Gatecrasher

by Robert Young

  'I know. It took me a while. Then I got a pretty good demonstration as to its significance.'

  'But why? I mean, why steal this? What good is it?'

  'If I could find out what I have found out with just a little application and initiative then you can bet there are a few people who can do the same, or don't need to because they already know.'

  She said nothing but looked up at him from the table.

  'Maybe they want to blackmail your boss? Perhaps simply discredit the company so some competitor can win a few more contracts, run you out of business. Maybe they are going after Asquith or Horner. I mean you know who Geoffrey Asquith is right?'

  She shook her head. 'An MP or something isn't he?'

  'Exactly. A member of the Cabinet no less. That's where my money is at a good guess - I mean, that seems the most obvious right? But I don't know how or why. Or even who.'

  'Surely you know who. You met them.'

  Campbell shook his head. 'I think they were just muscle. Something about them just didn't seem right in light of this. It's way out of their league I think. This is far too sophisticated for their type. There's someone behind the scenes who knows exactly what they are doing.'

  'Or did. I don't suppose they planned on losing the memory stick.'

  'No, I suppose not.'

  'You said that you thought my boss might be involved too?' said Sarah.

  'Possibly. I mean everything about this is very murky so who knows who is involved and who isn't? Maybe they had ties before he bought them out. Maybe he knows all about what went on and is looking to blackmail them.'

  'Have you gone to the police with this?'

  He shook his head emphatically.

  'If people like Asquith and Horner are involved then why should I trust the authorities?' he said 'These are powerful men. If they want to keep this quiet they will and that doesn't bode well for me. Maybe your boss is involved too, maybe there is more to him than meets the eye. Maybe I have some mysterious accident when I walk out of the police station.'

  'I think you're overreacting.'

  'Am I? Really?' he said and hoisted up his sweater to reveal a dark rainbow of colour spreading out across his ribs.

  She gasped at the sight of it and instinctively reached out to touch the huge bruise. Campbell pulled away.

  'OK, maybe you're right. But if you're in trouble so am I,' she said suddenly indignant.

  Campbell shook his head. 'Nobody knows who you are. They know about me but not you. So far as anybody else is concerned you are on holiday visiting your parents for a few days. You briefly met some small-time journalist called Owen Michaels the other night. But you have never heard of or laid eyes on Daniel Campbell before.'

  She was quiet for a moment. 'I guess you're right. But then why me? Why did you come to me?'

  'Because there's no-one else. Because you can help me. Because you're on the inside.'

  'How Daniel? Help you do what?'

  She stared at him, waiting for an answer that didn't come, staring at the angry red swelling that almost closed his eye over. At the dark bruise that ringed it and spread down across his cheek to join with another, darker one, at the swollen, cut lip. She did not repeat the question.

  38

  Thursday. 6.30pm.

  When Sarah shut the door behind her Campbell awoke suddenly and found himself with his head on the table in front of the laptop which was still on. There was a small patch of drool pooled around his cheek and for a moment he felt disoriented and alarmed.

  'Fall asleep?' she said as she moved through into the kitchen with a bag of groceries.

  Campbell felt as if he were barely even awake and rubbed at his eyes and wiped his cheek. He didn't say anything.

  Sarah walked back through to the living room where Campbell sat and looked closely at him. 'You look shattered. No surprise really after everything?'

  Campbell raised his eyebrows and nodded.

  'I got some food for you and stuff. Toothpaste, teabags,' she went on, tilting her head toward the kitchen. 'You can stay here tonight. If you want. I mean, I don't think you have anywhere else to go do you?'

  He shook his head.

  'Then it makes sense doesn't it? I mean you look terrible too. You must really need some sleep.'

  He nodded and looked a little taken aback by the reference to his appearance and began patting his hair down, conscious that it looked a mess.

  'I, uh, I got quite a bit of food,' Sarah said, walking back toward the kitchen and calling over her shoulder. She seemed edgy somehow, more uncomfortable than when she had been with him earlier in the day.

  'Thanks,' Campbell replied.

  Had something happened whilst she was out? Had she decided to call someone after all? He imagined Sarah being told to come back, to keep him there while they sent someone. Certainly she had been pretty shaken by the things he'd told her and had mentioned going to the police. But this seemed like a distinct change in the way she was acting.

  Campbell yawned and stretched in the chair and rolled his head back on his shoulders, feeling his neck click. His head was throbbing and the awkward position that he had fallen asleep in had doubled the pain in his ribs. Campbell stood up slowly and rubbed his hands lightly over his sides. He noticed that the bandages that he had wrapped around his wrists were starting to show red patches underneath where they had begun to weep and bleed.

  He started through to the kitchen where Sarah had begun to unpack the shopping. She straightened quickly and looked tense.

  'Plenty of food,' he said.

  Sarah blushed slightly and turned away. Campbell frowned and started to wonder if he was just being paranoid.

  'Hope you're hungry.'

  'I hope so too. Wouldn't want this to go to waste.'

  Sarah turned and looked at him again. She opened her mouth and then closed it. Campbell looked at her for a moment and decided that he wasn't being paranoid. Before he could speak she did.

  'I, uh, don't suppose you really have anything to do this evening? I thought that I might keep you company for a bit.'

  Campbell noticed that as she spoke she seemed to draw herself up again, to dispel the nerves and awkwardness that he'd seen there before and now looked full of the calm self-assurance that seemed so much a part of her.

  'I got enough for two?' she said with a shrug as if that settled it, she might as well stay now.

  'No, I hadn't got round to making plans yet,' he replied with a hint of a smile.

  'Don't over do it will you? I could go if you'd rather?'

  'No, no. I'm kidding Sarah? That's very kind of you. Thank you.'

  There was a moment of silence that was broken by Sarah busying herself with the groceries, rustling bags and tossing things into the refrigerator.

  'Oh, I put the boiler on when I left so there should be hot water.'

  'OK. Great.'

  'I thought you could use a shower or a bath or something,' she added by way of an explanation.

  Suddenly Campbell could think of nothing else in the whole world that he would rather do to soothe the aches and pains that seemed to cover him from his head down through to his feet. He thanked her again and turned and made for the stairs, grabbing his bag on the way through where he had had the presence of mind that morning to throw in a few toiletries.

  He drew a hot bath and sank slowly into it, the water stinging the more tender bruising on his ribs and the graze on his knee that he had noticed that morning and one on his elbow that he hadn't. He must have picked those up sprawling across the tube platform.

  With weary surprise he noted that had only been around twelve hours beforehand. How much had happened in so short a period? Campbell could barely take it in even now. When he had recounted things to Sarah it didn't seem as if this had all started only five days previously. It had taken almost no time at all to have come so far, for his life to unravel so completely. How long would it be before he could get back to normal he wondered. More to the point, was that
even likely?

  He closed his eyes and slid right under the water for a moment pushing away the thoughts and the pain and just trying to relax. The hot water gradually began to do its work and the aching started slowly to subside.

  In thirty minutes he was back in the living room where Sarah was looking through a newspaper at the table. She looked up as he walked in.

  'Better?'

  He nodded. 'Yes thanks. Much.'

  'You look better.'

  'I needed that.'

  'Dinner's cooking. Hungry?'

  'I should be,' he said. 'But I don't feel that hungry really. Sorry.'

  Sarah looked a little disappointed but did well to hide it. 'Well it will be ready in about half an hour anyway. Maybe you'll have an appetite then.'

  Campbell felt stupid all of a sudden. She had gone well out of her way for him already and didn't need to be here at all, let alone making him dinner. The least he could do was feign enthusiasm, even if he didn't actually feel it.

  He opted to say nothing else rather than risk making it worse and he moved to the sofa and sat down quietly and closed his eyes.

  For ten minutes neither said a word. Sarah read the paper and Campbell sat wondering whether he should make polite conversation but then stopped himself, worried that she would think he was doing it just to make up for the previous comment.

  Finally Sarah closed the paper and turned in her chair. 'So. What's on your mind? You're very quiet. Still a bit shaken up I guess?'

  'A bit, yeah,' he replied but he couldn't hide the distance in his eyes. He wasn't sure about telling her what he had been looking at whilst she had gone out before he fell asleep.

  'Something else?'

  Campbell was staring into space across the room. He nodded vaguely.

  'Something important?'

  He nodded again. 'Think so.'

  'Come on Daniel, what's up? Tell me.'

  He ran his hands over his face and inhaled deeply. 'I think?' he started. 'I think I know who's behind all this. And why.'

  39

  Thursday. 11pm.

  She could see little through the window of the bus as it swept through the wet London night but she stared at the glass all the same, determined to avoid eye contact with the drunk young men who sat nearby and stared over regularly looking for an excuse to speak to her.

  Normally she would take a cab, but cabs were hard to find on a wet night and she wasn't too far from home and anyway, until the last stop she had been sat with two friends. Now she was alone and trying hard to look preoccupied and unapproachable and she wished away the five minutes until it was her stop.

  Her flatmate would probably be up and was a nice enough guy that he would come and meet her at the bus stop if she rang and asked him to. She toyed with the idea but watching the rain sheet down against the tarmac she decided not to be so cruel to drag him out in this. It wasn't a long walk. It wasn't that late.

  A red haired young man that she guessed was barely out of his teens and certainly not in her league stood and took a step toward her but the bus rounded a corner fast and hard and he lost his footing and stumbled awkwardly to the noisy delight of his friends.

  It didn't put him off though and he walked over to her and asked if he could sit next to her. She shrugged and then regretted not saying no.

  'What's your name?' he slurred.

  'Sorry?' she replied turning to him. He wasn't attractive and the effect of alcohol did nothing to help that as his eyelids drooped and his mouth hung open.

  'Your name love.'

  'Well its not love for a start,' she said flatly.

  'Could be if you give it a chance,' he replied and grinned.

  She bit back a laugh. That had amused her but there was no good reason to encourage this and she turned away from him. 'Doubtful,' she said.

  'Eh, come on. I'm just trying to be friendly,' he kept on, his words slurring.

  'Thanks. But we don't even know each other.'

  'We can soon put that right.'

  She looked him in the eye for a moment and her silence and expression said most of what she wanted it to but she spoke as well, just to make sure. 'No. We can't.'

  He looked at her for a moment, no quick response this time.

  'Please, I get off at the next stop,' she said politely and her tone made it clear that the conversation was over and that he had been let off without humiliation in front of his watching friends.

  'Well it was nice to meet you anyway, he smiled sheepishly and stood.

  Smiling to herself she turned back to the window and noticed that she was near her stop now and she stood and made her way along the aisle to the stairs.

  'See you later gorgeous,' the redhead called out and she flashed him a quick smile from the top of the steps before dropping from sight and bouncing off the bus.

  The rain had begun to fall more heavily now, plump drops of cold water splashed down on her and she pulled the compact umbrella from her bag and opened it quickly before she started walking.

  The street was well lit and lined with shops, most of which were shielded now behind metal barriers drawn down at closing time. Some were still open and shone bright neon across the wet pavement which reflected the light back up from beneath her feet. Off-licences and all night convenience stores and take-away shops manned by dark skinned men and the smell of frying onions and cooked meat mingled with the pungent scent of the display of fresh vegetables outside one shop with a sign in Turkish above the door.

  Few cars rolled past at this time but the noisy hiss of tires on wet tarmac was still pervasive and she looked up to see if there might be one with a large orange light on the top. It was only a five-minute walk to her flat but this weather was disgusting.

  Another burst of wind and cold rain pushed itself under her umbrella as she surveyed the street and she dropped it back down against the oncoming bluster and picked up her pace.

  Soon she had turned off this road and into more residential one; fewer lights here, more shadows. The wind barrelled down at her along the high narrow channel created by the terraced houses on each side and she dropped the umbrella lower again and kept on, pushing against the wind.

  From behind, a car slid past and the horn sounded a short sharp blast and three young men whooped and wolf-whistled at her through the window. She ignored them and breathed deeply trying to settle the surge of adrenaline in her chest that the shock had brought. Wankers, she thought as the car rounded the corner at the end of the street ahead of her.

  She didn't really hear the sound of a car door opening then, lost as it was in the wind and rain. The footsteps she heard were just footsteps, no cause for alarm and though on edge she wasn't about to jump at every sound she heard and start imagining rapists and killers out of the shadows.

  She did though, feel the thick arm wrap around her chest and the big hand close solidly over her mouth before any sound could escape. And she certainly felt the ground disappear from beneath her feet as she was plucked from the pavement and stuffed into the black back seat of the car.

  Her face was pressed into the stale smelling fabric of the seat and the crushing weight of the body on top of her pinned her utterly motionless where she lay. The adrenaline already in her veins served only to heighten the rising, suffocating panic she felt as the engine tone rose and the car began to move.

  Somewhere, less than a mile away through the rain, a phone would soon ring in George Gresham's home. He would be told, as he tried to blink away the sleep from his eyes, that his debt would be paid and that to make sure he was adequately motivated he would not be hearing from his only daughter for some time since she would be unable to speak properly through the rag in her mouth.

  40

  Thursday. 11.30pm.

  The fire was dying now and there were only two small logs in the basket, hot orange embers glowing in the grate. The two of them shared a sofa, Campbell sunk low in the corner against the arm with his legs thrust out across the rug toward the hearth. Sara
h sat at the other end with her legs curled up beneath her and a glass in her hand. Her hair was tied back into a ponytail and she wore jeans and a thick wool sweater.

  Outside, the blustery afternoon had worsened into a stormy evening. They had listened as the wind picked up and the rain went from a pattering on the windows to a rattle against the glass to a full-blown hammering on the roof tiles above them. The wind whistled loudly and the windows and doors rumbled every so often as they shook in their frames.

  The wine and the food had relaxed them both immensely and Campbell drew himself up to place the last logs onto the fire. He arranged the wood on the embers and shifted them with the poker to let air in underneath until the flames were jumping up beneath the logs. He stood, slowly and stiffly and moved back to the sofa where Sarah sat staring into space.

  'How the hell are you going to pull this off then? I mean, how are you going to get hold of a senior member of HM government? You don't just pop in to the office in Whitehall and ask if he can spare five minutes.'

  Campbell looked back at her for a long moment. 'I realise that,' he said.

  'And what are you going to say? How on earth are you going to make him listen to you or even believe you?'

  'I know Sarah,' he said running a hand through his short hair and shaking his head. 'I know. Its impossible. I don't even have any proof really, just a lot of connections. Some of them pretty tenuous at that. I just have no idea. Need to think this through.'

  'You need to be sure.'

  'That too,' he said but looked her in the eye. 'Do you??'

  'What?'

  'Believe me? Are you sure?'

  'It's the most preposterous thing I've heard in my life,' she replied, holding his gaze. 'But I do believe you. How can I not? It's too preposterous not to be true.'

  Campbell plopped himself back down on the sofa next to her and smiled wearily. 'I think the phrase is 'damned with faint praise.'