Strange Affair

“None at all. Just that she had to go. Right then. But that’s just like her.”

“Oh?”

“What I mean is that she wasn’t very forthcoming about what she was doing, where she was going. Even if I needed to know when she’d be back, for meals and such. She could be very inconsiderate.” Kate put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, listen to me. How terrible.” She started crying.

“It’s all right,” said A

“No, not exactly frightened. But she was pale, as if she’d had a shock or something.”

“Have you any idea who made the call?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“What did you do after she left?”

“Watched the rest of the film and went to bed. Look, what’s happened? Did she have a car crash? Was that it? It can’t have been her fault. She was always a careful driver and she never drank over the limit.”

“It’s nothing like that,” said A

“Then what? Please tell me.”

She’d have to find out sooner or later, A

“Je

“Shot?” Kate echoed. “No… she… But I don’t understand…”

“Neither do we, Kate. That’s what we’re trying to find out. Do you know of anyone who would want to harm her?”

“Harm Je

Kate put the glass down, but she missed the edge of the table. It fell to the floor and shattered. She stood up and put her hand to her mouth, then, without warning, her eyes turned up, and before A

“Look,” said Corrine, “are you sure we should be doing this? These are Roy’s private business files, after all.”

“It’s a bit late to get squeamish now,” said Banks. “Besides,” he said, gesturing to the CD, “maybe it’s just more of the same.”

Cori

“And given Roy’s concern with privacy,” said Banks, “that probably means there’s nothing really confidential on it.” Or nothing incriminating, he thought.

“So what’s the point?”

“Perhaps it’s something he wanted me to find and read. He’d know I’d be no good at cracking passwords and such. Besides, I need anything I can get. Business contacts, activities, habits, anything.”

“There’s quite a mix of stuff,” said Cori

“Can you print it out?”

“Some of it.” Cori

“Can you also copy the contents to another thingamajig?”

“You mean a removable USB hard drive?”

“Whatever. Can you do it?”

“Of course I can. Or at least I could if I had a spare one. Will a CD do?”

“Fine,” Banks said. “Just as long as we have a copy. The CD, as well.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

“I’m going to post it to myself,” said Banks. “That way I’ll have a backup.”

“But it might mean nothing at all. Maybe Roy’s just run off with his new girlfriend. Have you thought of that?”

Banks had. “Look,” he said, “it’s true that I don’t know Roy very well, and I’ll take your word that he’s an imaginative and bold businessman rather than a crooked one, but you didn’t hear the phone call. He sounded scared, Cori

Cori

“Has he ever mentioned that possibility?”

“No. But you hear about it sometimes, don’t you?”

“Not that often. But trust me,” Banks said, “something’s wrong. There are just too many loose ends. The missing computer, for a start. If someone went to the trouble to take Roy’s entire computer and all the storage devices they could find, then doesn’t that seem suspicious to you? They only missed the USB drive and the CD because both were hidden.” Hidden in plain view, Banks might have added, like Poe’s purloined letter. “According to his neighbor Malcolm Farrow, when Roy got in the car with the other man, neither was carrying anything. Someone must have gone back and taken the computer stuff between about half past nine last night and the time I arrived early this afternoon.”

“Has it occurred to you that he might have come back and taken it himself?” Cori

“Why should he? Where would he have taken it? Besides, his car’s still in the garage. He doesn’t own another, does he?”

“No. Just his darling Porsche. You’re right, if he went anywhere, he’d have taken the Porsche. He loves that car.”

“I don’t suppose he has another house, does he? Somewhere he’d go if he had to make a run for it? A villa on the Algarve, perhaps?”

“Roy’s not particularly fond of Portugal. And he doesn’t own a place in Tuscany or Provence, or anywhere else, as far as I know. At least he never took me to one. He loves travel and holidays, but he says it’s too much hassle owning property abroad. It ties you down to just one place.”

“He’s probably right.”

Cori

Banks put his hand on her shoulder, then took it away quickly, not wanting her to get the wrong idea. She didn’t react. “I’ll find Roy,” he said. “But let’s have a look at some of these files first. They might help us find out where to start looking. You know more about his business affairs than I do.”

“That’s not saying much. Anyway, there’s nothing here that looks even the remotest bit dodgy.”

“How can you tell?”

Cori

“So there’s no way of telling?”

As Cori

“What about the Money files?”

“Simple income and expenditure. Company profit-and-loss sheets. Investment returns. Bank statements. Some offshore banking. His finances are in pretty good shape.”

“Roy did a lot of offshore banking?”

“Anyone working at his level of income has to. It’s a matter of keeping tax liabilities as low as possible. It’s not illegal. Mostly we’re looking at memos and correspondence here. You are, of course, welcome to examine them all at your leisure, especially as you took them in the first place, but I’d say you’d be wasting your time. Roy’s on the board of a few hi-tech companies, mostly interested in miniature information-storage devices, like that USB hard drive, flash memory cards, that sort of thing. Given the way the world’s going, with mobiles, digital cameras, PDAs, MP3 players, and various combinations, it seems a wise enough area to be in. Smaller is better. As a board member, he’s paid dividends.”