Game Over

‘No,’ she said. ‘He just used ordinary biros. He wasn’t interested in pens. Why?’

‘Oh, just wondering what else might have been in his pocket.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t have been a biro. He hated people who had them sticking out of their pockets. Like men who wore signet rings. He had a lot of those little prejudices.’

‘We all do,’ Slider said, to comfort her.

They moved on to the third bedroom, which was furnished as an office, with a desk, computer, filing cabinets and so on. Again, everything looked orderly, and Emily Stonax said she couldn’t see anything missing.

Bob Bailey eased Slider aside and said quietly, ‘There’s something interesting about one of those filing cabinets. Fingermarks on the top and on this drawer. Don’t get excited – they’re gloved prints, so we won’t get a match, but it’s an indication?’

‘Yes,’ said Slider. What normal person puts gloves on to do their filing? Someone had been in. ‘You’d better have a look for footprints as well. That’s quite a new carpet with a good pile.’

‘Already on it. And here’s something else – a quick analysis of one of the smears suggests oil of some kind, probably petroleum based.’

‘I didn’t know you had a field test kit for oil,’ said Slider.

Bailey gave him a withering look. ‘It’s called smell and taste.’

‘Well, get me a sample and I’ll shove it off to the lab,’ Slider said, his interest quickening. If the oil came from the perpetrator’s car, it might be possible to get a match: the oil in each car had a unique combination of impurities – dirt, soot, pollen etc. Of course, there was no register of car-prints, but it was good evidence once they had a suspect. ‘Have you opened any of the drawers yet?’

‘Not yet. Still doing externals.’

‘Well, I’d like Miss Stonax to have a look into the one with the fingermarks.’

It hardly needed the eye of a relative, when it came to it, because as soon as the drawer was opened it could be seen that one of the hanging folders was empty. The plastic name tag from it had been taken, too – pulled out so roughly that the slots that had held it had been torn.

‘I suppose you can’t tell us what was in it?’ Slider asked without much hope.

She shook her head slowly, obviously trying to help. ‘I’ve never really looked through his files. All I can say is that he was very tidy-minded and kept everything in a logical order, either alphabetical or by category.’ She looked at Slider. ‘So what does this mean? If someone took a file out of his office, doesn’t it change things?’

‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ Slider said. ‘The two things might not be related at all. This folder might have been empty to begin with, or the file might have been removed at some other time. Your father might have lent it to someone, or just refiled it somewhere else.’

Emily was looking at the tags on the rest of the files. ‘This is all environmental stuff. I recognise some of the names – campaigns and enquiries he’s mentioned to me in the past.’

Slider sighed inwardly at the thought of having to go through everything. There were three cabinets of four drawers each, enough paper-chasing to keep them up nights for months, unless a good lead turned up. ‘I’d just like to find his credit card numbers so we can get a fix on those,’ he said.

‘This drawer’s labelled “Financial”,’ said Bob Bailey, from another stack. There were folders inside with credit-card statements neatly filed in date order, each entry on each statement with a small precise tick against it where, presumably, it had been checked against the counterfoils in the officially approved manner. Stonax’s tidy, logical methods certainly made it easier to find things. Unfortunately – if the ‘missing’ folder were indeed missing, and significant – it also made it easier for an intruder to find what he wanted.

‘That’s all I want for now,’ Slider said, noting how Emily Stonax was drooping with weariness as the brief, spurious excitement wore off. ‘Would you like to make your way back to the door and I’ll see about getting you some transport.’

She retraced her steps, while Bailey bagged the credit-card folders. ‘I’ll take his chequebook and bank statements, and that big diary, too,’ Slider said. ‘And the pile of papers on the corner of the desk – that might be recent correspondence. I suppose we’ll have to get into his computer, too.’

‘You may be too late for that,’ Bailey said. ‘If the villain was after something documentary, now he’s got the Cyber-box he can get in there and take what he wants.’

‘He can?’

‘It uploads as well as downloads.’

‘Oh, bloody Nora, don’t tell me that!’

‘If he knows or can figure out the password, that is,’ Bailey said hastily, in an effort to comfort him.

Slider met his eyes. ‘I was hoping the stolen Cyber-box meant it was a simple robbery from the person. But combine it with a missing file, and it starts to look more complicated. And complicated I can do without at the moment.’

‘We don’t know the file’s missing,’ said Bailey encouragingly. ‘And Stonax might have made those fingermarks himself – on his way out with his gloves on, say, and he suddenly remembers he needs the file for something. Dashes back in . . .’

‘Thanks for reminding me,’ Slider said, though not with overwhelming gratitude. ‘Now we’ve got to look through his clothes for gloves as well.’

At the door to the flat Slider found Atherton, standing outside in the corridor and talking to Emily Stonax. Hart was also there, looking on with an expressionless face, her arms folded across her chest in what in other circumstances might have been a defensive posture. Slider took Atherton to one side and handed him the bag of papers. ‘You can take these back and start going through them. The credit-card numbers are in there.’

‘Do you want them stopped?’

‘Not immediately,’ said Slider. ‘Put an alert on them. It’s possible one of them might be used and then we’ll get a fix on the user.’

‘Right. Oh, and Mackay was just here. He’s managed to get the old lady next door to answer at last. Number five, the other side. A Mrs Koontz. Apparently she was out walking her dog this morning at about half past seven and she saw someone coming out of the main door downstairs.’

‘Half past seven? That could be all right,’ said Slider.

‘It’s not much help to us, though,’ said Atherton. ‘Apparently it was one of those motorbike couriers, in leathers, with the smoked-glass visor on the helmet.’

Slider almost clicked his fingers. ‘That was it!’

‘What was what?’

‘I saw something this morning, when I was leaving here. It caught my attention, but just out of the corner of my mind, and I didn’t really take in what it was. But now you remind me, it was a man in a motorbike helmet. He was standing in the crowd.’

Atherton cocked his head slightly. ‘Is that it?’

‘I just thought it was odd that someone standing watching like that shouldn’t have taken off his helmet.’

Atherton shrugged. ‘If he’d just paused for an instant to look . . . ?’

‘I know. It’s probably nothing.’

‘What’s probably nothing?’ Hart asked, joining them.

‘Neighbour saw a motorbike courier leaving this morning at an interesting time, and the guv’nor saw a man in a bike helmet in the crowd,’ Atherton explained. ‘Naturally in a city of twenty million people they’d have to be one and the same.’

‘You think you’re kidding.’ Hart looked serious. ‘I was waiting to tell you about the caretaker, guv, Borthwick, but now I think there’s something you ought to see for yourself.’

Slider was aware that Emily Stonax was standing unattended since Hart had left her. ‘I’ll come,’ he said. ‘Atherton, Miss Stonax needs a lift. Can you look after her? Drop that stuff at the station on your way if that fits in.’

‘Certainly,’ Atherton said, and almost leapt to her side with an alacrity that had Hart muttering, ‘Boy scout!’ under her breath, but rather sourly.

In the car, Atherton said, ‘I have to take these things back to the station, but of course your bags are still there, aren’t they? So we can pick them up at the same time. Is that all right?’

‘Yes,’ she said, staring listlessly out of the window.

‘And where would you like me to take you afterwards?’