One of Us Is Dead

9 Friday 23 September 2022

Paul Anthony acknowledged this bombshell with a widening of his eyes, and then a toss of his head in which he shook away the forelock over his eyes. ‘That’s a pretty big ticket,’ he said.

‘One way of describing it.’

She felt a burden had lifted in telling him. And he wasn’t judging her like she feared he might.

‘Do you want to talk about the circumstances?’

She shrugged. ‘Not really. I... he seemed very charming when I first knew him, in a bit of a boffin kind of way, if you know what I mean? Almost the classic absent-minded professor. He even looked it, you know, bald at the front, tangled hair, a little shambolic, but he wore the kind of glasses that shout, I am cool! Big, round black rims.’

He nodded. ‘Don’t tell me he has leather patches on his sleeves.’

‘He has leather patches on his sleeves.’

‘Part shabby-shabby, like a down-at-heel teacher, part shabbygenius, like Einstein, and part vain cockerel?’

‘That sums him up pretty well. His nickname was Lechy Lew.’

‘You didn’t go to the police?’

‘I should have done, I know.’ And she felt that more than ever at this moment. ‘I’m sure there would have been evidence. I know he took the underwear I was wearing, the dirty pervert, so that would be somewhere. Pink, it was. Isn’t it strange the stuff you remember? But — I was in such a messed-up state. I needed my degree, I just couldn’t think straight. It was the brutality of his attack — I realized he was a freaky Jekyll and Hyde character. I couldn’t go back to my tuition that year because I was scared it would happen again. In the end I had to request a change of tutor and go back a year later to complete it, at further expense. I never told anyone what he’d done. This is the first time I’ve told anyone.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess it’s because I totally trust you not to judge me.’

‘I’d never judge you.’ He twisted his glass of amaretto around in his elegant hand. ‘I could get rid of him for you,’ he said, with a casual, cheeky grin.

She looked back at him. ‘Oh yeah? Pop, pop, gone? One of our 3D guns? Um, small problem there, Paul, you’d get caught!’

‘No, I wouldn’t get caught. I would set it up like an accident. Simples.’

She shrugged. ‘Nice idea, Paul.’ She paused. ‘But, I’m not a murderer, are you?’ she said sarcastically.

‘Do you think I look like one?’

‘Do I think you look like a murderer?’ She saw a waiter hovering nearby, asked for another amaretto and turned back to Paul. ‘I don’t know, I’ve no idea what a murderer looks like.’

He gave her an intense gaze. ‘Did you ever see the Hitchcock movie Strangers on a Train?’

She had but a long time ago. Trying to recall it, she had a faint black and white image in her mind of two men, in business suits, in a railway carriage. ‘I did, I’ve always loved Hitchcock. I can’t remember who the actors were — but from memory they agreed to swap murders. One stranger kills his new friend’s wife, and the other his new friend’s father, so there would be no apparent motive for either murder, right?’

He nodded approval. ‘Pretty much spot on!’ He was silent for a moment then gave her a strange smile. ‘You just said you have no idea what a murderer looks like, right?’

She nodded.

‘In the book that film was based on, Guy says to Owen, “Nobody knows what a murderer looks like. A murderer looks like anybody!”.’

She sat in silence, absorbing this. After a moment she said, ‘Ha-ha, nice one. OK, go on then, see ya later, Llewellyn. Night night!’

He tilted his head so that his damaged eye was looking at her, almost piercingly, like the eye of a bird of prey.

‘I’m going to sort it out. Payback time. You don’t need to say anything else.’

She glanced around, checking that the diners on the tables either side of them and behind them had left.

‘Am I dating a murderer?’ She was playing with him but quite enjoying it.

‘I wouldn’t call it that, Shannon. Let’s just say you’re dating a facilitator.’

‘Facilitator? Meaning what, exactly?’

‘You keep asking me more about my businesses,’ he said and downed most of the liqueur in one tip of the glass. ‘Do you want to know where I make most of my money?’

‘I do, I’m intrigued.’

‘I’ve another business I operate on the dark web.’

He fell silent as her second amaretto was delivered, then continued. ‘How much do you really know about the dark web — and The Onion Router?’

Letting her guard down, she said, ‘Probably a lot more than you realize. I prefer using the acronym Tor myself. So your other business on the dark web is what?’

‘It’s also in facilitating,’ he replied, but this time more cagily.

‘Facilitating what?’

‘It’s your turn first to tell me what exactly you do at SQLMT.’

She gave him a teasing smile. ‘I’m not allowed to tell you. I’ve already said more than I’m allowed under the terms of my non-disclosure contract, which is why I’ve never talked about it. You know this, Paul.’

He didn’t return the smile. ‘Let me guess — the company you are working for is developing systems to crack the different onion layers of the dark web, and it could only be doing that for one of three clients — the police, the military intelligence services or the members of the British Bankers’ Association, right?’

After a brief hesitation she said, ‘It’s two of those, actually.’

‘Of course it is. So what else do you do for them?’

‘I program bots to dig deep into it, learning as they go. Every now and then, in my down time, I take a trawl around the dark web out of curiosity — I see a lot more shocking stuff than what we’re doing.’

He stared back at her for a long while. Finally he said, ‘So you could tell the police or MI5 or MI6 everything about my business, in theory?’

‘It will be a while before we’re that smart and sophisticated but, yes, that’s the aim of the team I’m working with. To stop people like you being able to hide what you do.’

He shook his head. ‘That will never happen. We’ll always be one step ahead. We always have been. Criminals don’t get locked up because the police have caught up with their technology, they only get locked up when they make a mistake.’

‘Have you ever made a mistake?’

‘I don’t make mistakes.’ He said it as a flat, bald statement. ‘Well — one, once, but that’s another story.’

‘OK.’ She shrugged and smiled then asked, ‘So we know we could get a gun, one of our untraceable 3D printed handguns, but could you actually shoot it at someone? Could you shoot that bastard Llewellyn? I’m not sure I could, however much I would like to.’

He looked at her, hard. ‘What if I could produce someone who could?’

Lowering her voice she said, ‘You mean a hitman?’

‘Exactly.’

She stared at him, surprised by how disturbed his words made her feel, despite her loathing of Llewellyn. ‘I don’t think so, no.’ She shook her head. ‘I guess that’s not in my DNA. I don’t think I could live with having paid someone to murder him, however much I hate him, however much I want him dead — or however much I’d like to cut his dick and balls off and shove them down his throat,’ she said, vitriol rising in her voice.

Paul replied quietly. ‘Shannon, how would you feel if Professor Bill Llewellyn were to die an accidental death?’

‘I’d feel the world had been rid of one piece of vermin.’

He smiled. ‘OK, now we’re on the same page. You are starting to understand my business more.’

She stared back at him hard. ‘You arrange accidental deaths?’

He looked back at her dubiously. ‘Does that shock you?’

‘I...’ She hesitated, wondering, Is this guy for real? Is this conversation actually happening with my boyfriend of nearly a year? ‘If you’re telling the truth then, no, well, sort of, I suppose. I’m up for him getting a lesson, not an accidental death, of course, but a wake-up call. A taste of his own bitter pill, perhaps.’

And he could see in her eyes that she really meant it.

‘I guess,’ she went on, ‘I guess I’ve always believed that things happen for a reason. That people meet for a reason. Maybe that’s why we’re both sitting here.’ She shrugged.

‘Maybe,’ he said, searching her face with his eyes. ‘OK, for this wake-up call, there are two things I’m going to need from you. The first is your absolute trust.’

‘And the second?’

‘You’re going to tell me everything you know about the professor, Shannon. What his habits and hobbies are. Things he likes and dislikes. Does he support a football team? What does he like to eat, drink?’

‘Well, he’s a functioning alcoholic for certain, and he’s a Diet Coke freak. I’d call him an alco-coke-oholic! He drinks continuously throughout the day. If he’s not drinking whisky, he’s drinking cans of Coke. Honestly, I’ve never seen someone drink so much Coke.’

Paul nodded. ‘OK, he’s a Coke-oholic,’ he said slowly. ‘Interesting. Does he have any allergies?’

‘Allergies? You mean any kind of allergy?’

‘Any kind.’

She thought for a moment, then, despite herself, smiled. ‘Yes, yes he does, actually. A bad one. There’s something he’s petrified of.’

He leaned in over the table and lowered his voice even more. ‘Tell me about it.’