new player incentive prizes, a trial set of PKL. We have their e-mail addresses. One for the prize-winners and one where the original hotel vouchers were sent. The hotel register does not tally with the address given with the bank details.”

“Is there a reference number for the original hotel vouchers?”

“Yes they had to give that for their prize details.” She read off the number. “We also have photos of the girls for our magazine.”

“OK, so I want everything emailed to terminal three, Shoreditch, now.” He switched off then brought the PKL agents’ list up on screen. He checked on incentive schemes then typed the voucher number into the allocations.

Miss Danielle Pointu came up, c/o S Fagan. This time the address was St Albans. A man of property, Richard thought. Or maybe one of them belonged to Vicky Fagan. This did not sound like police, certainly not if children were involved, but there was no harm in getting inquisitive. He had to know whom he was dealing with. Rebecca and Sophie sounded the most interesting names. If Vicky came over with the money, no problem. But if they were police or some other concern, then Zoby could have a field day. Operating him from America would be a very interesting experiment.

When Sean entered the Watford undercover house he sensed the atmosphere as empty and soulless. No human spirit had yet left its mark, no history coloured its atmosphere.

“We weren’t followed,” Sean said, placing the supermarket bag onto the kitchen worktop. “I kept a careful watch on the motorway, and a careful watch in the supermarket.”

“Didn’t think we would be.” Victoria dumped more carrier bags beside him. “But after I’ve met Caswell tomorrow, he might get more nosey. OK, I’ll leave you to put away. I’m going to sort the spare room for you.”