SEE HER
DIE
A totally gripping mystery thriller
Please note this book was first published as Now You See Me
Margaret Murphy
Detective Jeff Rickman Book 2
Revised edition 2020
Joffe Books, London
www.joffebooks.com
© Margaret Murphy
First published as Now You See Me in Great Britain 2005
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Margaret Murphy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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ISBN 978-1-78931-469-4
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Acknowledgments
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Chapter One
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Nine o’clock. Black sky, grey cloud. The street below Megan Ward’s window gleamed ghostly pale after a sudden shower. Cars crammed the length of the street, jostling for space, some with their near-side wheels on the kerb, narrowing the gap between the facing yellow-brick houses.
A man stood on the opposite kerb. He was tall, powerfully built, the trapezius muscles of his neck so thick that his head seemed to be jammed down onto his shoulders. He had been watching the house for fifteen minutes, while Megan watched him from the darkness of her room, her breathing shallow, fearful.
Some youths approached, heading for the pubs in Lark Lane, loud and full of swagger, but as they passed the man they fell silent, taking care to give him space, avoiding his eye.
What did he want from her? She sighed, and it caught on the out-breath. You know what he wants, and you brought this on yourself.
The front door opened and light spilled out from the hallway into the street. Oh, God — Sara!
Megan ran from her study onto the landing, yelling Sara’s name. Down the stairs, hearing the chink of milk bottles and the dull ring as one fell over and rolled.
‘Sara!’ She leapt the last few steps, stumbling and almost cannoning into her friend as she ran back inside.
‘Megan, what is it?’
Megan slammed the door closed and stood panting with her back braced against it. ‘He’s out there,’ she gasped.
Sara’s hand went to her mouth. Her face, strong and clear-eyed in normal circumstances, looked small and pinched, but her terror was only fleeting. She quickly reached for the door handle, with a look of angry determination.
Megan spread her arms wide. ‘No. Sara — don’t.’
Sara wore her honey-blonde hair shoulder length, curling softly. Now she tucked it behind her ears and tilted her chin. ‘You can’t let him terrorize you like this, Megan,’ she said. ‘You have to confront him.’
Megan’s eyes widened. ‘Please, Sara—’ Sara didn’t know — how could she know the danger in confronting this man? ‘Don’t,’ she said again, hearing the plea in her own voice, feeling tears prick her eyes. Sara’s face blurred.
‘He’s stalking you, Megan,’ Sara said. ‘You have a right to protection.’
You’re wrong, Megan thought. He isn’t stalking me, he’s watching me. How could she explain to Sara that his blatant surveillance was far more threatening than a mere obsession? She tried to find the words but could find none. She trusted Sara as she had trusted nobody else in fifteen years, but she knew that Sara would not — could never — understand.
‘At least call the police,’ Sara said, made impatient by Megan’s silence.
‘I did — remember? It did no good.’
Sara’s hand clenched and released. ‘I just — I’m concerned, Megan, that’s all.’
Megan knew that Sara believed in due process, in the fairness of the system, the protection afforded by the Law to the weak and defenceless.
Megan said, ‘I’ll telephone tomorrow — talk to the detective.’ The one who was supposed to be handling her case. An exercise in futility. But who was she to challenge Sara’s illusions — of safety, of a fair world in which violent men were brought to justice? Sara had relied on her beliefs for thirty-four years of life. They made her strong; her belief that goodness always had the advantage had given her the confidence to rebuild her life after her husband’s slow death from multiple sclerosis. It had given her the courage to follow a career in a male-dominated profession, to allow Megan — a stranger — into her home, and to make a friend of her. Megan would do nothing to injure that confidence, or damage their friendship. ‘I promise,’ she said, ‘I’ll talk to him.’
Sara released her grip on the door handle and looked into Megan’s face. ‘Don’t let fear paralyse you, Megan,’ she said.
* * *
Megan knew fear; its terrain, its high crags that sparked energy and possibilities as well as its low silt-marshes that stranded you, sucking you down and sapping your strength, turning fear to terror. She also knew how to use fear — even welcomed the familiar thrill of accelerated heart rate, the fast fizz of brain activity, the tunnel vision of an adrenaline high. It could work when, close to a breakthrough in the dead hours of night, exhausted beyond sleep
, something clicked and the thick pulse of fear and elation screamed at her to go on or lose the chance for ever. At such times, it was this counterpoint between fear and elation that made her complete the arc, follow the logic through, make the connections when the end point proved difficult — even dangerous.
This time, though, fear made her sick and debilitated; dragging her deeper and deeper as she struggled in a quagmire of indecision. She was ready to give up. It had never been like this before. Sure, she had been afraid, but in the past, she had evaluated the situation, basing her decision to go on or abandon the project on the balance of risk versus possible reward. Sara was the new factor in the equation. Though too young to act as surrogate mother, Sara had offered Megan her home and her trust, and with it a different view — one more generous than life had previously taught her, one which allowed the possibility of hope, and brought with it the cancer of weakness.
She kept vigil at her window, planning, dreaming, walking through each possible scenario and working out a course of action. Her face, faintly sketched in profile on the glass, was long and serious, the nose thin, delicate. Her dark hair broke like silk at her shoulders. She watched cars pass, the silences between them growing longer; a taxi rattled to a halt a few doors down and three girls tumbled out, laughing, drunk. Foot-passengers, then late-night drinkers, a dog-walker, patiently stopping at every lamp post, waiting while his terrier marked its territory. Finally the clubbers, paired off after the ritual of dance, booze and sweat. Pheromones and testosterone, the perfumes of sexual adventure.
But the watcher did not return.
Chapter Two
The central office of Safe Hands Security was unusually quiet; it was only a little past ten p.m. and night pick-ups were a feature: Patrick Doran believed in randomising schedules, from cash transport to perimeter checks on low-level premises. It reduced the risk of potential attacks and kept his men from developing sloppy habits. In the general run of things, technicians would use CCTV links to check that delivery and pick-up times were met, that hand-overs were efficiently enacted, and sign-off protocols were followed to the letter.
Tonight, he had sent nearly all of the office personnel home. Computer monitors cast a moonlight glow in the open-plan office, and the low-frequency hum, normally imperceptible beneath the constant activity in the room, could be felt as an increase in pressure, a faint, subliminal sound: sea music, whale song. Nathan Wilde, Systems Manager, internet surfer and some-time hacker, a recent graduate in computer science, was used to working in a welter of noise from his MP3 player — techno-rhythms and the anthems of The Grateful Dead. He felt the silence as a void, and under it the dull sub-sonic drone of computers sounded like whispered warnings.
Nathan was joined by John Warrender, head of security, an ex-cop who trusted nobody and missed nothing. Warrender had retired early; he worked out and watched his weight and he was fitter in his mid-fifties than Nathan was in his twenties.
Not that Nathan was fat; a little soft, maybe — all those late-night sessions on the Net and a reliance on internet-prescribed pills to keep him functioning in the daytime. He was average height and build, with a sallow complexion that tended to flush brick-red when embarrassed; he wore his hair short and in waxed spikes.
Neither man spoke, which Nathan noted as a second anomaly: Warrender might not say much, but he did like to assert his position in any situation; generally he did this by asking a series of rapid questions, listening to the answers as though convinced they were a tissue of lies, and only then falling silent. Even before his arrival, they both felt the power of Doran’s presence.
They stood outside Doran’s office: Nathan, rumpled and glassy-eyed from working twenty hours straight with only caffeine, chemical cocktails and Cadbury mini-rolls to keep him going; Warrender clean-shaven and suited, fresh from the gym.
Doran came in, walking a straight line between the computer stations. If he was worried, he didn’t show it. Nathan sensed anger but could read nothing in his boss’s face. Doran glanced at both Nathan and Warrender without speaking, then swiped his card key through the reader with a precision and force that made Nathan flinch.
Doran had the blue eyes and dark hair of the west-coast Irish, though he was born and raised in Liverpool, and had never even visited the mother country. Small, snub-nosed and slight, he looked younger than his forty-five years and could turn on the charm, smoothing the hard edges off his guttural scouse, blurring the ‘t’s and softening the vowels to a facsimile of his father’s Westport accent. The girls in the office loved it; safe in the knowledge that he was a family man, and not one to take advantage of a little gentle flirtation.
He entered, pocketing the key like a magician performing sleight of hand, then turned to his head of security and systems manager, still standing in the doorway of his office.
‘Are you waiting for an invitation, or what?’ Today, his accent was pure scouse; the words rattled off like hailstones on glass.
They stepped inside, Warrender first. The room was windowless, lit by strip-lights behind frosted glass panels. A dark wood desk took up a third of the room, a bank of CCTV screens occupied one corner — Doran was not a trusting employer.
‘We’ve been hacked,’ Doran said. The ‘k’ sounded at the back of his throat, like an expectoration. ‘My business account is wiped out.’
Nathan looked at the tops of his Nike air trainers and said nothing.
Warrender sucked air through his teeth. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘It’s bad, but not disastrous.’
‘Well, I’m glad you feel like that, John,’ Doran said, an undercurrent of threat in the bass notes of his voice. ‘I was thinking of making up the shortfall out of your salary.’
Warrender smiled weakly. ‘I meant to say that your business account is kept healthy but not flush — so the rest of your funds are safe, yeah?’
Doran watched him for a moment and Nathan, risking a quick glance up from his shoes, saw beads of sweat pop out on the security chief’s forehead. While his female employees found Doran a reassuring, even avuncular figure, men received quite different signals. And Warrender, despite his easy authority and physical strength, was not immune.
‘My personal accounts are safe,’ Doran said.
‘You’re sure about that, are you?’ Nathan was horrified to hear his own voice. Doran turned his attention to him and he immediately began what he thought of as the Ritual of the Gibberish: any conversation with Doran always ended this way. ‘I mean he’s in. Like, the system.’ He puzzled over it for a moment. ‘Maybe a Trojan, or a backdoor, but once he’s in he’s in — he can do . . . whatever — because these guys just like to mess with your head — and if he’s got into the business account . . . ’Cos accounts — business, computer, bank — they’re all the same, aren’t they — I mean in essence?’
Doran waited a few moments. ‘Finished?’ he asked.
Nathan nodded, his head not feeling entirely secure on his neck.
Doran looked at Warrender. ‘Translation?’
Warrender’s eyes slid over Nathan like he was looking at something particularly nasty on the sole of his shoe. ‘He thinks the hacker can get into your personal accounts because he’s got access to the system whenever he wants it, and computer and bank accounts both use the same process: a name and a password or PIN number.’
Doran’s eyes never left Nathan’s face, and Nathan felt dark colour rising into his cheeks. ‘My personal accounts are not accessible from the business network,’ Doran said. ‘My home PC is not linked to the business network. So. Am I safe?’
‘Ever use your personal Visa or Switch card for online purchases?’ Nathan asked, forcing more courage into his voice than he felt.
‘Not on the business network.’ Doran’s voice was calm, but his eyes looked as deep and dangerous as Pacific waters.
Nathan looked away again. ‘Ever write to your bank, quoting account details in the text?’ It was easier to remain lucid if he didn’t have to look at his boss.
Doran had to think about this. ‘Not from work,’ he said after a short deliberation. ‘I always use my home PC.’
Nathan nodded. ‘You’re safe — from this guy, anyway.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I can’t guarantee immunity from hackers, boss.’
‘Can we stick to the present problem?’ Doran said. ‘Just for now? How did he get in? You use a firewall, don’t you?’
‘Yes . . .’ This was the one question Nathan dreaded most. The firewall worked on two levels: the first knocked back suspect requests to access the work system just as a bouncer might turn back undesirables at a night club; the second level warned the systems manager that an attempt had been made to breach security — equivalent to the bouncer radioing through to his colleagues to warn of trouble at the door.
Doran heard the hesitation. ‘Tell me you’re operating a firewall,’ he said.
‘Yes, Mr Doran, of course I am. It’s just — I altered the config so it doesn’t send me pop-up alerts.’
Doran closed his eyes for a second. ‘Look at me, Nathan.’
Nathan got a flash of Doran slicing his key card through the reader, like he was slashing the hacker’s throat. Or maybe a systems manager who had messed up and just happened to be close by.
Nathan looked at him, but not full-on.
‘Do you see a ponytail?’ Doran asked.
‘No . . .’
‘How about a pocket protector for all my multicoloured gel pens?’
‘No, boss,’ Nathan said. Taking the piss, he thought. They always have to take the piss.
‘No ponytail, no pocket protector — and you know why?’ Doran waited until Nathan shook his head. ‘It’s because I am not some anorak who might understand your meaningless babble.’
Geek, you moron, Nathan thought, impotent rage and humiliation making him flush even more deeply. I’m not a friggin’ anorak, I’m a computer geek.
SEE HER DIE a totally gripping mystery thriller (Detective Jeff Rickman Book 2) Page 1