The Reckless Engineer

by Jac Wright

  ‘Listen. The police have some of your reports, K.C. I hid a few copies in the attic and there was no time to get rid of them. I didn’t think anybody would find them there.’

  So Caitlin had commissioned the reports! There was a pause. K.C., whoever he was, was assessing the information.

  ‘No, there are no other records linked to you in the house. Even my calls to you have all been through this pay-as-you-go mobile only and I’ve kept this phone on me. The calls were always to your disposable mobile anyway.’

  More silence as Caitlin listened to K.C. at the other end of the line. This was getting more intriguing by the second.

  ‘Very well, I shall get rid of the SIM chip at once, stick it in some cheese and flush it down.’

  Jeremy held his breath. She could walk in here to flush down the mobile phone SIM any moment.

  ‘Listen, K.C., many of your original reports are in my office at BlackGold. You’ve got to send someone out there right away before the police search our offices. You will have to replace my computer and copy over only the accounts. Make backup copies of the disks in case the police decide to take the PCs. Clean out Jack’s PC and the server disks also. The admin password is “design4life”. Take away Jack’s laptop into storage also. Some copies of your reports are in the locked filing cabinet by the safe in my office. There’s some stuff in the safe. The combination is 1-19-0-16. The lab, gosh, Jack might have something in the lab. Clean out the lab as much as you can.’

  Pause. She’s ordering a full clean-up of BlackGold. Bloody hell!

  ‘No, no money transfers are directly traceable to you. I paid you in cash, remember? That cash was off the books or covered up as company expenses in small amounts. Have everything stored in a bank safe or somewhere that cannot be traced back to you or me.’

  Pause. Untraceable cash payments?!

  ‘The police may be onto you sooner or later now that they’ve got their hands on those reports. So please cover your tracks, K.C.. Send one of those external men you use who cannot be traced back to you. It is best to use a storage space that is not in your name or mine.’

  Pause. Men to do her shady bidding.

  ‘Please clean out my office SUV. We might have dropped something in there and I want all fingerprints off it. I shall contact you again using a new pay-as-you-go SIM. I shall buy a few new ones in town. I have eight thousand pounds in the safe, all clear off the books. Take it all as your payment on account. I sent the stash of cash I had here and my laptop out with my son-in-law when the police arrived here Friday, hidden in the boot of the car.’

  Caitlin’s voice faded into the kitchen opposite the family room that she had come out of. She would need to get a piece of cheese first to embed the chip in to flush it down. He needed to get out of here.

  The hallway connected four main rooms. There were two living rooms to the left of the entrance, the front room that they had been occupying with Edwards all afternoon called “the reception”; the rear living room, “the family room”, with French patio doors that opened out into the grounds, was the main living room for family use. It was from the family room that Caitlin had come out into the hallway.

  On the right, the room at the front was a large “boardroom” with a massive table, which would occasionally be transformed into a dining room for formal dinners. The large rear room on the right was the kitchen with a breakfast bar and a more intimate dining area for up to eight. The guest washroom Jeremy was in was sandwiched between the Reception and the living room. The grand stairwell stood opposite the main entrance and led upstairs to the first floor in two flights.

  The hallway forked and extended right between the boardroom and the kitchen, aligned with the washroom he was in. It led to the part of the house Jack and Caitlin had had extended, containing, on the ground floor, a twin master suite with a luxurious shared bathroom, another en-suite bedroom, a library, and a ‘Sitting Room’ extended with a conservatory. A second stairwell ran up to the extended part of the first floor turning right from the end of the extended hallway.

  The twin master suite was reserved for Mr. and Mrs. McAllen for whom the stairs to the upper floors were beginning to be a challenge. The Sitting Room and the conservatory were decorated in Scottish style as a living room especially for their use. The library was used mostly for business. Gillian liked to study in it and Peter studied there occasionally when Jack needed to concentrate on something and kicked him out of his workshop.

  The second en-suite room was reserved for Jack’s mother, his father having passed away some fifteen years ago from a heart attack. Mrs. Mary Connor, however, lived in the Connor family home in Portsmouth and hardly ever visited her son in Guildford. She did not approve of Jack’s divorce from Marianne and remained loyal to her first daughter-in-law, whom she adored, and her two grandsons. She preferred her son to visit her at the Connor family home. Hence, the ground floor en-suite room was adapted by Peter as his room. There was another twin suite dedicated to Jack’s two boys, Peter and Marc, upstairs.

  Jeremy slipped quietly out of the washroom and out the front door, and came back in making some loud noise. Bubbles was on the steps, watching Félipé locking the gates, and bounced himself in as he closed the door. He walked into the front reception, poured himself a scotch, and called out, ‘Caitlin, they’re gone. Are you okay?’

  Caitlin emerged from the kitchen as he walked back into the hallway, sipping a scotch. A scotch! Caitlin was definitely panicking.

  ‘Are you okay?’ With a little effort he met her glance with a concerned look.

  She nodded and turned back towards the family room.

  ‘I think so. Come in.’

  He followed.

  ‘My God, they have turned this place inside out. I don’t know where any of my things are. I need Hannah to straighten out the house, and I need to put my office together upstairs.’

  She sank into the corner-unit sofa and buried her face in her hands. Jeremy perched himself on the armrest of an armchair. He wanted to sympathise with her, but she was up to something shady.

  ‘So Michelle called you a lot here, did she?’

  ‘Yes, starting about three months ago when we first found out and asked Jack to stop seeing her. During the past month she has called at least once every other day. She would say things like: Jack has had no children with me because he does not love me and is only with me for the money and the career; that it was Michelle and their unborn baby that Jack loved; that I had my kid with the love of my life, and I do not love him like she does; that I am cold, frigid, and controlling and Jack’s private name for me was “the Ice Queen”; that she was 29 and Jack is looking for a younger model; that their sex was explosive and earth shattering . . .’

  She put her head in her hands again. Did Jack know Michelle had been calling and harassing Caitlin, clearly trying to break up the marriage?

  ‘Jack has simply refused to talk about Michelle for the past four or five weeks. Initially he cried, made promises, and we fought about her; but lately he has just refused to talk about it. Certainly Jack has withdrawn from me since the child came into the picture. All he’s been saying is he “doesn’t know”. He didn’t know what to do about the child, he didn’t know if he could stop contact with Michelle, and he didn’t know what he wanted. The calls were upsetting Gillian. I told her to stop, but she wouldn’t.’

  ‘I’m very sorry Michelle was badgering and taunting you, Caitlin. I’ve seen her behaviour at Marine. She was a very forward, stupid, manipulative, brash, ill-mannered, and selfish woman.’

  Yet Jack had loved her. Michelle could do no wrong in his eyes. She was “outgoing” and “vivacious” to him.

  They remained silent for a few moments.

  ‘That file they had, Jeremy, Papa had stored it up there so that Jack or I would not come across it. He says they are papers from the private detective he’d hired to find out about the affair. Papa gave Harry the detective firm’s contact details. I didn’t know it was up there.
’

  These Jeremy knew were outright lies. It was hard to tell when Caitlin was lying and when she was not! Douglas McAllen was either protecting or colluding with his daughter. At the first sight of the police arriving at the gates Caitlin had, with a cool head, got her stash of cash and her laptop out of the property though the side gates with Gillian and Peter. How did she know right away that there might be a search? What did she pay for covertly with untraceable cash? What was on that laptop?

  ‘Can your father get up there easily? I mean, there’s a ladder that falls down from the loft to the third floor he would have to climb, right?’ Jeremy alerted her to the flaws in her story and immediately thought: Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.

  A pause. She looked at him, a sharp, searching, and tense look.

  ‘There’s a stairwell up to the roof terrace from the third floor. Papa loves to get up there with a beer sometimes, sit in the sun, and take in the views. He steps into the attic through the low set window. We leave it ajar in the summer, or he gets Félipé to open it. Besides, Papa’s okay with the stairs. It’s mom who’s having difficulties with them.’

  Lies, more bloody lies! And he wouldn’t know if he had not overheard the call.

  Jeremy’s mobile vibrated in the back pocket of his trousers and reminded him how desperately he needed the loo.

  ‘Caitlin, I have to give Maggie a call. She sometimes comes up to my place in London during her weekends off. She’s in the flat now, wondering where I am. I have just received a text.’

  He was lying too. It was merely a text from his mobile service provider. Maggie had not made any effort to connect with him for months. He looked at his watch; 4:12 in the afternoon.

  ‘Later I can continue putting Jack’s lab back together and I can also help you put your office back in order. Harry should like a set of copies of the papers they took so that he knows exactly what the police have got their hands on, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘That’s fine, and thank you, Jeremy. I think I shall take Jasper out for a ride into town. I need some fresh air and I need to clear my head.”

  Off to buy some new untraceable mobile phone SIMs, you mean.

  Caitlin had five horses in the stables close to the house. Jasper, the black thoroughbred, and two grey Lippizans, the filly Blue, and the gelding Ash; and two Arabians, the chestnut female, Quill, and the brown male, Cantor. There were more out on the paddocks and the stables further out.

  ‘Félipé.’ Caitlin slid the French patio doors open and called out. ‘Saddle up Jasper for me, will you.’

  Jeremy bounded upstairs to his room two steps at a time. It was Harry’s mobile that he dialled as he stepped into the bathroom.

  ‘Jeremy, what’s up? I’m about to see Jack at the police station.’

  ‘Hey did Caitlin and Douglas McAllen explain to you about the portfolio that the police had?’

  ‘Yes, Douglas said he hired a private detective to keep an eye on Jack to see if the affair was still going on. I—’

  ‘What’s the name of the detective firm? Who was his contact?’ Jeremy interrupted.

  ‘The firm is Blackmoon Investigations, based in Acton, London. Their guy’s name is John Smith, although it sounds like a work alias.’

  ‘Anyone with the initials K.C.?’

  ‘Not that I know of, but it could be someone who works there. How did you get the name, or rather the initials?’

  ‘I have to go now. I shall talk to you later about this, Harry.’ Jeremy hung up.

  Out of the window he could see Caitlin leading Jasper out of the stables.

  He opened the window and shouted, ‘One minute please, Caitlin.’

  She was on Jasper by the time he got to her. How powerful and majestic she looked, blending into one with the grand creature with effortless elegance and empathy. Jasper brushed back damp earth with his hooves in anticipation and nodded his head at Caitlin’s show-winning bearded Silkie birds strutting their pristine white and blue-silver plumage in the large open pen in the backyard to his left. A few yards on his right the heated pool made steam into the cool air.

  ‘Maggie’s driving herself back home. I’m on thin ice with her, having forgotten our anniversary this weekend. I need to drop by her place at Southampton to make amends,’ he lied. ‘I can take the train and I should be back by 10:00 p.m. Is that okay, Caitlin? Will you be okay for a few hours?’

  ‘Of course, I should be fine, Jeremy. Thank you for spending your time here. You have been a rock, and I don’t know what I would have done without you.’

  You would have had everything under perfect control without seeming so.

  ‘You and Jack pretty much kept me alive when Maggie first left me, and Jack covered for me when I was drunk senseless for months and saved my job. It is the least I could do.’

  ‘Take one of Jack’s cars, Jeremy, the Audi or the Golf. Félipé will get the keys for you. Please, we’ve dragged you away from your life out here. Take one of the cars. I insist.’

  ‘Thanks, Caitlin.’ He smiled and nodded.

  She moved her heel lightly against Jasper and he watched them fly into the distance with magnificent elegance and power. He waited for them to reach the pond and take the turn into the woodlands adjacent to the back of their land, moving out of sight, and slipped into Jack’s workshop.

  The keys he was looking for lay on a key ring with the McAllen logo etched in black and gold onto a silver disc where he had put them while tidying the lab in the morning. He pocketed the keys and shuffled things on the desk back into a state of disarray so that the keys would not be missed.

  He had been counting on borrowing one of Jack’s cars. If Caitlin hadn’t offered first, he would have asked. He would take the Golf. He needed a car that was swift but one that would also blend in without attracting attention. Jeremy ran upstairs and quickly grabbed his case that he never went anywhere without as Félipé fetched the car keys.

  Before he had time to think of the significance of what he was getting himself into, he found himself putting Jack’s dark grey Golf into gear and racing out towards the McAllen BlackGold offices in Portsmouth.

  CHAPTER 9

  Saturday, October 16 — one Day Later

  If this K.C. were any good Jeremy knew he would be too late to get to the offices before he did. He was right. As he approached the McAllen BlackGold offices he could see the lights on in one of the buildings. Caitlin’s Mercedes Benz SUV was parked by the side of this building and another SUV was parked next to it with its rear hood and two rear doors wide open. Jeremy slowed down. He would drive past inconspicuously, keeping an eye on the offices and the vehicles. The Sunday evening traffic on the road was sparse; there were only two other cars and one truck on the road as far as the eye could see.

  When Jack had started work for McAllen BlackGold all those years ago the only building here had been the large converted barn that housed the machinery and the supplies. The main offices had been housed in a rented building in central Portsmouth just a ten-minute drive away. Jack had bought the adjacent land for the company, two and a half acres, from the farmer who had been using it as grazing land for his horses and to store his trucks, tractors, vans, wheelbarrows, harvesters, and other equipment that he rented out. Jack had converted the barn on the new land into BlackGold’s new electro-mechanical labs, and on the rest of the empty land he had built the two-storey office building that now contained the staff offices. The company’s original barn had been further built up to accommodate BlackGold’s increasing array of supplies, manufacturing machinery, and the range of electromechanical products that the company built.

  Jeremy drove slowly past the three BlackGold buildings on his left, while a retreating sea possessively drained remnants of trapped water off the sands at low tide on his right. A little boy was running naked with his pup, collecting seashells into a bucket, while their mother packed up the picnic they had enjoyed earlier in the day. On Jeremy’s left, through the gaps in the row of thick hedges and tre
es that Caitlin had grown, he could see a medium built man carrying a pile of files out to the SUV that had its doors open.

  This must be K.C.!

  Having passed the BlackGold land, he slowed down further. On his left there were the farmer’s trucks, skips, vans, tractors, and harvesters and other equipment still parked on the remainder of the land that he had not sold to the company. The gate was closed but not latched, and no one was about to keep an eye on the equipment but a few grazing horses. He killed his lights, pulled over, got out, pushed open the gates, and reversed Jack’s Golf through the entrance into the land, backing it into a space behind a tractor out of sight from the main road.

  He would take the camcorder he had in his case with the powerful zoom lens. He had no binoculars, but it should do. Jeremy ran quietly past the tractors up to the thick hedge and trees that separated the BlackGold land from the farmer’s. From this vantage point behind the thick hedge, Jeremy was about fifteen yards from the SUVs where the man was busy at work. He looked Eastern European or Persian, medium built and balding. With his back to Jeremy, he was busy vacuuming Caitlin’s SUV and wiping its handles and surfaces with a cloth. There was a bucket of water on the ground into which he dipped his cloth every now and again, and several bottles of cleaning liquid he sprayed liberally onto the surfaces he was cleaning.

  Under the open hood of the other SUV, a Suzuki, Jeremy could see a pile of files, a PC base unit, a laptop, and two boxes set on the floor. Quietly focusing his camcorder on its license plate, he turned the recording on. A few more shots of the man as he went about cleaning Caitlin’s SUV and then headed back into the offices.