Hershey pulled out his phone and saw a text he’d drafted but not sent. Reading it again he was pleased it hadn’t gone. He deleted it and tapped out another one.
Mr Lamb entered the office Culpepper had temporarily assigned to him, closed the door and locked it. He left the key inserted, but twisted forty-five degrees so no one else would be able to gain access. He crossed the small, featureless room to the desk. Besides the chair it was the only furniture present. There were no affectations such as personal items or office toys, not even something as functional as a wastebasket. Once seated he selected another, smaller key, unlocked the desk drawer, tugged it open and withdrew a sleek, black laptop. He placed the laptop on the desk, lifted the lid and turned it on.
Whilst the computer was booting up he sat back and thought, ordering and categorising everything he had learned in his mental filing cabinet and looking for the pattern that, irritatingly, still eluded him (a most unusual notion) but which he knew was there. It must be because £20 million pounds hadn’t gone missing of its own accord.
After a few moments the screen brightened and a tiny window asked for a password, which he duly entered, a seemingly random mixture of letters and numbers. The laptop chewed momentarily on the data then granted access, little icons popping up on screen like bursting bubbles. Mr Lamb deftly moved the pointer over the software he wanted to use and double-clicked the mouse.
Days ago he had broken into several e-mail accounts — which had proved shockingly easy — and uploaded spyware onto his targets’ computers. The programme, once installed, hunkered down as a hidden file and kept watch on everything that happened on the now infected computer. If he so chose Mr Lamb could watch the targets’ activities in real time and review their historical activity at his leisure.
There were really only two targets now, but Mr Lamb had always found it paid to hedge his bets. He checked his watch. Lunchtime. Josh was currently playing games. The others were inactive. That was fine; there was some usage history he needed to review anyway and a few secret camera feeds to check too. He got busy. He had always found activity was inextricably linked to luck, and getting a result was ultimately what Culpepper employed him for.
Deciding he just had to work even harder to get the break that Culpepper wanted, Mr Lamb bent to his task.
Claire was seething. She’d spent all morning snapping at everyone and everything in the office. Even the photocopier had received a significant beating. All because a text offering herself had been ignored for twelve hours — how dare he!
Just then her phone beeped and her mood, the most fickle of metronomes, swung to the other extreme as she read the text. Claire liked the blend of hard and soft, thoughtful and shitty in him. The apology was a gentlemanly touch Josh could never be physically or mentally capable of. Now she thought about it, the rude and selfish way Valentine treated her happened to turn her on. What had been really pissing her off only moments ago was now endearing and sexy, something else Josh was unqualified in.
She hit reply then tapped out, “Yours, big boy.”
She congratulated herself for purchasing a particularly large tube of lube yesterday, which was currently secreted in her handbag. She hoped there wouldn’t be much left by the time their rendezvous was over.
Hershey grinned with delight as he read the response. He wasn’t attracted to Claire in the slightest; she was frankly far too cheap. Tacky he didn’t mind, but cheap was a big no-no. He needed a piss and strode out of his office, whistling as he walked.
Elodie picked up Hershey’s mobile and scrolled through the text messages. She suspected Hershey was up to something but wanted to convince herself he wasn’t. The world dropped away from under her feet when she found the exchanges between her boss and Claire.
When Hershey came back in five minutes later Elodie was at her desk stabbing viciously at the keyboard. She turned her most hostile glare on the bastard, fossilising the wink he gave her.
Fils de salaud, she thought.