Skinner's rules

81

Skinner was about to leave the office, when he remembered that Alex had asked him to call. He dialled the Gullane number. The sound of his daughter’s voice always gave him a lift.

‘Hi, Babe. What was it that you forgot to ask me this morning?’

‘It’s probably nothing, but remember you said this morning at breakfast that, on some case or other, your guys had to check an Amstrad like mine. You said that all the disks looked more or less empty.’

‘Yes, so what?’

‘Well, did whoever did the checking know about the limbo files?’

‘What the hell are limbo files?’

‘I thought not! It’s a software oddity. When you erase a document, you don’t can it completely, at least not at first. All you do is take it off the menu. As it fills up with live files, the disk makes room by jettisoning the dead ones. But until that happens, they can still be recovered.’

‘So you’re saying that if someone had tried to wipe a disk, he might still have left something on it?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Clever girl. How do you check them?’

‘As I remember, you press the option key. Then you press another, F5 I think, and it lets you bring the limbo files back, ready for reading, printing, editing, anything you like.’

‘Alex, that’s great. I’ll have them re-checked. If we find anything I’ll put you up for an OBE or something.’

‘A law degree will be just fine. I must go now. Love you, Pops. Take care.’