It made her sick to the stomach to think that it was nowLucy who got to wake up in this room every day. It was Lucy who got to bounceup and down on top of her mattress on top of her husband. It was Lucy who hadtaken over her room, her territory and her man, like some foreign powermercilessly marching its army across her borders to annex her territory.
Well, Lucy was in for a surprise, just as much as Alan was.Legally, Kay still owned half of this house, despite Alan’s best attempts toscrew it out of her in the divorce. Yes, he may have earned far more than shehad during the years they had been together, but there was more than a marriageto that.
Kay had kept house for him, raised their daughterpractically single-handedly, and done pretty much everything else for him sincethe day they had moved in together. In her eyes, that had just as much value asactual money being put on the table. His ducking and diving to get out ofgiving her any money in the divorce was unforgiveable. She was simply not goingto let him get away with it.
She dressed, freshened up, and went downstairs forbreakfast. She noticed in the bathroom that the laundry basket was full andalmost instinctively went to put a wash load on before remembering that shedidn’t have to. She didn’t have to concern herself with any of that today. By10am, she was ready to get started with what she had come here to do.
Her focus would be entirely on one room on the middle floorof the house. With only three of them living there, four bedrooms had been aluxury. Alan had quickly suggested that one of them become his office for whenhe worked from home. This had seemed a perfectly reasonable suggestion at thetime. They certainly didn’t need two guest bedrooms. The only time they everhad anyone to stay was when one of Maddie’s friends would come for a sleepover.
It hadn’t taken him long to become extremely protective overhis office. He moved in a desk, computer, filing cabinet and even a safe. Whenshe questioned what he needed a safe for, he spun her some yarn about companypolicy when handling confidential documents.
Not long after that he informed her that she didn’t need toclean the room: he would do it himself. It was the first time in his life hehad ever offered to help with the housework. If that hadn’t been enough to makeit crystal-clear he didn’t want her in there, a few weeks later he installed alock on the door. She had never seen the key. He justified this as being in theinterests of security. He said he couldn’t rule out rival firms breaking intothe house and trying to steal company secrets.
What utter rot, thought Kay now, as she stood in front ofthe locked door. Well, whatever secrets he was keeping in there, they were notgoing to remain secret much longer.
The only way she was going to get in was by giving the doora good kicking. She hoped that, as it was only an internal door, it wouldn’tput up too much resistance. It always looked so easy when people did it on thetelly. To make sure, she headed into Maddie’s bedroom and borrowed a big, heavypair of boots that she insisted were all the fashion, though Kay thought theylooked hideous.
The boots proved to be very useful. They had steel toecapsand two good kicks at the lock got the door open. Although it was a prettysolid lock, he hadn’t installed it particularly well and it splintered easily.
DIY was one of many things Alan wasn’t much good at. Hisargument was that he was a professional businessman who didn’t need to learnmanual skills, as people like him paid other people to do those sorts of jobs.In reality, due to his incredible stinginess when it came to parting with cash,it had been Kay who had ended up doing most of the maintenance around thehouse.
With the door open, Kay ventured forward eagerly into hisman cave, wondering what she would find. At first glance, the room was nothingout of the ordinary. It was pretty much as it had looked when she had last seenit, which had been a good couple of years ago. He had been very meticulous inkeeping her out of the office, even locking the door when he was working.
She noticed right away how dusty all the surfaces were,including the laptop keyboard which was also covered in crumbs and flakes ofwhat looked like dead skin. There were also several dead flies on thewindowsill. So much for cleaning the room himself, she thought.
Where should she start? She went for the laptop first. Itwas switched off so before she booted it up, she grabbed a couple of wipes andgave it a quick clean. There was no way she was touching that in its currentstate. Then she turned it on and waited, expecting to face some sort ofpassword protection.
Sure enough, the welcome screen was soon replaced by anotherasking for a PIN number. That was potentially easier than a password. She couldhave a reasonable stab at guessing it. What would he use?
He had been born on the 25th October 1964, so shetentatively typed in 2510. To her amazement, the screen changed to the standardWindows opening screen. She had guessed correctly at the first attempt!
She couldn’t believe it. What an absolute muppet! Why go toall this effort to secure the room and then use his birthday as his PIN? EvenKay, who wasn’t that tech-savvy, knew that you never used your date of birth asa PIN or a password. It was one of the first things that hackers would try.
Cracking his code was going to make her job a whole loteasier. The laptop must be full of clues, especially if he had been labouringunder the false premise that it was secure. So, what should she look for
