by Desmond Cory
It would, Olly thought, be unwise to pursue this matter of the Dutch job, whatever that was, any further. “Look.” she said. “What it is, I want some information and I’m ready to pay for it.”
“Shoot,” Dobie said genially. Anxious to show that he, too, was familiar with contemporary turns of idiom.
“Pardon?”
“Go right ahead.”
“Oh. Well, I reckon if you can tell me what I want to know it’ll be good for, say … a couple of hundred …”
“Pounds? Or guilders?”
“Guilders?” But Olly was only briefly taken aback. “Anything you say, Mr Dobie. I’ll make the payment just any way you want it.”
Dobie, she noted, seemed slightly encouraged. But only slightly. “And what, ah, period of time are we talking about? Usually when I undertake a consultancy—”
“Why, I was hoping you’d be able to come across right here and now, Mr Dobie. On the spot.” Consultancy, huh? Well, why not? She liked it. Cool. She made a further mental note of the expression. Odd, though, that the guy still seemed to be perplexed. Of course, maybe a measly two hundred quid … to a big-timer …
“Come across what? Where? I’m afraid I don’t—”
“Okay, I’ll get right to the point. I want to know what you can tell me about Primrose.”
“Primrose?” Dobie’s air of perplexity instantly vanished. He was relieved to be asked a straightforward question that made perfect sense. “Oh, I wouldn’t have any dealings with Primrose if I were you.” The Primary Roneo Sequence, as a means of duplicating the data on primary files, had proved to be not so much ineffective as obsolete from the moment it had been put on the market and, while you could say the same of a great deal of the software that had appeared over the past two or three years, the competition from Microsoft had killed the poor old Primrose system stone dead. And it couldn’t handle any kind of advanced numerical analysis anyway. “There’ve been complaints, you know. All kind of complaints.”
“About what?”
“Well, the service generally. Not up to scratch. It’s a highly competitive field, as you can imagine.”
Drug-dealing, Olly thought, could unquestionably be so described. The more enterprising kids in the secondary schools were in on it nowadays. “I understand that certain people have taken these complaints very seriously.”
“Oh, indeed. In fact Primrose is to be taken out of the market very shortly.”
It looked as though Peter Crumb had been right for once, but Olly hadn’t expected that confirmation of his suspicions would come so very easily. A real ice-cool customer, this Dobie cat. “You’re quite sure of that, Mr Dobie?”
“Oh, I think it’s pretty generally known that the line is to be discontinued, as they say.”
That was one way of putting it. “And … how will that be done? I mean, it sounds to me like a tricky operation. Speaking from your own experience—”
“Oh, it happens all the time,” Dobie assured her. “Someone in an office somewhere makes the decision and that’s it. Bingo.” He snapped his fingers, causing his visitor to recoil backwards into her armchair. “Of course it may cost that someone a great deal of money, but it’s usually fairly clear when these things have got to be done. Business is business all the world over.”
“May I ask you a very personal question in that connection?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Is it true that you’ve done some … discontinuing yourself?”
Dobie eyed her severely, occasioning another involuntary shudder to run up and down Olly’s spinal column. “Now and again I’m called in for consultations of the kind we’re talking about, yes. But I always regard these matters as highly confidential. You’ll understand the reason for that, I’m sure.”
“Oh yes yes, I do, I do.” Olly’s voice, she noted, had gone all squeaky. It’s true, then! He’s a MURDERER!!! Sitting right there and talking about it as calm as you like! She had found herself in not a few tight corners in the course of her journalistic career, but nothing like this one. She saw the door of Dobie’s refrigerator yawning open before her. She also saw, and all too clearly, how these little confidential matters might be arranged. A name and address scribbled on a sheet of paper. That’s all it takes. Once in a skilled mechanic’s hands, that paper’s a death sentence. Nothing remains but subhead caps
THE EXECUTION …
“Aaaaaaaaaa! … OmiGod, Mr Dobie, put that thing away, you’re scaring me.”
“Mmmm-mmmm,” Dobie said, sucking the ball of his thumb. “Yes, I’m sorry about that, just a slip of the … Nasty sharp things, these surgeon’s scalpels, he-he-he.” Of course, the person this spectacularly-sculpted creature should really have gone to see was Glyn Merrick, Dobie’s colleague at the University. The Primrose people would almost certainly have consulted Glyn on this delicate issue of withdrawing an expensive item of software from the retail market, as they had done on previous occasion. But then, no less certainly would Glyn have refused to divulge privileged information to anyone outside the firm. “I shouldn’t give any further thought,” Dobie said, waving his hand casually in the air and spraying dollops of blood all over the table, “to this Primrose business. An associate of mine is taking care of the matter and I think you can take it that it’ll be a closed-file issue in the very near future.”
Looking up then in sudden alarm. “Oh, must you go?”
“Yeah, I just remembered a very urgent appointment.”
Perhaps, Dobie thought, everyone did business like that in Holland. A notoriously impetuous race, the Dutch. “It’s a pleasure to have met you, Miss Snipe.”
The pleasure was in no way mutual, but Olly forebore comment on the point. “Yeah, well, thanks for the information, Mr Dobie. The cheque’ll be in the post tomorrow morning.”
“Really there’s no need … for such a trifling matter …”
Olly paused at the door for a final risky fling. “That associate of yours you mentioned …”
“Yes?”
“You wouldn’t care to give me a name?”
“No, I’m afraid I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be ethical.”
“Uh-huh,” Olly said, “I thought it might not be.”
Safely outside the house, she leaned for a few moments against the wall, breathing deeply, a prey (she would have said) to violent emotion. Some things are really a bit too much, even for the most avid reader of the tabs. The way he’d sat there … looking at her … and sucking blood … Had she stayed there a minute longer, he’d have gone right for her jugular. She was convinced of it. And she wasn’t used to that sort of thing. Men didn’t go for her jugular, not as a rule. Dobie was different …
But … it had to be admitted … excitingly different. Okay, a raving psychotic, as was obvious. But definitely a turn-on. Just seeing those long knobbly fingers twisting that scalpel thing this way and that was enough to put any girl on a sexual high. To say nothing of that hideous scar across his upper lip, undoubtedly caused by a spot of nifty work with a cutthroat razor. Anthony Hopkins, among the also-rans. Nothing like a real life manic killer to string you on a wire. Dobie was different, all right. Something else …
Shuddering ecstatically, she pushed herself away from the wall and walked rubber-legged towards her waiting Honda. A slim dark-haired woman carrying a holdall turned her head to give her a thoughtfully appreciative glance as she went by; the appreciation was no doubt of Gianni Versace rather than of herself, but all the same she found it reassuring. She was feeling physically, as well as mentally, dishevelled. Those glaucous eyes staring at her from behind those bifocal lenses … Awesome!!! … These men are the Congo mercenaries of the new Europe, the unacknowledged Lords of Life and Death …
Or something more or less on those lines …
Two hundred nicker, Dobie thought, was acceptable remuneration for what had amounted to a five-minute chat. An unconventional method of approach, of course, but modern business methods … These European firms we
re nowadays inclined to be secretive when engaging the hired help and this Oliver Snipe would no doubt be what they called a head-hooker or something like that. She certainly looked the part. Or filled the role. Strange name for a girl, but then they all had weird names nowadays. Kate entered while he was pondering the matter and surveyed him with some disfavour. “… Okay, buster, so who was that?”
“Who was who?”
“Come on, Dobie, you know who. The Julia Roberts wannabe. Nice goings-on soon as my back is turned, I don’t think.”
“Ah. That was rather … That was a girl who … Julia Roberts? She doesn’t look anything like Julia Roberts.”
Nor did Kate, right now. Kate was looking rather tired and worn. “She looks like trouble, that’s for sure.”
“Not at all like Julia Roberts. I used to be a fan of Julia Roberts when I was small.”
Kate blinked. “When you were small?”
“I think I must have seen all those re-runs on the telly. All those great numbers she did. With Freddy what’s-his-name. Like putting on the what was it? … The Ritz …” Dobie rose to his feet and began to whirl dangerously round and round, like some drug-besotted Dervish or boojum bird. “Must you dance,” he carolled euphorically, “ev-ery dance … with the same … for-choo-nate man …” He broke off, abruptly and mercifully. “Not that I know what it means, of course. The putting-on-the-Ritz bit, that’s to say.”
Kate sighed, though not more heavily than usual. “Dobie, you’re evading the issue. And also a little bit confused, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“As a matter of fact—”
“And what’s more you’ve been bleeding all over my scalpel. It’ll have to be fumigated all over again. Really, Dobie.”
Dobie, mortified, sat down again while Kate fetched from the corner cabinet lint, scissors, sticky tape and a bottle of nasty pink stuff that stung like billyoh. “I do wish you’d leave my things alone,” she said crossly, making with the bandages, “when you entertain your lady friends in my consulting room, one of these days you’ll do yourself a serious mischief or they will and what the hell was she doing here anyway?”
“Ah. I was coming to that. I’ve been hog-hunted … Head-hunted, I mean. By those Dutch people. Oliver Smike’s their local rep … or something like that …”
“Oliver Smike? Who’s he?”
“No. It’s a she. That girl is. The one who doesn’t look like Gloria Roberts.”
“Dobie, how can a girl be called Oliver Smike? … She’s putting you on.” Snip-snip-snip with the scissors. “You won’t have to go to Holland, then?”
“Oh no. I shouldn’t think so.”
“Well, that’s great. But what a weird way of …” Kate looked down at her wrist-watch and shook her head. “You better tell me all about it when I get back. You can take me out to dinner now you’re flush.”
“But I thought … You’re going out again? …”
“Yes. I’ll be back at eight thirty or thereabouts. And Dobie, for God’s sake … put on some kind of a suit …”
“Oh yes. Of course. I will. A suit, you say? Hang on … White tie … Tails … I’ve got it … Jean Kelly is the girl I was thinking of, of course. The one who got married to that chap in Monaco …”
Dobie was sufficiently concerned about Kate’s behaviour to observe her departure from the kitchen window, where he watched her heave the holdall onto the back seat of her battered Fiesta, clamber in and drive off with an uncharacteristic clash of the gearing. Dobie shared her dislike of firearms and the idea of having her drive around while toting, as those film stars of earlier generations might have put it, an iron of formidable lethal capacities was one that appealed to him not at all. But it was, of course, her offer to sock him to a splendiferous dinner out that had aroused his deepest suspicions, not to say his disquiet. A sop to Cerberus, was what it was. And as such, disturbing.
He noticed, moreover, that the van with the spiky thing on the roof was still cluttering up the near side of the car park; it bore some resemblance to a TV detector van and had already aroused his suspicions in a different way. It was curious that last night his enjoyment of his favourite TV programme had been impaired by a highly unseasonable snowdrift that had totally obscured from view not only the bay he had been intent on watching but the anatomies of the delectable creatures splashing about in it, a very much more regrettable loss; he had, as he recalled, opened the door of his room and voiced a protest to the nether regions. “Kate …?”
“What?”
“Were you using the telephone just now?”
“What if I was? It’s none of your business either way, izzit?”
Dobie had felt mild surprise. It wasn’t like Kate to be so snappy. “It’s just that the television screen has gone all fuzzy.”
“And what’s the telephone got to do with that?”
Dobie hadn’t felt like embarking on lengthy and necessarily technical explanations, but he was now considering the matter further. There was, of course, the distinct possibility that the house was undergoing some kind of electronic attack. A telephone is very like a computer chip, in fact is a computer chip when seen from one point of view, and as he had the modem connected the bug or goblin or whatever it was had to be scrambling his e-mail messages as well. An impertinence, no doubt about it. And also a nuisance. He had of course means of retaliation, but as the goblin in question was almost certainly the property of New Scotland Yard he had better, he thought, exercise caution. Well, okay.
He went back to his room and seated himself once more at his computer. Exercising caution, he tapped out a SEARCH COMBO command and awaited results. No result was forthcoming.
This was to be expected.
He had long since traded in Eddie, his reliable but outmoded long-range interceptor, for an ultra-modern state-of-the-art Sidewinder-firing whizzbang with a P6 quad-speed chip, an active matrix, a 28.8 kiloband modem, radius display and a DataHand keyboard. This high-powered crate would, however, invariably achieve so colossal a rate of climb into cyberspace that the altimeter would go off the clock and the aircraft, having thus missed the target, would have to turn round, panting, and go galloping back in search of it, like an over-eager foxhound puppy. Dobie had, however, grown used to its little ways and, having waited patiently for the required number of microseconds, toggled across the monitor screen and tried again. He did this by typing on the keyboard the complex instruction,
TRY AGAIN
… but the defences of the goblin remained intact. Dobie determined that they wouldn’t stay that way for long and called up reinforcements.
TRY TRY TRY AGAIN
This time the computer responded.
NOTHING A A A
This was a most decided negative, created by Dobie in cognisance of Kate’s Irish origins. The computer, like any good Dubliner, observed no less than four different degrees of non-compliance, thus :
NOTHING
NOTHING AT ALL
NOTHING AT ALL AT ALL
NOTHING AT ALL AT ALL AT ALL
though the last three had been conveniently abbreviated in order to save wear on the computer’s (and Dobie’s) parameters. Dobie, somewhat annoyed at this refusal of cooperation though in no way seriously disturbed, pulled up his jockey-seat a little closer to the operating table and got to work in earnest.
It took him a little over five minutes to overcome the obstacles besetting him, but when he managed the breakthrough the results appearing on the monitor screen were somewhat startling. “Oh my gosh,” Dobie said. To himself. “Hey hey hey.”
… Because it looked as though he’d bypassed the goblin and zipped down the goblin’s modem connections to some kind of file bank or other. Actually, it was pretty obvious what kind of file bank. He’d accessed the Computer Record Office’s files at New Scotland Yard. Or the Special Branch’s files, anyway. Where someone – that Crumb person, presumably – had very recently pulled out some other person’s Criminal Record file and had, rather carel
essly, left it open instead of returning it to database. The other person in question was called
DOBIE JOHN
“…Hey,” Dobie said again. To himself. “That’s me.”
Of course he hadn’t been hacking. Not exactly. Hacking was illegal. No, he’d just been probing very cautiously at this … interloper, as one might at the upper regions of Pamela Anderson’s lycra bikini, and then … this had happened. A quite unexpected development, and one of which the fuzz at the Records Office would undoubtedly disapprove. Nevertheless … his curiosity had been instantly aroused, as anyone else’s would have been, and there could be no harm, surely? … in his taking a quick peek at the ensuing entries … He tapped the RETURN key before wiser counsels might prevail and then SCROLLED hurriedly down to the nitty-gritty. Here it was …
PRIME SUSPECT DBV JENNIFER DOBIE CF 124M88
PRIME SUSPECT DBV JANE HELEN CORDER CF 126T47
PRIME SUSPECT DBV GWENDOLEN HARRIET CORDER CF 129T47
PRIME SUSPECT DBV IVOR HALLIDAY CF 433D17
PRIME SUSPECT DBV KATHLEEN MARY DALY CF 459F56
SUBJ INTERPOL ENQUIRY IN RE DBV DERYA SEYMOUR (TUNER) ORIG FAMAGUSTA NORTH CYPRUS
SUBJ DANGEROUS DRIVING CHARGES CF 459F56a (Withdrawn)
NO CONVICTIONS IN UK
Dobie stared at the screen, dumbfounded. He was familiar enough (thanks to his friend Detective-Inspector Jackson) with police procedural acronyms to know that DBV stood for Death By Violence and it was alarming to know that something like fifty per cent of the DBV’s in the Cardiff (CF) area had apparently been put down to him. Who by? … Well, that had to be obvious. Pontin, of course. Who else? He was about to depress once again the RETURN key, obliterating at a stroke all this pernicious and manifestly libellous rubbish, when his attention was once again caught – indeed riveted – by a message which suddenly flickered into life across the top of the monitor screen.