Chapter 2

Rachel had settled into the chair in front of the computer. She had assured me she knew what she was doing so I just watched. Her fingers ran over the keyboard and the screen lit up.

“Mother was in here last night cursing because she couldn’t get in. I wondered then what was going on,” Nancy told us.

Meanwhile Rachel was scanning through files.

“Hmm ... password...”

Her fingers flew over the keyboard again. She really did know what she was doing.

“Got it!”

I looked over her shoulder. There was a long list of files on the screen.

“There’s one with my name on it, open that,” I said. “Now you’ll see what the fuss is about,” Rach picked out a photo. “You remember Fred?” Nancy nodded. “Well there he is. And the face below him is me.”

“What the fuck!”

“Your brother, sorry, half brother, handcuffed me to the bed and set Fred on to me.”

Nancy peered at the picture. “I can’t see handcuffs there. And it looks like you’re enjoying it.”

“Believe me when Fred gets into his stride the only thing you can do is hang on. The Asshole removed them to get a better picture. And yes, Fred’s very good.”

“Asshole?”

“Your brother. I refuse to use his name.”

“And all the other files?”

“Some men collect stamps, and some collect trainers and all sorts of other things other things. This is his collection.”

“They’ve all got names. Good God! There’s dozens, well, quite a lot,” Nancy was obviously appalled. “What are you going to do with them?”

“As I can identify the women I shall destroy the file, and tell them they are clear. I wonder if there is a list of names. Can you find anything Rach?”

“Sort of caped crusader,” said Nancy.

“If you like. Apart from the betrayal it hasn’t affected me much. But some of these women probably need help. Some will live in fear in case these photos become public, or someone blackmails them. So yes, I’ll get a cape.”

Rach had meanwhile been examining other files. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” she suddenly exploded.

“What?” Nancy and I said together.

“Children! Kiddies, I’ve never seen the like.”

I glanced at the screen. “Close it!” I said, “We’ll deal with that later. Can you find an address file?”

A few moments and Rach said, “Got it!”

I turned to Nancy. “I know we upset your mother, but if we didn’t get her into a compromising situation she wouldn’t have let us do this would she?”

“No. She wouldn’t. I take it you have photos of her?”

“Yes, they’ll be deleted now,” I said. “Can you ask her to come in and tell us what she wants done with the childrens’ photos.”

Rachel was busy copying files to a memory stick. Once this was done she was at the ‘flying fingers’ again.

“Right,” she said. “I’ve erased the files and all the backups, and exported files.”

Polly arrived. “I understand there are some pictures of children.”

“Yes. Do you want to see?”

“No! I had no idea. Can you erase them?”

“Yes, you’re sure?”

“Yes, I’d rather they were gone. I’ll deal with the little bastard if he ever shows his face here again. I had to spend half of last night using the shredder to get rid of his disgusting pictures.”

Ah, That answered a question I was going to ask.

A few minutes later Rach confirmed that they were all gone. I would have been happier to give the computer to the police, but it could have been embarrassing. I mean, they’d probably know that what I now realised was an expert, had gone through the machine.

“Where the hell did you learn to do that?” I asked Rach on the way home.

“I started at school, I was a real nerd, and not much better at uni, nobody wanted to socialise with me. So I kept studying. My first job I ended up teaching everyone and keeping the computers going, and I thought sod it, I’m not getting paid for this. So I left and set up on my own. I let it go when I got married, but I still keep up to date. If he’s gone I’ll soon get going again.”

We were back at my place just after eleven and the first thing I did was get some coffee going. I definitely felt the need. After dealing with the contents of that computer a shower would be welcome, but we had work to do. It was just as well that I had made more coffee than we needed because someone turned up to empty the pot.

“Come on in Jo,” I called out in answer to the knock. Jo was trying to lead Goofus, but he was excited to see us, and Fred. Goofus and Fred seemed to be like brothers, I had worried but there was no problem and they went out into the garden to play.

As we had discussed Rach went off to use my computer and produce a set of thumbnails showing each woman and her address. Then we could work from there.

Jo and I were left with our coffee.

“Have you decided what you are going to do yet?” she asked.

“Not really. To be honest I don’t want to move too quickly. I had a call from my ex employer, saying I had broken my contract, and that if I resigned I should do it in writing. The bastard went on that they would withhold any further wages in lieu of that. I pointed out that they had broken the contract and that I had just refused to work under the change. Lot of muttering and I left it a that. If they haven’t paid by the end of the month I’ll sort it then.”

Rach came down. “I don’t know where you got that computer from. I’ve been through and got rid of a lot of rubbish, but it’s never going to handle this lot. I’ve got a spare at home, I’ll go and get it. I won’t be long.”

I looked at Jo. “It’s just a computer isn’t it?”

“Not to Rach. Has she told you about her skills?”

“Yes,” I paused. “She hasn’t told me about the childrens’ father though.”

“I shall have to leave that to her, it wouldn’t be fair for me to say anything.”

“How are your plans going?”

“I don’t really know,” Jo looked pensive. “We don’t seem to come to any decision. And I’m not getting any younger. I’ve half a mind to go ahead on my own.”

“That would be sure to cause a problem,” I said. “You’ll end up being kicked out.”

“The way things are I don’t care ... I’ll find somewhere. Someone will want me,” she sniffed.

I hugged her.

“If you want to go ahead I have a brother,” I told her. “I don’t see Martin very often because he and his partner Clive spend most of their time abroad.”

“He’s gay?”

“Yes, but he only has to provide a dollop of jizz. We can do the job with the old turkey baster.”

“Might work,” said Jo, kissing me. “It’s not as though gay is catching is it?”

We both collapsed laughing.

At which point Rachel returned, a remarkably small computer tucked under her arm.

Jo and I put lunch together whilst Rach was upstairs doing her thing. When she came down she told us that everything was now ready to go, all uploaded and the information we wanted was being extracted. Lunch over, Rach was upstairs for no more than a few minutes before she came down with some printed sheets.

“Nice printer that Xerox,” she said as she put the papers on the table. “These are all the victims.”

We passed the sheets around. There were, incredibly, thirty two pictures on four sheets.

“Good God, I know her,” said Jo. And a couple of minutes later. “And I know who she is.”

Neither Rach or I knew any of them. The addresses were spread all over the local area, none were too far away.

“We’re going to have to work out a plan of campaign,” I said. “It’s not just finding these women, but how to approach them.”

Rach and Jo nodded agreement.

“I gotta go,” said Rach. “I don’t know if I still have a husband, but I’ve definitely got children.”

“And I’ve got to do some shopping, I’m running out of food,” I said.

Both Jo and I went to the supermarket, collected a trolley and started to fill it. It was Thursday late afternoon so not too busy.

Jo was sorting out some vegetables when someone called my name.

“Linda!”

I turned to find one of my biggest customers, well, ex customers.

“James, good to see you. I didn’t think Chief Execs went shopping.”

I looked at the lady with him. “My wife, Anne,” he introduced me to a lady of about fifty with a mass of grey hair that had a lot of black mixed in with it, a pretty face with a pointed chin, narrow nose and large dark eyes.

I already knew her name was Anne, not just because of chatting over business, but because I had looked at her picture earlier.

“We like to do it together,” he said. She smiled. “So you’ve left Industrial Supply?”

“Difficult to say,” I replied. “The chief exec thought me earning more than him wasn’t right, so they wanted to cut my percentage. As you can imagine, I didn’t agree, but since they want my resignation in writing I am effectively on strike.”

He laughed. “No, I wouldn’t think you would accept. What are you doing now? If you were to start your own business I would be interested and so would a number of others. Come and see me.”

Jo had rejoined us and I introduced her. “She’ll be part of the business,” I told him.

He expressed his pleasure to meet her and they moved off.

“Yes, I know,” I told Jo who was bursting. “Somehow I want to slip her my card.”

My opportunity came a few minutes later when James wandered off to look at something.

As I approached Anne she turned and came towards me.

“I’ve been dreading this,” she said. “You know something. You didn’t show it, but your friend did. Are you going to cause me trouble?”

I gave her my card.

“Just the opposite,” I told her. “Come and see me tomorrow. I’ve had the same experience. It’ll be worthwhile I promise.”

She went back to her trolley and rejoined James. Jo and I continued shopping.

We finally got out with far more than I would normally buy.

“Your eating for three,” Jo quipped.

We were loading the car when a woman came passed pushing a trolley.

“Hi Jo,” she looked thoroughly down. I recognised her. Two of the women in one supermarket seemed incredible, but we had realised that they were all local.

“Hi Bev,” Jo greeted her. “How are you?”

“You know, life goes on.”

“I was going to get in touch with you,” Jo told her.

“Why?”

“Because we’ve got good news for you.”

“I suffered from the same thing you did,” I joined in. “And we have the photo files which we are destroying as we meet the girls concerned.”

“Oh!” she thought for a moment and then smiled. “That’s the best news I had in nearly two years. When can we do it?”

“Do you want to follow us home?”

“I’ve got to get back to mum. I can do tomorrow after work.”

I gave her my card.

We got home to find Rach sitting in the kitchen, a pile of wet tissues beside her.

“He’s taken them,” she managed to get out between sobs.

“The children,” I guessed.

“He collected them from school,” again through sobs. “Stole my babies!”

Jo hugged her.

“We’ll get my solicitor on to this in the morning,” I told her. “She’ll know what to do. But I’m quite certain that he can’t just do this unless the children are at risk. And they certainly aren’t. Now, dry your eyes and we are going to think positively. He shouldn’t have done this and that’ll count against him.”

At least I hoped it would. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t know much, well anything really, about that area of law. But I do know about keeping people busy.

Jo had to go, although I could tell that was the last thing she wanted to do. Her husband, wanted her there this evening, though for what purpose she didn’t say. I got Rach to help with putting the shopping away and getting supper ready. With a glass of red wine inside her she calmed down a lot. We went and sat on the sofa.

“Can I stay with you,” she asked.

“‘Course you can. I’ll go and get the spare room ready,” I relied.

“No,” her voice quavered.

I hugged her. “No problem,” I gently kissed her. “Now let me tell you about what happened at the supermarket.

I told her all about my meeting with James, and the fact that both of us recognised his wife, and that she would see us tomorrow. And then about the coincidence of meeting Bev and that she would call in tomorrow evening.

“That is amazing. I wonder how long it will take us to find the rest,” Rach perked up having something else to think about. “Some of them may be easy,”she went on, “but I’ll bet some are going to be difficult.” She paused. “And you are going to set up your own business.”

“No,” I said. “We are going to set up, all three of us. I can’t do it on my own. I need Jo to do research and sort orders, and I need you to do all the computer stuff. And it could well be that we can sell your services to make sure companies IT is secure.”

“Oh I can do that, no problem. And we’ll need a website...” she went on for several minutes and ended up with “ ... and I’ll be able to support myself and the children.”

She looked at me.

“Exactly,” I said. “I need you and Jo. We’ll be the three musketeers, all for one and one for all.”

Rach snuggled in to me. “I feel much better. But we’ve got to get the children back.

“We will, I promise.”

Cuddled in to Rach I think I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had for a long time. It helped, I think, that I now had a direction in my life. I did wonder that I had only known Jo and Rachel for a short time, but we seemed to gel and it felt right.

Jo arrived when I was on the phone to Helen, my solicitor. I handed the phone to Rach and gave Jo a hug.

“We’re under way with the legal stuff,” I told her. Fred took Goofus out into the garden.

“Did Rach stay the night?”

“Yes, she needed comfort. I think she would have become unhinged if she’d been on her own.”

We left Rach to it and went into the kitchen to get coffee. Once we were out of sight Jo grabbed me into a clinch with deep tongue duelling kiss.

“I could be jealous,” she said. “I assume,” she went on, “after you met with James that you are going to set up your own business.”

“No,” I said. “We are, you, Rach and me.”

“Equals?”

“One for all and all for one,” I managed to say before I was in another clinch.

“Can I have one?” asked Rach.

“You spent the night with Linda.” said Jo.

“We didn’t do anything like that though,” said Rach.

“What was the outcome,” I asked, deciding that we didn’t want an argument.

Jo, however, had gathered Rach into a clinch.

“Girls, please! I didn’t think you two did that sort of thing.”

They broke apart. “We don’t,” said Jo,

“We never have before,” Rach confirmed.

“Well behave yourselves now. What was the outcome of the phone call, Rach?”

“They’re getting things going and I have to wait for a call back.”

Rachel’s call came an hour later. She had left us with instructions on how to erase Anne’s file from the computer, simple stuff and only symbolic really. She admitted she’d backed up just in case, but those would be wiped out in due course. During the time she was here we all discussed what we were going to do, I got Jo up to speed on her part, and Rach knew more or less what her part was. Mine was mainly selling, but as that wouldn’t be full time I’d help Jo. We agreed we’d need an office, running a business that could grow from my spare bedroom wasn’t going to work. After Rach left Jo and I continued until there was a knock on the door. I opened it and invited Anne in.

“I do hope you are genuine,” she said. “James speaks well of you, but...”

“I understand,” I said and went on to tell her my story. “ ... and all I know at the moment is the he is abroad somewhere, but his mother doesn’t know where. I suspect she might send assassins if she did.”

We went upstairs so that she could see the file and me deleting it. As I said, symbolic, but it made her feel happier. We went downstairs where Jo had made coffee. We had just about finished when Fred wandered in.

“Is that Fred?”

“Yes.”

Fred wandered over to her and she made a fuss of him. She had a rather faraway look on her face.

“He was good, wasn’t he?” I asked. She nodded, her mind clearly in the past. “Would you like...?

She was still fussing with Fred and she just went “Mmmm...” So I reach around her and undid her jeans, pushed them and her knickers down and as I did so Fred homed in on, well, home. Anne opened her legs so that Fred had better access which made it a bit difficult to remove her jeans. I pulled her jumper over her head, I’m not sure that she noticed, I unclipped her bra she raised her hands and massaged her breasts ending up pulling her nipples. I nodded to Jo who found the clamps. They were both enjoying Fred’s tongue, Fred I assume for the flavours and Anne for, well, what do you think. She ended up on her hands and knees, and Fred got down to business. Or up to I suppose. Anne was now making the most amazing selection of grunts, groans and noises indicating extreme satisfaction. I took a nipple clamp from Jo and we both clipped them on at the same time. The range of noises was extraordinary.

Eventually all things come to an end, and after relaxing for a while Fred withdrew. Whilst he had been otherwise engaged Goofus had come in. I looked at Jo who nodded. It did seem a shame that he should miss out, so I patted Anne’s back and, a nod being as good as a wink, Goofus leapt into the saddle. There was a loud ‘ooof’ and the whole thing was repeated.

It was almost lunch time before Anne really regained her senses. I offered her a shower, but she declined saying that she would rather get home. Her last words as she walked unsteadily to her car were would we please keep our mouths shut.

Of course we would, it wasn’t in our interest to do otherwise.

Jo and I went to get some lunch.

“You know,” she said. “If worst comes to worst we could male a living running a brothel for ladies...”

She didn’t finish because I had already collapsed laughing and she joined me. And that’s how Rach found us.

We sat down over lunch, Jo was partly right, I wasn’t eating for three but there was three of us eating, and we went through everything that had happened to both Rach, and Jo and I. We sorted out various things, and created a plan of what we needed to do. The plan would of course change, but at least it was a start. We decided we would use the rest of the afternoon to see how many of the women we could find.

By the time Bev arrived we had located a round dozen, which meant in total fifteen. Two had told us what to do and where to go, not much you can do about that, eight had accepted our word that the files would be deleted but wanted nothing further to do with it, one, Emily said she would like to see, and one, who had somewhat foreign accent asked me to come and see her. Not bad all told. Bev was pleased to see the file go, it was, she told us, an episode of her life which had blighted two years of it, and she doubted that she would ever trust a man again. It still amazes me that one asshole can do so much damage to other people’s lives simply for his own satisfaction. Oh I only grabbed her by the fanny conjures so many broken lives.

Both Rach and Jo went to their respective homes and I spent some time just relaxing and snoozing in front of the goggle box. I went to bed fairly early only to find Rach had beaten me to it. Oh well. There would have been no problem but for the fact that I needed to go to the bathroom in the small hours. It became a question of which body I crawled over. Hmm, I decided that, for no particularly good reason, I’d crawl over Jo. I was stopped halfway, but I escaped by explaining where I was going and why. When I came back she had rolled over to cuddle Rach and gone back to sleep. The rest of the night was no problem.

“It was a bit crowded last night,” I said when the others joined me for coffee.

“Told Al that I was going to spend the night with Rach,” Jo told me.

You certainly did that.

It was Saturday, Jo and Rach had things to do, and we weren’t going to get much business done, so I decided I would call on the lady who had asked to see me. I knew roughly where the address was but I had never been there. The satnav took me to a very upmarket road full of large houses that were over a century old and built on large plots. I rang the bell alongside a front door that was almost twice as high as I am tall. After a few moments a maid opened the door. I asked for the lady and gave my name. The maid invited me in and showed me into a magnificently furnished drawing room. I didn’t feel that you could call it a sitting room, or a lounge. No, definitely a drawing room. A couple of minutes later the lady joined me. She was clearly from the middle east, darkish skin and almost black hair which reach down past her waist. She was only just my height but her figure went in and out in all the right places, but further in and out than one would expect. Dressed in somewhat dishabille she was a very beautiful woman.

She took my hand and guided me to sit next to her on a plush sofa.

“Nadia,” she said, “And you are Linda.”

The maid appeared almost immediately with coffee and baklava.

“It is good of you to come and see me,” she had a slight but very attractive accent. “you are dealing with this business by yourself?”

I explained to her that I was one of the victims, but had been able to get the files on everyone and that my friends and I were deleting these as we could find and inform the others. This was so that their concerns regarding the possibility of publicity could be allayed. I explained that I found out about it all when I went to pick out a dog for myself and found Fred.

She let go of my hand, but placed it on my arm. Interesting.

“What I have to tell you I could not say on the telephone. That man tricked me as he did the others. I told my brothers about this, and they were naturally upset about it. They considered that the man should pay and to that end they arranged for him to be found. He was, how do you say ... Ah! Castrated.” I shuddered, he’d been quite good with his own equipment. “And then he was sent by air ambulance to someone who needed such a creature. He will not return.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“You are shocked, I am sorry,” she said. “But it needed to be done.”

I really couldn’t disagree with that, a bit extreme though.

“That the photographs are gone is a good thing, I do not think you would lie about that.”

No, I certainly wouldn’t!

“And you have Fred? You must bring him to see me. He is a very good dog.” She stroked my arm.

I agreed that I would. Popular boy that Fred, and I’d a suspicion I might be too.

“So obviously,” I was telling the girls about my morning, “it isn’t Fred, and the fact that Fred is a dog. The problem is being forced. And I can’t say I blame them.”

We decided that we would do some more tracing of the victims. They were all reasonably local so we each set out in a different direction having agreed to meet up later. Jo had to go out with Alan this evening, so her joining Rach and I would depend on how long we took.

I knocked on the door of a semi not to far away. A woman answered the door and I asked for the person I was looking for.

“I’m Jane’s mother. Why do you want her?” was the reply.

“Umm, well I have good news for her,” I said.

“What about? She can’t have won the lottery, you have to be alive to buy a ticket.”

“I’m sorry ... she’s no longer with us?

“She took her own life nine months ago.” She looked as though tears were not far away.

“Oh my God,” I said. “I hadn’t thought about that. I wonder how many others...”

“You’d better come in and explain,” she said. “I’ve been trying to find a reason, and perhaps you know.”

Jane’s mother made tea whilst I told her the story.

“And there’s thirty two, you say. Including you.”

“Yes, we haven’t contacted many yet. Reactions vary from delight to screaming at us to get off the phone. Jane is the first to...”

“But not the last, I’ll be bound,” said her mother. “What happened to the man?”

I told her what I’d been told. “They didn’t kill him, he has what is probably a living death.”

“A bit like mine then. May I see the photos?”

“If you really want to. But they may be upsetting. You’ll have to come to my house.” I told her, handing her my card.

“Not far,” she said. “I’ll take my chance on the upset. It can’t be worse than finding her body.”

No, it couldn’t.

Rach had managed to contact two victims, both of whom were happy to accept her assurance that they had nothing more to worry about. We both wondered how many others had suffered the fate of Jane. Not a nice prospect.

Sunday Rach and I had a bit of a lie in, well, we’ll leave it at that. I was going to miss her when the children were back. Jo popped in to say that the results of her victim contacts were the same as Rach’s.

Monday was when things happened for Rach. I was somewhat surprised at the speed of action. I think that Social Services and the courts moved quickly because they knew or suspected something that we didn’t know. It was later in the week that I got an inkling of what that was. Rach of course had to return home when the children were returned to her care, and my nights seemed curiously lonely. For someone who has spent their entire life, with the exception of a few nights, sleeping alone, that was distinctly odd.

Tuesday I called on James. As I was standing in reception it was clear that something was amiss. After a few minutes James came through.

“Oh, Linda! I’m sorry but we have problems with our computers, so we’re a complete mess.”

“Do you not have someone on your staff?” I asked.

“We’ve a young lad but he doesn’t seem to know what is going on,” said James, the look of a sudden realisation passed across his face. “Didn’t you say you had someone?”

“Yes, Rachel. Probably the best. Do you want me to see if she’s free?” I asked.

Of course I knew she was free, but you’ve got to keep up the illusion.

“Can she do it? Hmm, it can’t be any worse than we are now. Yes, go ahead.”

I called Rach. “You busy? ... good ... they’ve got a problem here ... viruses or whatever ... only you, I’m sure ... yes, of course ... half an hour ... ha ha, of course, they do very good coffee ... I’ll be waiting.”

Rachel arrived in twenty five minutes. I introduced her to James and she immediately got stuck into the computer network. It was an hour before she came in to James’s office where we were waiting.

“Do you do MOD work?” she asked James.

“Umm, yes. Low level stuff, but yes.”

“Someone has put in a virus that will feed back your information to them. It’s a crap job and it’s come in via someone looking at porn sites. So probably aimed at personal computer to get private info, bank stuff and the like, rather than an international job looking for your MOD stuff.”

“Can you get rid of it?”

“Oh yes, we’re on it now. Shouldn’t take too long.” She walked over to James’s desk. “I’ll have to do this one too.”

“No problem,” said James.

Rachel’s fingers flew over the keyboard. She paused, and then started again. She looked up.

“I hate to say this, but this is where it got in.”

James looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that this computer was used to access the site where the virus came from,” she said.

James looked perplexed, and then there was a dawning realisation as he realised what this meant.

“I’m going to kill the little bastard when I get home,” clearly not very happy. “Anne came in with David last evening and we left him in here for a time. He must have used my computer to access some porn sites. He can’t do it at home, I’ll bet he thought his birthday had arrived. Well it’ll be taking a miss this year.”

Rach looked at me. I shrugged, there wasn’t much we could do.

James picked up the phone. “I’ll have to report it, they’re not going to be happy. I don’t suppose,” he looked at Rach, “that you’ve got MOD clearance.”

Rach shook her head.

James dialled a number and spoke to someone. He waited a couple of minutes and then spoke to someone else. He looked at Rach, and then asked her to speak to whoever he was speaking to.

Rach took the phone... “Yes ... Yes ... I’ve sorted out what needed to be done ... yes, there’s an employee who is working under my instructions ... No, it wasn’t that sort of thing, it was looking for the sort of thing a private individual might have, bank details, that sort of thing ... No, I’m independent ... Well yes, do I have to apply? ... You’ll check me out, okay ... do you want to talk to James again ... right, I’ll tell him.” she hung up.

She looked at James. “Hell will descend in the morning,” she told him. “I shall have to be here. It seems you should have called them first ... might do me some good though,” she grinned.

James looked heavenward. “I’ll get on,” she said and left.