The Reckless Engineer

by Jac Wright

  CHAPTER 31

  Wednesday, October 27 — Twelve Days Later

  Back-to-back The Good Wife reruns were still playing on the TV with the sound turned “mute”. Jeremy lay down on the sofa again and, finding it hard to focus on the story lines, drifted back into a light sleep and dreams of Annie.

  About fifteen minutes later he realized that the voices and the noises next door had suddenly faded. He heard a door being shut inside—the bedroom door. Jeremy jumped to his feet and drew the living room curtains so that the room was almost dark. He opened the living room door slightly and listened.

  Caitlin and Gavin were leaving their apartment.

  ‘Won’t Jack be wondering where you are?’ Gavin was saying.

  ‘He was sleeping off a nasty hangover from a late night out in London this morning. He is all excited about this new project with underwater robots, so that is what he will get back to when he gets up. I left a message that I was visiting the mother of one of Gillian’s school friends in case he decides to come by BlackGold. It is nice to see him back in form actually.’ Caitlin laughed.

  ‘You find him attractive like this,’ Gavin paraphrased after her in a worried and jealous tone as he locked the door behind them.

  ‘Oh, no! He’s a bore when he gets into his geeky engineering designs,’ Caitlin protested hurriedly.

  The lady doth protest too much, Jeremy thought, as their voices tailed off down the corridor.

  Back in his room Jeremy opened the curtains slightly and watched them leave the hotel hand in hand, crossing the road and walking towards the beach. Did he imagine Caitlin withdrawing her hand, he wasn’t sure. They were now engrossed in an animated exchange.

  Seems like trouble in paradise.

  He immediately picked up the phone and dialled the reception.

  ‘Hullo, Mr. Brown’

  Annie had seen the caller ID of his room and remembered not to blow his cover.

  ‘Annie, could you do me a favour? The Hunts left the hotel and walked towards the beach just now. Could you keep an eye out and give me a buzz on my mobile the moment they come back into the hotel?’

  ‘Of course, Mr. Brown,’ she said in a serious tone.

  He read out his number.

  ‘See ya later tonight, babe,’ he added in a soft voice.

  ‘Yeah, see ya.’ She laughed softly.

  Jeremy hung up. There was work to do. Retrieving the master key card he had borrowed, he dashed out of his room and tried it on Gavin’s door. The key fit into the lock and the LED flashed green. He was in.

  Jeremy entered the suite and took the living room in one glance as he slipped on a pair of latex gloves. The first thing of importance that he recognized was Caitlin’s laptop, the same one he had copied before. Jeremy took it back into his room, powered it up and booted it with the Linux DVD he had in his case. He accessed the hard disk without any problem. He connected the backup disk he had to a USB port with a cable from his case and ran the hard disk raw-backup utility program. This disk would take about twenty minutes to back up an image. He would do the rest of his search of the room while it ran.

  Jeremy went back to Gavin’s living room and conducted a methodical search of the papers and everything else in the room. Remembering the instructions Harry had given his photographer, he brought his small camcorder in and took a recording of the room with zoom-in shots of areas of interest.

  He checked his mobile. No warning from Annie yet.

  Inside the bedroom he found another laptop that surely belonged to Gavin. He took this laptop—an Apple MacBook—to his room also. Caitlin’s backup had completed. Jeremy removed it and powered it down. Then he went through the same process with Gavin’s laptop. It had a smaller disk, and hence its raw-backup should complete faster. He wiped down Caitlin’s laptop and returned it to its original position in Gavin’s living room.

  Jeremy completed the search and the video recording of the bedroom fast. There was nothing of interest in the bathroom. He returned Gavin’s laptop to its original position after getting its image and closed Gavin’s front door behind him.

  Back in his room Jeremy got into his running shorts and dashed downstairs taking two steps at a time. It was time he went out and enjoyed the beautiful day on the beach himself. He felt reckless and on a high from the afternoon’s activities and decided to leave his disguise behind, confident he could avoid Caitlin and Gavin out there. On his way back he would stop by the shops and buy himself six sets of candles for the night ahead.

  CHAPTER 32

  Thursday, October 28 — Thirteen Days Later

  Jeremy was jolted out of his sleep by his mobile screaming into the night. Who turned the volume all the way up? he wondered, blinking at it, still half asleep.

  ‘Annie, you vixen.’ He swore out loud, smiling.

  Not content with screaming at him, his mobile had by now started a dance around the bedside table on the vibrator. Jeremy looked at the alarm clock. It was 10:12 Thursday night.

  ‘Hullo! Bloody hell, I’m coming, I’m coming.’

  ‘Jeremy?’

  Harry’s voice already sounded to him like an unjust nag.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re drunk,’ Harry accused.

  ‘I, er, don’t think so,’ Jeremy protested, drunkenly.

  ‘Maggie?’ Annie spooned up behind him and possessively whispered in his ears.

  They had had dinner by candlelight again. After dinner they had watched an episode of The Good Wife on TV, read one of Annie’s short stories together, and proceeded to test her skills at making mixed drinks out of the well-stocked bar in the room, flasks, ice cubes, and halved lime flying around the living room. They had then made love and fallen asleep.

  ‘No, it’s Harry.’

  Jeremy covered the microphone with his hand and put Annie’s mind at rest.

  ‘And you’ve got a girl in bed, ha, ha!’ Harry laughed out loud. ‘So that’s why you’ve fallen off the face of the earth, forgotten my numbers, and haven’t turned up at work. Alan Walters has been calling me wondering where you are.’

  ‘One minute, Harry,’ Jeremy put the call on hold.

  ‘Annie, I’ve got to take this call in the living room—client confidential, Harry insists.’

  He got out of bed and stumbled in the direction of the living room door and, finally getting to it, closed it behind him. Gosh, those mixed drinks hit one hard, especially after the bottle of champagne that they had consumed with the meal. Jeremy shook his head like a dog and blinked hard to really wake up.

  ‘Harry, it’s only Maggie. Whadup?’

  ‘Maggie, the consultant wannabe? When did Maggie ever get you pissed senseless, Jeremy? Come on. This is your college buddy you are talking to. Anyway, what’s up with you is what I wanted to ask. Or should I forget about it now and call tomorrow when you are back to your senses?’

  ‘What’s up is I found the letters, Harry.’

  ‘What letters?’

  ‘The letters Cossack searched that haunted house for and took with him.’

  ‘Michelle’s house?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s got the big devil in it black sickle in hand and lots of little demons floating all around in the air and under the chairs and tables. One of them pulled my leg. Don’t go back in there . . . urrgh . . . don’t go back into Michelle’s house.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Harry knew better than to argue with him when he was not drunk. ‘But what about the letters? What’s in them?’

  ‘The letter was from Caitlin, to Michelle. She finally cracked under pressure from Michelle’s calls and sent it to Michelle, telling her in no uncertain terms never to call her house again; or else that she would have the men delivering the letter to her by hand perform an abortion on her foetus in the house. If Michelle were to come anywhere near her home again or try to speak to Gillian, the abortion they perform will be on her (Michelle). It says that she was divorcing Jack anyway and had already given Jack the divorce terms and told him to get out
of the house. That was the letter signed by Caitlin and hand delivered to Michelle, no doubt by Cossack. I have it safely right here in the secret inner pocket of my jacket.’

  Jeremy pulled on the jacket draped over a chair to keep the chill off his otherwise naked body and patted it where the inner pocket was to make sure the letter was there. The spills of alcohol stuck his fingers to the table and the phone; and the stench of it hung heavy in the air in the room and made him want to throw up. He picked up half of a squeezed lime from the carpet, held it to his nose, and took in a deep breath. The smell filled his lungs and temporarily settled his agitated stomach.

  ‘And then there was the divorce proposal,’ he continued.

  ‘What proposal?’

  ‘A divorce proposal from Caitlin to Jack, to get rid of him cheap. Caitlin keeps the McAllen mansion in Guildford and gets all of BlackGold—Jack gets five million in settlement; Marc and Peter’s funds will keep coming, but not Marianne’s. If Jack accepts the terms and walks away then she would sign a quickie divorce agreement. Jack has emailed her back saying okay, whatever, if that’s what she wanted, that he wanted to work on the marriage and not get divorced.’

  Jeremy felt parched. He coughed, took a sip of water from the glass on the table, and continued.

  ‘Michelle had seen this offer and written a letter back to Caitlin that Jack and she had seen a solicitor, and that he would demand all of BlackGold and half of the Guildford estate after a ten-year marriage. This letter had reached Caitlin a week before the murder, according to her emails to Gavin raging about Michelle daring to try to continue to call her asking for face-to-face negotiations. The divorce offer, and the emails, they are all right here in my secret inner pocket, uh huh.’

  ‘Bloody hell! I can see why Caitlin might want that letter out of Michelle’s house.’

  ‘And after all that now Caitlin is confused.’

  ‘Confused about what?’

  ‘About Jack. That’s our gut feeling. The body language, bits of conversation I have overheard . . . She is having second thoughts. She half wants that weak, spineless, stick-in-the-mud womaniser after all Gavin has done killing Michelle for her. There is no justice in this world anymore.’

  ‘What do you mean? Do you have evidence that Gavin killed Michelle for Caitlin?’

  ‘No, but I know. Gavin is my buddy. He took me out to dinner a week ago and we had lunch today – room service in his room. I know all about how Scorpion and Caitlin’s father screwed up his life. And now Caitlin is doing it to us too.’

  ‘When are you coming back to the office? Or can you fax the two letters to me?’

  ‘They’re in your email, scans of them. I keep the originals in my secret pocket right here. They will be safe with me in Scotland. Nobody knows about the secret inner pocket.’

  ‘Safe with you where?’

  ‘I have a flight out to Aberdeen booked for tomorrow afternoon. I’m gonna help your guy with Scorpion.’

  ‘You mean Skull. Have you touched base with Darren Skipper?’

  ‘Well, I say Scorpion, because, my dear Harry, the tattoo of the skull is smaller than the tattoo of the scorpion. Although, if you take his real bald shiny skull, it is big. It is bigger than the tattoo of the scorpion one might say.’

  ‘No shit, Sherlock!’

  Harry knew better than to argue with him when he was not drunk.

  ‘I had better let you sleep off all that alcohol you’ve got in you. I’m going to call Jack and ask him to drive you to Southampton for your flight, because I don’t think you will be in a fit state to drive tomorrow. It is Southampton you are flying from I presume?’

  ‘Yeah, the 2:22 out of Southampton, although 2 is not my lucky number. I might die if the little demons are still following me. I shoulda looked for a 1:11 flight.’

  ‘Okay, gotcha. And don’t let that girl you’ve got in bed (Annie, did you say?) keep you up all night long. You are getting too old for that.’

  Harry laughed.

  ‘I also have an appointment with Cossack for next Tuesday afternoon. We are gonna send him off to keep an eye on Maggie, although I say it is a waste of time and money because I don’t want her. She’s been messing me about and we don’t want her anymore.’

  ‘Go back to sleep, Jeremy.’

  ‘I say, that Maggie, she’s an old prude. She shoulda not dragged me around by the nose string, er, strung me around by the noose; and now it is too late. I don’t want her no more.’

  ‘Good night, Jeremy.’

  ‘Oh, and I nearly forgot. I have the pictures.’

  ‘What pictures?’

  ‘The pictures, the, the photographs of Gavin’s room, you know. Like the pictures you had your entourage take all around Michelle’s haunted house. Be careful when you develop those pictures, Harry. Look carefully in the background, and under the living room tables and chairs. The devil is in there with a black sickle, and little demons are floating about. Look in the white space.’

  ‘What’s in the pictures of Gavin’s room, Jeremy?’

  ‘What? Ah, yes, the pictures. Chocolates. Three boxes of Cavalier chocolates and two empty ones fallen on the carpet behind his bed.’

  CHAPTER 33

  Friday, October 29 — Fourteen Days Later

  Jeremy’s flight landed in Aberdeen nineteen minutes late after flying circles over a pristine white land already four feet under snow, waiting for a blizzard to subside. Jeremy had not met Darren Skipper in person before. He had only spoken to him on the phone. He put his luggage down and looked around for someone holding a placard with his name on it. Finding no one, he was feeling around in his pockets for his mobile to call Darren when it rang. It was Skipper.

  ‘Hello, Darren.’

  ‘Hello, Jeremy. Turn to your right and walk a hundred yards. You should see an Emirates counter on your left. There’s a Costa Coffee just past it. I’ve got a table to the left of the entrance. Look out for a red and black North Face backpack on the table. You can’t miss it.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘See you in a minute.’

  Skipper hung up.

  Ten minutes later Skipper was driving him in his rented grey BMW to the Aberdeen Marriott.

  ‘I have booked you the room next to mine. Harry called and put me on alert that you’ve been doing some late night work recently and to have the room ready in advance.’

  ‘Huh. I suppose you could call that “work.”’ Jeremy smiled at the past two nights’ activities flashing through his mind. ‘Thanks mate. I am not tired. I slept on the plane. Update me on the developments when we get in right away. Can we order coffee and sandwiches up to your room? I didn’t want to eat airline food and risk throwing up all over the plane.’

  ‘Sure. Our guy is damned elusive and as slippery as an eel, but I’ve managed to track him down to where he’s lying low. And Ronnie’s ten times as dirty as his old man. Let’s wait till we get up to my room and I shall bring you up to date.’

  Skipper pulled up in front of the sixteen storey Marriott’s lobby, helped Jeremy take out his luggage, and tossed the key to the valet. Most of the paperwork already having been taken care of, they were done with the checking in and up in their twelfth floor rooms in no time.

  In true Marriott style Jeremy’s room was luxurious in an impersonal sort of way with large outer glass windows that treated them to a God’s view of Aberdeen covered in pristine snow all the way to the chilling north seas.

  Jeremy drank a cup of black coffee for a shot of caffeine. Thank God for black coffee, a man’s best friend after a night of alcohol and sex. And bloody good sex, too. He smiled to himself. He massaged his aching head with his thumbs, one temple at a time. A bath. The shelves above the spa-bath had lavender and citrus bath oils in small bottles. Just what he needed-hot air bubbles on his muscles and scented steam in his lungs and pulsing sinuses.

  He had two missed calls on his mobile when he got out of the lavender steam, from Annie and from Alan Walters. He had told Annie o
nly that he had to return to work for urgent business and that he would call her. It was the morning after the night before. Was Annie just a holiday romance, or was there something more there? What about Maggie? He didn’t really know right now.

  He called Alan.

  ‘Hi, Jeremy.’

  ‘Alan. How’s it going with young Sean there?’

  ‘Very well. Nice young chap and his work is top notch. I’m delighted with him.’

  ‘I am in Aberdeen, but I’ve got your work here with me. Sean and I shall be working on it remotely over the weekend.’

  ‘The reason I called, Jeremy, is that Sally’s Section 2 Appeal is coming up Wednesday afternoon next week. Could you make it to the hearing, hold her hand through it?’

  ‘Yes, yes of course. What time is it scheduled for?’

  ‘Two in the afternoon.’

  ‘I shall be there. I’m flying back on Monday.’

  By the time Jeremy walked into Darren Skipper’s room the investigator had ordered room service. There was a silver tray of assorted sandwiches with grapes, cheese, and cheesy crackers on the side on his coffee table. A flask of Italian coffee with cream and sugar stood next to it. Darren pumped out a cup of black coffee.

  ‘So tell me, where is our guy hiding out?’

  Jeremy sat down in the armchair next to Skipper and picked out some sandwiches onto a plate, one of them with sausage & black pudding in the middle. Ack! He left that one to the side.

  ‘In The Rock & Oar, a pub he owns by the docks. The two floors above the pub is a split-level, converted flat. He lives in it most of the time and does most of his business out of the pub. He also owns the bed and breakfast next door to it, The Sugarhouse Hotel.’

  ‘Is the B&B part of the same building?’

  ‘They are adjacent to each other. There’s a doorway from the pub into the B&B on the ground floor. It uses the pub kitchen and its staff to provide breakfast for the guests. The guests are encouraged to use the pub as a restaurant for other meals. Wait, I have pictures.’