The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3225 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 Angharad

“Where’s this computer you want me to look at?” Sammi wasn’t usually this brusque.

“Up in your room, good journey down?”

“No some bloke made a nuisance of himself.”

“Oh, nuisance—in what way?”

“He seemed to think my breast needed rubbing.”

“He what?”

“I told him to piss off.”

“Did he?”

“He did after I gave him a very public slap on the face. It hurt my hand so what he felt I wouldn’t like to say.”

“Did you tell the guard?”

“Yes and he took a statement, the bloke got off the train at Clapham in rather a hurry.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, you get used to it, living in London, people rub against you all the time and some of that is deliberate.”

“I expect it is, unfortunately it seems to be the lot of women to have to deal with it.”

“Yeah, well if it’s blatant, so is my response.”

“Just be careful, men are a bit stronger than we are.”

“I know—though that’s never stopped you, has it?”
I declined to answer that question and accompanied her up to her room. “Three? I thought you said a laptop.”

“I did but I brought these home as well, just in case.”

“What am I looking for?”

“I don’t know. They think he and his wife were murdered possibly for something on the computers, he was an IT lecturer.”

“Which one?”

“I have no idea what he taught except computers...”

“No, Mummy, which lecturer was he?”

“Oh, Ben Smithers.”

“Oh dear, nice guy, out of his depth but otherwise okay.”

“You knew him?”

“Well yeah, I did my master’s at Pompey, didn’t I?” And a doctorate at Imperial.

“Of course you did,” goodness, that was when I first met her or him, as he was briefly—no sign of any boy there now, just a rather beautiful young woman. How time flies.

“Can someone bring my dinner up here, this could take all night?”

“Can’t you stop for dinner?”

“Not with three computers to check, no. What is it?”

“Chicken chasseur, I think.”

“Okay, right off you go and leave me in peace. Oh if Einstein is about, send her up.”

“I think she’s out at soccer practice, Daddy was picking her up.”

“That still seems odd, Trish playing football.”

“She’s actually quite good at it, not as good as Danielle...”

“Yeah well no one is as good as her, are they?”

“I doubt it, cuppa?”

“That would be ace, thanks, Mummy.” She pecked me on the cheek and before I was out of the room, she was plugging in the first computer and attaching a lead to her own laptop. I left her to it but took her up a mug of tea ten minutes later. I don’t think she even noticed me. Danni and Trish came in a few minutes later and when I told Trish that Sammi was home, she virtually flew up the stairs. Danni simply shrugged and announced she’d see her later.

Dinner was minus our two boffins, they had theirs upstairs while they analysed everything on the three computers. I knew that there was software which could unlock passwords but I’d never seen it in operation and the numbers and letters flying or rolling through a few small windows on Sammi’s laptop literally were too fast to read any of them.

“We’re in,” she announced to Trish.

“And this one,” Trish replied.

I put down the two drinks I’d taken them and collected the dirty dishes. Once more I’d not been noticed, so intent was their concentration on the task in hand.

Two hours later I was talking with Daddy when Trish came down with the empty cups and asked for refills.

“How’s it going?”

“Oh we finished that ages ago, Sammi’s printing off stuff for the plod.”

“Oh good,” well what else could I say, I had no idea what they found.

“Yeah, looks like he was involved in helping someone hide things.”

“Things?”

“Yes Mummy, they were tax dodging and something else that Sammi said.”

“Go on, I’ll bring them up.” I made some more teas and took them up to Sammi’s room.

“You owe me a ream of paper,” she said pointing at the mound of paper still emerging from the printer.

“Is all that evidence?”

“That’s for the plod to decide, I’ve printed off everything and highlighted it on the computers. They’re now decrypted, so even the police should be able to find it all.”

“What did you find?”

“I was initially disappointed that we discovered he was covering the books for a firm of accountants, with all their clients who had off-shore money and other tax dodges. It could cause some people to pay large fines or end up in prison and some quite well known names too. I reckon he kept a list for himself, a nice little earner when he needed money.”

“So that’s why they killed him?”

“Ah no, there’s some stuff here about something far tastier than that.”

“Oh?”

“Looks like defence contracts fraud—big time.”

“I think I’d better call Toby.”

“He that nice copper Trish helped solve that murder?”

“Yes.”

“Nice guy.”

“I think so.” Why did I blush when I answered her?

“So I see,” she chuckled.

I went off and phoned Toby, he’d given me his mobile number and he promised to come straight over. I didn’t say anything about what had been found.

He was with us within half an hour and he brought a younger detective sergeant with him. I introduced him to Sammi and she proceeded to show the younger plod what she’d found on the computers, the young police woman nodded as if in understanding, I hoped it was because I certainly didn’t know what she was talking about.

Trish was showing Toby the paper evidence that had been printed off, mostly columns of figures from spreadsheets—even my quick glance showed there were some rather large sums of money involved.

“Anyone fancy a cuppa?” I asked twice before they all said yes. At least I now had something to do. I was busy making the teas when Toby came down talking on his mobile.

“Yeah, send a van, we’ve got some really juicy stuff here and those suspicions you had about a local MP and the defence contracts—we might have nailed him.”

Toby grapped me and planted a kiss on my cheek. I gasped. “Thanks,” he said, “You were absolutely right about your daughter, she undid about five levels of security to give us that stuff. No wonder they killed him—oh and there is a Jaguar, but it relates to a fighter jet—someone was selling them to an Arab state.”

“Ah, I think I’ll keep mine on the ground, though at times the extra acceleration would be useful, so would the guns.”

“I never had you down as aggressive, Cathy.”

I blushed and got very warm, “I’m not aggressive—it would all be very matter of fact.”

“That’s even more scary.”

I smiled, “For the female of the species is more deadly than the male,” I said quoting Kipling.*

“I think you may be right,” he said before picking up his mug and swigging the tea.

*http://www.potw.org/archive/potw96.html