by Philip Cox
‘Yes, I do. For a start, if we had met with an accident or been killed, there would have been all sorts of police stuff going on, asking who we had been talking to, forensic stuff on the car….’
‘You’re right,’ interjected Craig. ‘There might be some paint from the other car on us.’
‘Might not be. Remember, the other car had those chrome bars: it probably hit us with them. But.’ He paused for a moment, ‘Those bars might have paint from this car on them.’
‘So we just need to tell the police to look for a big car with chrome bars with blue paint marks,’ said Craig sarcastically.
‘Don’t think we ought to go to the police.’
‘Why not? We might have to for the insurance.’
‘Let’s check the damage in the daylight. Going to the police for that might make things complicated. Remember what Sanchez said to us this morning about playing private eye or something.’
‘Okay. But you think that we have pissed somebody off today, and they are warning us off?’
‘I think so, yes. And also: we were going at about eighty when they hit us. A serious impact at that high speed could cause both cars to crash.’
‘So, whoever it was might know how fast to be going to warn us, but not to cause a crash.’
‘Yeah. And who have we spoken to today who knows about cars?’
‘Billy Loomis.’
‘And who knew we would be on that road tonight?’
‘Billy Loomis,’ said Craig, ‘Billy fucking Loomis.’
‘The man himself.’
‘Think we should pay him a visit?’
‘I would love too,’ said Ben, ‘but I think we should bide our time first. We’ve no evidence, and in theory, no motive. I think we should play it by ear; go back and act as if nothing had happened.’
‘Okay, that sounds a good idea. Let’s head back.’ ‘You want me to drive?’ asked Ben.
‘No, I’ll be okay,’ said Craig. ‘Let’s get back to the apartment, call the UK, and then get on the laptop, have another look at Adam’s emails and stuff.’
Ironically, the entrance to the highway was just a hundred yards or so further on. They joined the heavy southbound traffic and made their way back to Davenport. They pulled up outside the apartment block just after eight.
‘I need to take a shower,’ Craig said, walking across the grass.
Inside the apartment, Ben went into his bedroom and lay on the bed while Craig was in the shower. He ran through the events of the last week or so in his mind: the despair and depression he had felt after the break-up; sitting alone at home weighing up the pros and cons of taking the overdose; deciding to go ahead with it; and then just as he was about to go through with it, the call out of the blue from some guy who worked at his firm, whom he hadn’t known that well, just somebody he said hello to in the lift. And now he was here, miles away from home and normality. And what started out as a trip to help out a work colleague looked as if it was turning into something more. Apart from the fact that he felt Craig was becoming a friend rather than a workmate, they had clearly rattled somebody’s cage today. The interesting thing would be: what would happen next?
Craig had come out of the shower and Ben could hear him talking on the phone. He decided to take a shower himself while Craig was making his call. When he stepped out of the shower Craig was standing in the bathroom doorway still holding the phone.
‘What’s up?’ asked Ben.
‘Just got off the phone from my father,’ Craig replied, ‘and it seems I was wrong. Adam only came out here with one person.’
‘Steve, was it?’
‘Yes, that right. For some reason I thought three of them came out here.’
‘Yeah, but we only saw two of them on the CCTV.’
‘Adam and Steve, that’s right. Dad said Steve came over to visit the day before yesterday and they went over again what happened and nothing new came about. Really just as the tape showed, they both arrived at the bar, Adam left earlier with this mysterious Stacey, and never showed. Next morning, after he couldn’t get hold of Adam on his mobile, Steve went to the police.’
‘And saw Lieutenant Sanchez, presumably.’
Craig nodded. ‘Who apparently didn’t seem to take it very seriously.’
‘Same response we got. Another reason not to go to them about the car, unless we have to.’
‘Hm. Let’s get online, and check Adam’s emails again.’
They logged on, and got to Adam’s sign on screen. Craig keyed in the email address: [email protected].
‘Adam god’s gift?’ laughed Ben.
‘Craig sighed and shook his head. ‘That’s my brother for you. God’s gift to women. Just wait till we get to the password.’
Craig typed in the password, reading it out as he typed. ‘s-t-u-d-m-a-n-6-9.’
The screen opened up to Adam’s email page.
‘Let’s check the Inbox first,’ said Craig, moving the cursor.
The Inbox showed nothing out of the ordinary. Four emails were dated before Adam disappeared: two were from Amazon advising of a delay in the dispatch of an order, the other two were jokes forwarded by a name Craig did not recognize.
‘Never heard of him,’ Craig said. ‘Let’s see what these other two are.’
Two more were dated after the date Adam disappeared: the first was from Lufthansa advising of cheap flights to Berlin the following weekend; the second was from a DVD rental company telling Adam that a title was overdue.
‘See?’ Craig viewed the more recent messages. ‘Nothing untoward: emails confirming the flights, stuff he had bought online, nothing of any concern.’
‘What about the other boxes?’
‘Let’s have a look.’ Craig clicked on Sent. All this box contained was a message Adam had sent to his father, confirming the dates he was travelling to Florida, and a message to his bank, querying a charge.
The Spam box was empty.
The phone rang again. Craig answered. By the sound of the conversation, it was his mother. Craig took the phone over to the window, and talked, staring out.
Sensing that his friend wanted some privacy, Ben went downstairs to see if he could identify any damage to the car. They had parked in the same space as the night before. As he walked across the grass he could hear voices raised, a man’s and a woman’s, coming over from one of the other blocks. He looked over, and could see the two people arguing. He could now also hear a child crying, obviously upset that its parent were quarrelling. As he peered over to watch them, his view was momentarily blocked by what looked like an SUV slowly moving off. When it had passed, the couple had stopped arguing and were carrying the child and some shopping into their block.
He crouched down by the rear of their car. He also ran his hand over the back of the car. He could feel some marks, and in the light from the street lamps he could make out some damage to the paintwork. Best have a closer look in the morning, he thought; really don’t want to go to the police with this.
Returning to the apartment, he could see that Craig had finished the call. ‘Thanks for that,’ Craig said. ‘It was my mother. She’s very upset about this whole business. I told her the same as I told my father. But she wanted to hear it from me first hand. You can see how concerned they both are, must be middle of the night over there.’
Ben nodded sympathetically. ‘Let’s carry on with this,’ he said, sitting back down on the sofa.
Craig joined him, and clicked on the Trash box. The box contained six emails. ‘I think the system automatically removes these after a while,’ he said.
‘It does,’ said Ben, peering at the messages.
Four of the six emails were the feedback Adam appeared to have provided to Amazon. The fifth was an email to a Lorraine Tillman.
‘Recognise that name?’ Ben asked.
Craig stared at the screen for a moment, thinking. ‘I think she is one of his old girlfriends. What does the email say?
They quickly read the content
s of the email. It just contained information on what he had been doing, trips abroad he had had. In the email Adam had said his parents were both well, and he hoped hers were too. And a promise to be better at keeping in touch.
‘Nothing in here,’ said Ben. ‘Looks like he was just keeping in touch with one of his exes. What about the last?’
Craig clicked on the sixth. It was addressed to [email protected] and was titled Next Meeting. The text was extremely brief: OK for 25th 8PM @ S. A.
Ben read the message out loud. ‘It’s confirming a meeting with whoever captainx5 is on the 25th at 8pm. At S?’
Craig slapped his hand on the table. ‘At Shots! And the 25th is the last night anyone saw Adam. Remember the date on the tape?’
‘Yes, so Adam had arranged to meet somebody there that night at eight o’clock. So who the hell would captainx5 be?’
‘I’ll need to ring Steve Gibbs and speak to him again. He said nothing about an arranged meet.’
‘He may not have known. Your brother could have arranged it and just said let’s go to Shots tonight. And we’re assuming captainx5 is a man.’
‘Yeah, it could be Stacey. I’ll go ring Steve now.’
Craig leaned over and picked up his phone. He dialled and got his father again. After a brief conversation his father gave him a number. Craig said goodbye, hung up and redialled. There was no answer, so he left a message asking Steve to ring him back, any time. Then he returned to the laptop.
‘Let’s have a look at Adam’s Facebook page,’ he said, moving the cursor to the Sign Out line.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Ben putting his hand on Craig’s arm, Let me try something.’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘My ex’s brother was something of a computer nerd,’ Ben said, highlighting the email to captainx5. ‘Let’s try this one first.’ He paused while the email was highlighted. ‘Now, how did he do it? That’s it, I remember!’ He right-clicked on the email, then pressed SHIFT + CTRL + F6. A smaller box popped up. ‘Craig, what date did Adam disappear?’ he asked.
‘It was the 25th,’ answered Craig, a little puzzled.
‘Okay. Since then, as far as you know, has anyone else been able to access his email?’
‘Nobody. Only me and my father. And we had to hunt for his password. What are you getting at?’
‘Look at this window. It gives the history of the email. It was sent on the 23rd at 19:55. It says the email was read on the 23rd also, one hour ten minutes later. It also says that it was deleted on the 27th, at 09:30.’
Craig stared vacantly at the window. ‘Yeah, so what?’
Ben turned round so they were face to face. ‘Don’t you see? Adam appears to have arranged a meeting on 25th, and hasn’t been seen since. He sent an email to confirm on the 23rd.’
‘Go on.’
‘Look at the window. That email was deleted on the 27th – two days after Adam disappeared!’
Chapter Twelve
CRAIG SAT BACK for a moment, as if trying to take it in. ‘Just run that by me again,’ he said.
‘It’s quite straightforward when you know how,’ explained Ben. ‘By doing what I did, I can get an entire history of that email. And the history said that it was deleted two days after Adam disappeared.’
‘Well, it wasn’t me. And my father probably wouldn’t know how to even if he wanted to.’
‘What about his password? If he gave it to you...’
‘He didn’t. After he disappeared, Dad went through some of his paperwork and found an old post-it with his passwords on them. That’s how I got it; that’s how I could log on here.’
‘Would he have given anybody else the password? A girlfriend, maybe?’ Ben asked.
Craig shook his head emphatically. ‘No way. He has commitment issues, shall we say. Giving somebody his password would be like giving them a key to his flat. They could log in and find emails from other girlfriends. No, there’s no way he would have done that.’
‘Well, somebody did.’
‘I’m not that computer literate,’ Craig said. ‘I can do the basic stuff, but that’s about all. I didn’t know about that shift control f6 thing. Can you tell who deleted the email?’
‘That’s all the information I know how to access,’ Ben said. ‘It just tells us when it was deleted. And it would have had to have been under Adam’s sign on.’
‘And you can’t tell where it was deleted? You know, on his own laptop, or somebody else’s, or in an internet café somewhere?’
‘No, sorry.’
‘And there’s no way Adam could have sent that email, and told the email account to delete it two days later?’
‘Not as far as I know. And in any case, why would you want to do that? You would just delete it. And who deletes Sent items anyway? At least not individually like that. You’d just wait for the Sent box to be full, and then empty it.’
‘Unless you didn’t want anybody else to read it,’ said Craig.
‘Unless you didn’t want anybody else to read it,’ repeated Ben, ‘but why would he think anybody else would? And it’s quite innocuous: 25th S 8pm. You’d only have a problem with anybody reading it if you didn’t want them to know about the meeting.’
‘So the bottom line is,’ Craig went on, ‘two days after he left Shots with Stacey, whoever she is, he signed in somewhere, and deleted this sent message. Because he didn’t want anybody to know he had been there.’
‘Or,’ Ben said, ‘looking at a worse case scenario, somebody got his password – a password you say he jealously guarded – logged in, and deleted it.’
‘Could somebody have hacked in?’ Craig asked.
‘Possibly. Not sure how we’re going to find out if anybody did, or who they are.’
Craig leaned forward and took a closer look at the email history box. He said nothing.
‘Whatever did happen,’ Ben continued, ‘somebody – Adam or somebody else – has gone to quite a bit of trouble to cover up the fact that your brother had arranged to meet somebody at the bar.’
‘Dead end here then,’ said Craig. ‘Let’s see if we can get anything from his Facebook page. Do you use Facebook?’ he asked Ben.
‘No, I must say I don’t bother. Haven’t needed to. You?’
‘Same here. Fortunately his Facebook access details were written down as well as his passwords.’
Craig referred to the sheet of paper he had about Adam. He went to the Facebook access page and typed in Adam’s details. They watched the screen.
‘I don’t believe it,’ muttered Craig, as the screen showed a message FACEBOOK ACCOUNT SUSPENDED. ‘What the hell’s all this?’
‘Did you type in the details correctly?’ Ben asked.
‘I think I did.’ Craig repeated the process, and got the same screen again.
They both stared at the screen in disbelief for a few seconds. ‘I don’t believe it,’ Craig repeated.
‘He did keep a Facebook page?’ Ben asked.
‘Yeah, that’s how I’ve got the access details. I think he was quite punctilious about keeping it up to date. I always put it down to an ego thing: you know, that other people would actually be interested on what he was up to. Ironic thing was, he had to be careful about what he put down, in case the wrong person read it.’
‘The wrong person?’
‘Think about it: you can hardly advertise that you’re off skiing with the blonde girlfriend if there’s a danger of the brunette girlfriend whom you told you was on a business trip ends up reading it.’
‘Fair point,’ Ben said. ‘Anyway, I can’t understand why it’s coming up suspended.’
‘I’ve no idea. Maybe he stopped using it. Or maybe he tried to post something on there he shouldn’t have, and they suspended him.’
‘Like what?’
‘Pictures of him and a girlfriend in bed, maybe. Just clutching at straws.’
‘No,’ Ben said. ‘We’re talking Facebook not YouTube. I think this is something somebody’
s done deliberately. As if they're trying to hide something.’
‘That makes sense,’ Craig agreed. ‘Someone deletes that email, and then gets his Facebook page off the internet. There must have been something on there that would tell us about that night, and where he disappeared to. When Steve Gibbs rings me, I’ll ask him about it. He might be able to help.’
‘When’s he likely to call?’ Ben asked.
‘I said call me anytime; not to worry about waking me up. Just have to wait. Look, I don’t know about you, but I’m bushed. I think it’s the jet lag catching up with me. I’m going to turn in. Don’t want anything else to eat, still full from that diner.’
‘Okay buddy, see you in the morning then. What’s the plan for tomorrow?’
Craig yawned. ‘Well, depending on what Steve says if and when he calls I think – I think I haven’t a bloody clue what we should do tomorrow. We’re at a dead end.’
Ben shook his head. ‘No, we’re not, we’re just knackered. We must be on to something: the deleted emails, the missing Facebook page, to say nothing about someone trying to drive us off the road. I think we should both get a good night’s sleep and tackle it refreshed in the morning.’
Craig smiled at Ben and gently nodded. ‘Yeah. You’re right. See you in the morning.’
Left alone in the lounge, Ben surfed the TV channels for a while. He heard Ben’s bedroom door close. He yawned and stretched and decided to go to bed himself. Once in bed, he checked his phone. There were no messages, but the time showed 3.20am. He realized it was still on UK time, so he changed it to 10.20pm, laid down and went to sleep instantly.
*****
An hour later, Ben slowly woke up. He thought he could hear Craig’s phone ringing. He sat up in bed, getting his bearings. He was right: he could hear Craig talking. It must be Steve Gibbs. He got out of bed and walked down to Craig’s bedroom. A light was on and Craig was still talking. He peered round the door, inquisitively. Craig was sitting up in bed, having a conversation on his phone. He indicated for Ben to come in and sit down.
Craig finished the call, and put the phone down on the bed. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.’
‘No problem. Was that Steve Gibbs?’