I spent about twenty minutes staring at the message in the hope it would reveal something to me.
It’s already done.
It didn’t give me a lot to go on. All I could think of were innocent, work-related explanations and I realised how hard it was going to be to objectively consider that David could have killed Bob.
The only incriminating evidence I could find on Amara was an e-mail she sent Bob after a meeting they’d both been in.
I swear, if you humiliate me again in front of clients, I’ll return the favour and haul you up in front of a tribunal. You might be able to push your underlings around but you won’t get away with that with me.
It was the last e-mail they exchanged for months before Bob’s death. I could tell how angry she must have been, Bob was supremely good at needling and rankling everyone around him. But Amara’s threat was hardly the wild-eyed reaction of a killer; it was the measured and appropriate response of a capable administrator.
I moved on to look through the screenshots of Wendy’s Facebook which very much made it look like she’d been at a stamp collecting evening in Finsbury Park on the night of the murder. The event was organised by the London Stamp Fanatics so I set up a fake Facebook account to get in touch with them and find out about the event I was so sorry to have missed.
It was true that Wendy was in debt as well. I couldn’t log on to her online bank but she had statements e-mailed to her every month and she was in the red by thousands of pounds.
She hadn’t sent many personal e-mails to Bob, but the few that Ramesh had copied for me were not friendly.
I’m tired of your excuses. I don’t care if your kids get sick or your wife loses her job or your milkman is bankrupt, I just want what you owe me. I’ve given you enough warnings. Don’t make me go to the police.
Wendy always seemed like such a miser that it was impossible to imagine her lending anyone any money. Perhaps they were going into business together or Bob had given her some dodgy financial advice. Why else would he have owed her eight grand?
I looked through everyone’s e-mails from the day that Bob died but there wasn’t much of interest. The police had his computer so we didn’t have access to his personal messages, only whatever was left on the server from his work account. Not being entirely sure what Porter & Porter really did, I wasn’t best placed to interpret the businessy stuff that his emails referred to.
One thing that stood out was that Bob had begun to extend his bad manners towards his clients. I ran back through a series of e-mail chains and, around Christmastime, there was a definite shift in the way he worked. From being short but formal in his replies, he suddenly got sloppy – taking weeks to respond to messages, or firing them off in slangy English.
By March, he’d become full-on insulting and if anyone challenged him, Bob would reply in shouty capital letters.
I SEE NO REASON TO RESPOND TO YOUR RIDICULOUS ACCUSATIONS. STOP WASTING MY TIME.
There were companies that we’d been working with for years who got sick of his attitude and took their business elsewhere. His dramatic change in behaviour was best highlighted by an intervention by our company’s founder, Mr Aldrich Porter himself – a man who hadn’t been seen in the office in ten years and lived as a practical recluse in his country house near the South Downs. A month before the murder, he sent a personal e-mail, enquiring after Bob’s wife and children by name and checking in on the state of the business. If Mr Porter had noticed the problem, things must have been serious, but Bob never even wrote back.
I get annoyed sometimes when people don’t respond to my texts, especially when I can see that they’ve read them. It’s hardly a reason to have someone killed though and I didn’t feel the need to add Mr Porter to our list of suspects.
It occurred to me that everything I’d been able to get on Bob, the police would’ve already obtained. What I couldn’t be sure of was how thorough they had time to be. Did they really have the resources to plough through the countless e-mails and messages that were sent within the company each year? Sill, I couldn’t help wishing that I knew what they’d found on Bob’s phone and computer that I couldn’t get to.
When my eyes grew tired from staring at my laptop and I couldn’t bear to read another boring e-mail about office supplies or leadership training, I shut them tight. I imagined myself back to the afternoon on the day of Bob’s death. It wouldn’t have stood out from any other day except for the fact it was Amara’s 40th birthday and Ramesh had made her a cake. I looked around my colleague’s faces as he got busy carving.
“Pink and yellow; subtle colours.” Bob rarely sounded anything less than furious and even his sarcasm was undercut with his own brand of simmering rage. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from Ramesh.”
“No cake for you then.” My friend’s eyes narrowed as he stared down his enemy. “I wouldn’t want you to keel over from a massive heart attack.”
“Ha, there’s about as much chance of me dying from a heart attack as there is of your girlfriend being a girl.” The two had never got on but, since January, Bob’s would-be homophobic comments and general cruelty had been bumped up a notch.
I watched him cough out one nicotine-coated lung into his sleeve and then continue with his insults.
To paper over the row, Amara was being her usual humble self. “Thanks, Ramesh. You really shouldn’t have made a fuss. It looks lovely.”
“If everyone could gather round. I’d like to say a few words.” Ah, David’s the best, isn’t he? He’s just so authoritative and managerial.
As our super-boss launched into his tribute to the birthday girl, Wendy looked put out that she was still waiting for cake and paid no attention to Bob who had flopped down beside her. There was always something very crumpled about him. He sat folded over, his shoulders rounded and his clothes askew. His old, brown suit gave him the look of someone who had given up ever choosing what to wear. It was the uniform of a thoroughly charmless man.
If anyone was acting out of character it was Will. He was standing back from the group, maudlin and quiet as Bob made himself heard over a flutter of applause.
“Ramesh, you’re slower than my mother-in-law on a mobility scooter.”
Will’s eyes darted about the scene. He looked stunned, distant. I’d never understood their friendship; had Bob finally got tired of it and cut his protégé loose? Will had no reliable alibi, maybe he’d found a way to get into the server room after all.
Ever the good host, Ramesh smiled as he handed out slices of cake around the group. Will was comparatively civil as he received his bounty but when Ramesh reluctantly handed a piece over to Bob, the brown-suited bully had another cough all over the offering and said, “Changed my mind. I don’t like girly cakes.”
Tossing the plate onto Ramesh’s desk, he stomped off towards his office. He still had a little anger left for me though. “Izzy, stop stuffing your face and finish your work by the end of the day, or we’ll cut your wages.”
Bob had been messaging me the same thing all morning, so I continued to ignore him. I’d worked there long enough not to be scared of his tantrums. Ramesh on the other hand looked like someone had punched one of his cats.
Living through that scene for the second time, it seemed bizarre that I’d failed to see how deeply that hateful man got under my friend’s skin. It shows what a talented bully Bob truly was. To be able to act the way he did – to harass and demoralise those around him – and not only get away with it but make it seem normal was a kind of mastery. We were trespassers in his realm and, in the kingdom of Bob, even his fellow rulers didn’t dare challenge him.
My thoughts were interrupted by Mum and Greg chanting in their bedroom. The time-slip daydream had done the job though and shone a light on something I would’ve otherwise forgotten.
I opened my laptop to read through the e-mails in Bob’s account from the day he died. The morning was full of the usual stuff; newsletters, messages from clients and junk mail was mixed in with s
hy replies from a few of the underlings who Bob was so fond of screaming at.
It picked up again after lunch but then, from the time they cut the cake until clocking off, there was nothing. Though he received ten or so messages an hour on a normal working day, there was a massive dead spot when not a single message came in. Maybe that wasn’t so strange considering the work being done to the server that week. I would have overlooked it myself if I hadn’t remembered Bob spending that whole afternoon sending digs my way about being slower than his mother-in-law on a mobility scooter (he was an unashamed re-user of insults.)
I looked in the Recycle Bin but it was empty. The Sent folder was the same. There was no record of Bob writing or receiving any messages for two whole hours, even though he was shut away working in his office that whole time. Whoever had deleted my messages had made sure that no one would stumble across them. And while I wanted to believe I had a secret defender who had tried to hide Bob’s clearly dreadful opinion of me from the police, I came to a very different conclusion.
In the aftermath of Bob’s murder, Ramesh was the one person with access to the secure server where our emails were stored. It wouldn’t have been enough to wipe files locally on Bob’s computer, so the only explanation was that he’d deleted a batch of messages and mine had gone with them. If it wasn’t my e-mails to Bob, what was Ramesh hiding?
I knew someone who could help me find out. I’d never imagined having to look up that number again, but I grabbed my phone and dialled.
“Dean Shipman from Bromley speaking. Who’s that?”
“It’s me, Izzy…” The line remained silent. “Izzy Palmer from West Wickham?”
“Oh, hello Izzy.” His voiced warmed up a fraction but he said nothing more.
“Listen, Dean. I need your help to spy on my best friend.”
“Great. What’s in it for me?”
Chapter Eleven
I felt pretty stupid that I’d dismissed the possibility of Ramesh being the killer. If there was one thing I’d learnt from murder mysteries, it was always to expect the person you’d never expect. It’s practically the golden rule of crime fiction. The guy with the airtight alibi from the beginning? It could very well be him. The old lady who is kind to children and animals? Psychopathic killer! Hospital-stricken invalid in a full plaster cast? Well, that may be genuine, but take nothing for granted.
I was still holding out hope for a simple explanation to why Ramesh was hiding evidence. The only way I could be sure that he was innocent was to investigate him just the same as any other suspect. Of course to do that, I’d need to find a way to get him out of the office for a good long while. Luckily I had the perfect excuse already in place.
The problem with mounting a secret investigation when even your best friend can’t know the details is that it’s difficult to keep track of all the elements you’ve put into play. At work on Tuesday morning I had all my ducks in a row and my fingers crossed that nothing would go wrong, which, when you think about it, is a precarious position to be in. Still, after spending far too long not being detectivey enough, the ball had finally started to roll. Okay, that’s too many metaphors.
Even if I’d already landed on a prime suspect, there was a bunch of questions that still needed to be answered. In fact I’d made a list of the most important ones.
Who killed Bob?
What did Ramesh have to hide? Did he kill Bob?
Why did Bob owe Wendy money and was she really geeking out over stamps on the night he died or did she kill Bob?
Whoever killed him, why did they stick Bob’s letter opener in his back if they’d already gutted him with a fruit knife?
When was my date with David supposed to be and how sparkly an outfit should I wear? Oh and did he kill Bob?
If I couldn’t answer at least one of those questions by the end of the day, I decided I would give up and leave it to the professionals.
“I’m looking forward to tonight,” David told me as we coincidentally (not a coincidence) rode the lift together up to the fourth floor.
Result! Move over Miss Marple.
“Yeeeeeeah. Can’t wait.” I said this in far too flirty a voice so then I had to pretend I had a sore throat.
“Is eight o’clock okay?” He looked at me like he already regretted the invitation.
Rather than reply vocally, I faked a really deep, phlegmy cough and gave him a thumbs up.
To answer yet more of my burning questions, I would send Ramesh off on his next techy spying task at ten that morning which was the exact same time that Dean would be coming by the office.
Ramesh had gone to do my bidding in the unrented office on the seventh floor when Dean Shipman walked in to Porter & Porter looking just as pubescent as ever.
“Hello, Izzy. I’m–”
I grabbed him by the entrance to steer him round Jack in his cupboard and beyond the mouthy receptionist who’d been looking at me like I’d eaten her baby ever since Bob died. I certainly didn’t trust Bromley’s favourite son to bluff his way past them. I could just see him going up to reception and saying, Hello. I’m Dean Shipman from Bromley. I’m here to help Izzy spy on her friend. Luckily I managed to smuggle him over to Ramesh’s desk without another word.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Izzy.” He sighed like the weight of the universe was pressing down on his shoulders but he could just about bear it. “Let me do my job.”
I watched him pull out a tiny USB drive from one of the infinite pockets on his black workman’s jacket and plug it into the back of the computer. Ramesh’s assistant Maria paid no attention whatsoever to us and remained hypnotised by her screen, just as I knew she would.
“Okay, all set,” Dean said after about three seconds had passed.
“Wow, that was quick.” I’d imagined a long, drawn out process that involved wires, cables and perhaps pliers.
“Hey Iz, who’s this guy?” Ramesh had already returned. He’d only been gone a minute. I thought computery stuff was complicated!
“Entirely unsure what to say next, I stared at the two techiest men in my life.
“Hello. I’m Dean Shipman from Bromley. I–”
I interrupted before he could say anything moronic. “Dean here is from Bromley Technology Solutions he’s come to look at…” My voice faded away pathetically and I was about to give up and lie down on the floor when my unexpected saviour came to the rescue.
“Cabling.” Dean said it very matter-of-factly, like he knew exactly what he was talking about, which it turned out he did. “We had a call from one of the bosses to say you were thinking of installing fibre optics across the network. So I thought I’d come to see the head of I.T., which I hear is you, my good sir, to see what sort of spec you’re interested in.”
My jaw had dropped all the way down to the basement.
Ramesh glanced between us for a second and then let out a cry in the direction of the far corner office. “David, I love you!”
Will poked his head up over his desk divider. “That’s a perfectly normal thing to say, everybody.” He was back to his usual mini-Bob ways. “Nothing weird about declaring your love to your boss. Everyone get back to work.”
Ramesh was so happy that he completely ignored Will’s snarky comment. “I’ve been asking David to upgrade for months. I can’t believe this day has finally come.”
“Okay.” Dean continued with his patter. “So what are we looking at? What kind of speed have you got in mind?”
I left them to talk nonsense to each other and, when my worst ever date had finished lying to my best friend, Dean stopped by my desk on the way out. “That guy is really into cabling.”
“That’s nothing.” I stopped the no doubt important work I was doing. “You should hear him talk about Shania Twain.”
He pulled back his sleeve to reveal the kind of digital watch eleven-year-old boys wear. “Listen, Izzy. This has taken a lot longer than I was expecting.”
“You’ve only been her
e fifteen minutes.”
His face remained serious, his voice flat. “I’m a busy man.” He took another USB key out of his pocket and placed it firmly on my desk. “Plug this in. Run the software and you’ll be able to view whatever files your friend has on his computer.”
“Thanks, Dean. You were really great back there.”
“Course I was.” He held one nostril closed and blew out of the other into my bin. “Don’t forget our deal. You owe me.”
He walked out of the office, checking over his shoulder like he thought someone was following him.
One rat trapped, a few more still to secure.
Ramesh, did you get everything set up?
It took him a while to reply. He was probably off doing his job or something.
All done. I gave Jack, Wendy and Will specific times to head up there. We’ll go into the server room at lunch to see what happens.
Good job. But play it cool. We don’t want to arouse suspicion.
He sent back a detective emoji followed by a little face with a finger to its lips and then a picture of an oven for some reason. Or was it a computer? A VHS cassette maybe?
I’d done about a month’s work the day before so I figured I’d earned a morning off. As soon as Ramesh logged onto the network, I ran the software that Dean had given me. It instantly gave me access to the files on his work computer. I poked around in his e-mails first in case there was anything there from the day that Bob was killed. His folders that afternoon were just as empty as Bob’s were so I moved on.
A year earlier, Ramesh had been phenomenally happy to have created a hole in the Porter & Porter firewall so that he could synchronise everything with his home computer. I’d had no idea what he was talking about of course but the link I discovered on his desktop helped me figure it out.
A Corpse Called Bob Page 9