Trading Reality (33 page)

I couldn’t help smiling. ‘So, tell me.’

‘Oh yes. Well, I flew down to Los Angeles yesterday morning. Jonathan Bergey came from Santa Monica, which isn’t too far from the airport. His parents live in a nice middle-class neighbourhood. They were both in when I got there. Bergey used to be a schoolteacher, but had to retire when he was traumatised by a killing in the classroom. He said he had received a settlement from the school system. Apparently, the metal detector hadn’t picked up the gun the kid carried to school.’

‘So he sued?’

‘I suppose he must have done,’ said Rachel, thoughtfully. ‘Anyway, he says that his son had been playing our virtual reality system in an amusement centre all evening. He rode back that night on his motorbike, and wrapped himself round a tree.’

‘Was there any evidence that the machine had anything to do with it?’

‘Not really,’ said Rachel. ‘One of the kids with him said he seemed woozy afterwards. An attendant at the amusement centre said he saw Jonathan stagger a bit just before he got on the bike.’

‘Could he have been drunk?’

‘Apparently not. They don’t serve alcohol on the premises.’

‘So, what happened then?’

‘Well, Bergey said he knew a good lawyer, who wrote us a letter. Then, a week later, another lawyer called Todd Sutherland showed up. He said he was acting for FairSystems. He put pressure on Bergey to drop the case. I told Bergey we didn’t know any Todd Sutherland. I asked him what sort of pressure this man had used.

‘Bergey wouldn’t tell me. But he said a couple of weirdos from a group called BOWL had been trying to persuade him to take up the case again.’

‘BOWL, eh? Still, it’s hardly surprising they followed up that letter. But how did this Todd Sutherland get Bergey to drop the case?’

‘I think I found out later,’ said Rachel. ‘What really bothered me was that our systems posed a health and safety threat. After all the testing we’ve done, there really shouldn’t be that sort of problem.’

‘Quite right.’

‘So, I asked in a local shop where the nearest high school was. I went there at lunchtime, bluffed my way in, and sort of mixed in with the students. I asked about Jonathan. It didn’t take long to find out – the story was well known around the school. Jonathan liked to play virtual reality games when he was high on LSD.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘So this Sutherland character found out that Jonathan Bergey was stoned when he crashed his motorbike, and told his father that?’

‘I think so,’ Rachel said.

‘Poor guy,’ I said.

‘What, the dad? Yes, he seemed pretty angry about it. I felt bad talking to him.’

‘That would explain why Doogie took his time to publicise the letter. And why he never wanted to show the details to journalists. It wouldn’t have taken them long to find out what really happened.’

‘That’s right,’ said Rachel. ‘But Doogie was gambling that Richard wouldn’t know the full story. He was bluffing. Rather than publish the letter straight away and have it discredited, he hoped he could use it as leverage against Richard. And then you.’

‘But it didn’t work.’

‘No. So eventually he ended up making the allegations anyway, but without the evidence to back them up.’

It made sense.

‘So, how can we find out who Todd Sutherland is?’

‘Done it,’ said Rachel smiling. ‘I thought I’d heard the name before. I spoke to David yesterday, and he confirmed that Sutherland does legal work for one of our customers.’

‘Jenson Computer?’

‘No,’ said Rachel. ‘Onada Industries.’

‘Onada?’ I shook my head. ‘This just doesn’t make sense.’

We were getting close to Glenrothes, but I didn’t want to drop Rachel off yet. There was a lot I wanted to talk to her about.

‘Do you fancy a drink?’ I asked.

‘Do I ever.’

‘Do you know any good places around here?’

She directed me to a pleasant pub with a garden, and I ordered a pint of bitter for me, and a glass of red wine for her.

We sat at an outside table with wooden benches. The beer tasted good. ‘What’s going on here, Rachel?’

‘I don’t know. I thought about it a lot in California. You know, I hoped that distance would give me a better sense of perspective.’

‘And did it?’

‘Not really. I mean, I can see lots of the pieces, but none of them seem to fit together.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘But let’s go through them. It seems pretty clear that Jenson is trying to get control of FairSystems some how or other. And we do know that Hartman has been buying our shares.’

‘Is there any connection between Jenson and Hartman?’

‘None that Steve knew of.’ I thought a moment. ‘But then of course Hartman has been buying shares through Wagner Phillips. And they are Jenson’s broker. Maybe Scott Wagner is co-ordinating it all?’

‘Do you think David’s involved?’ Rachel asked.

‘Could be. What do you think?’

‘I think it’s highly likely. He’s just too smug about our position. He wants FairSystems sold.’

‘And then there’s Onada. They want our source code, and we won’t give it to them. And they tried to shut up Bergey. Do you think that’s all they’re doing?’

‘Who knows?’ said Rachel, draining her glass. ‘Can I get you another one?’

‘Just a half.’

She was gone a couple of minutes. It gave me some moments to think.

She returned with my drink. ‘Thanks.’ I took a sip of the beer. ‘You know, Rachel, there’s something else we can’t ignore.’

‘What’s that’

‘Richard’s murder.’

Rachel flinched.

‘Look, I know you’d rather not think about it,’ I said. ‘But his company was the only thing in his life, it
was
his life. We’re not just talking about someone taking over FairSystems. We’re talking about someone killing Richard.’

Rachel’s bottom lip quivered. She took a couple of deep breaths. ‘I know you’re right. And you’re also right that I haven’t been able to bring myself to think about his death. It’s just too . . . horrible.’ She wiped a tear from her eye.

‘Sorry.’ I touched her hand.

‘No. I’ve got to face up to it some time.’ She sniffed. ‘I’m OK. Carry on.’

She didn’t look OK, but I continued anyway. ‘If we’re right, and Jenson is trying to get control of FairSystems, you can bet Richard would have done his best to block him. So Jenson might have had a motive to get rid of him.’

‘But was he even in the country?’

‘I don’t know. But he wouldn’t have to be. He could have got someone else to kill him.’ I groped through the possibilities. ‘David Baker, perhaps. Sergeant Cochrane said David didn’t have an alibi for that Saturday.’

Rachel shuddered and shook her head. ‘I can’t believe any of it. OK, maybe Carl Jenson is obsessive, and maybe David Baker is a weasel, but I can’t imagine them actually killing anyone. I’ve worked with both of them for years.’

I raised up my hands resignedly. ‘I know what you mean. But murder does happen, and the murderers don’t wander around with a label on their foreheads.’

We fell silent, thinking. ‘There is one man who’s crazy enough to kill somebody,’ Rachel said.

‘You mean Doogie?’

‘Ah ha.’

‘I can believe he’s capable of it.’ I crossed my legs as I remembered my last meeting with him and his dog. ‘But it doesn’t look like it. Sergeant Cochrane says that he was hooked up to the Internet all morning.’

Rachel frowned. ‘How do they know that?’

‘I think Cochrane said that they checked with the people who run the network. I don’t know. Presumably he would have to log on, and that would be recorded somewhere.’

‘Yes, it would,’ said Rachel. ‘But that would be the easiest thing in the world to fake. Especially for someone like Doogie. He could get one of his Internet buddies to log on to his machine under his name whilst he was out doing whatever he was doing. And you’d never find out.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘So it could have been Doogie after all.’

‘Ah ha.’

‘Well, whoever it is, I’m determined they’re not going to get away with it. They’ve taken Richard’s life, and there’s nothing I can do about that now, but they won’t take his company. I won’t let them!’

Rachel looked up, surprised by the anger in my voice. Suddenly, she looked worried. ‘Mark?’

‘Yes? What is it?’

‘If you’re right and Richard was killed because he got in the way of someone’s plans for FairSystems . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘Well. They might go after you next.’

She was right. The thought had occurred to me, but I had tried to ignore it. I didn’t want to let it scare me. It just goaded me on.

We sat in silence a while. The anger slowly subsided. It was a warm evening, and other drinkers were beginning to join us outside at the tables. A sudden breeze swept through the garden, sending paper napkins flying, and blowing Rachel’s tangled hair across her face. As she pulled it out of her eyes, she smiled at me. Her concern for me had been quite touching. I was growing used to her company. I even enjoyed it.

I thought of Richard and Rachel. He had, I supposed, mentioned her before, but what he had said about her had never sunk in. I wondered if he had appreciated what an extraordinary woman she was. I imagined them talking together about the wilder shores of virtual reality, his eyes calm and steady, listening to everything she had to say. Had she been cool, unsmiling, calculating with him, I wondered. Or had that broad smile I had sometimes glimpsed shone through? I could see her staring at him in admiration with those warm eyes.

I was curious about her. I asked her about her family. She was happy to talk.

‘I was brought up in Hillhead, a “nice” part of Glasgow. My parents taught at the local school. Physics and mathematics, in case you were wondering. I was a real little star pupil until I hit thirteen, and then I dropped out.’

‘That’s a bit young, isn’t it?’ I asked.

‘Not in Glasgow, it isn’t. I skived off classes, smoked, drank. By the time I was fifteen, I was into drugs. I got five O grades, but that was only because my mother begged me to show up to the exams.’ Rachel drained her glass.

‘When I was sixteen, I started taking heroin. Injecting it. I took it a couple of times. I thought it was great.’ She sighed. ‘Just then my best mate collapsed. She’d been doing heroin for a year or so. Her parents took her off to a clinic. I went to visit her there. It was a horrible sight.

‘Suddenly, I could see clearly what I was doing to myself. I stopped the drugs. And I started listening in some of the maths classes. Despite myself, I found it fascinating. The school had some computers, and I began to mess around on them. I didn’t have anything to do with the other computer nerds of course, but I thought if I was interested in the machines, why shouldn’t I learn about them? My mates thought I was mad.

‘I did pretty well in my Highers, went to Edinburgh to study Computer Science and then went on to the Department of Artificial Intelligence. That’s where I came across Richard and virtual reality. The rest, you know.’

‘What made you do it?’ I asked, fascinated.

‘Drop out, you mean?’ Rachel shrugged. ‘I’ve asked myself that many times. I don’t know, it’s not like I hated my parents or anything. I was just bored, I suppose. I found school boring, I found my parents boring, Hillhead was boring. I wanted a bit of excitement. And I wanted to make my own way.’

She nodded to the empty glass of wine. ‘And I’m not completely reformed now.’

‘You drink a lot, don’t you?’

‘Ah ha,’ she said. ‘I always have done. And I’ve been drinking more since Richard died. Mind you, I drink steadily. I don’t get drunk. I find it relaxes me. Helps me get through the night.’

She saw the way I was looking at her. ‘You’re right, I do drink too much. I definitely smoke too much. And I have a lousy diet and I don’t sleep enough. It’ll be a miracle if I make it past thirty-five. And I don’t really care.’

‘I do,’ I said without thinking.

She glanced at me in surprise.

‘I mean, you ought to look after yourself.’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

We sat in silence, watching the other drinkers in the garden. A group of six or seven young men sat down, each with glasses brimming with beer, laughing loudly at each other’s jokes.

‘Did you have many boyfriends?’ I asked.

She laughed. ‘I did when I was young. I don’t know how many boys, and men, I had before I was sixteen. I was dead lucky not to get pregnant. But then I sort of lost interest. I had other things to think about.

‘There was a boy called Ewan at Edinburgh, but he couldn’t handle me. He was too nice.’

I gave voice to the question hanging in the air. ‘And Richard?’

‘Richard . . .’ she smiled to herself. ‘No, nothing happened with Richard. Our relationship was much too important to risk with sex.’

I supposed that made some kind of sense. She was a strange woman, Rachel. Despite her screwed-up background and her solitary existence, she had somehow managed to achieve a sort of self-contained serenity. She led her life in her own way, and she was happy with it. I admired the way she had managed to pull herself back from teenage self-destruction.

‘So, tell me about you,’ she said.

‘Well, my father is a maths teacher too, though at university.’

She was smiling at me. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Richard told me.’

It should have occurred to me that over the years Richard would have told her all about our family, but somehow it hadn’t. With a start, I realised that Richard may well have spoken about me. I wondered what he would have said. The guilt came back in waves. Perhaps he had told her about that last argument we’d had. I hoped not.

Rachel was watching me. She knew I was thinking about him. ‘You’re quite different, you know,’ she said.