Barry shrugged. ‘Not so many. And I know most of them – we do lunch, play squash, that sort of thing. Always friendly. We’re fixers, expediters, there’s plenty of elbow-room; sometimes we put business each other’s way. You’re not suggesting …’
‘Well, sir – I mean, all your files destroyed, all your records – even the bloody phone-books! That’s bound to hold up your trading a bit, isn’t It? Could even –’
Barry guffawed. ‘Put us out of business? Not a chance! Paper’s just one way we keep our records – and a pretty obsolete way at that. Everything that matters passes through the computer system; that gets stored on discs, discs are automatically backed up to hard disk and hard disk onto tape streamers, all day, every day. And the streamer cartridges go into that little safe over there; fireproof, the lot. Three different levels of media – and not one of ’em’s been touched, in any office. All we’ve got to do is print it back out again.’
The sergeant’s face clouded over. ‘I see … and your competitors would know about this system?’
‘Oh, they all work much the same way,’ Gemma remarked. ‘Not always as secure, perhaps, but that, let us face it, is their own look-out. If they really had wanted to hurt us they’d know a hundred better ways. In fact, officer, losing the papers is causing us far less trouble than all this absolutely disgusting smearing they’ve done all over the actual computers –’
‘Ah yes, miss,’ said the sergeant, his face resolutely rigid. ‘Very nasty, that – unhygienic and all. As if it really did hit the fan … Well, you should be able to get it cleaned up soon enough; the photographers will be through with it any time –’
‘Photographers?’ demanded Rouse. ‘Good God, man, my terminal looks like the wall of a Lime Street lavatory! What’ll a photograph of that tell you?’
The CID man met him with a superior smirk. ‘Maybe quite a lot, sir. You see, it’s not random, er, smearing; there’s definitely patterns in it. Not writing or anything, but … well, signs, I suppose, though we don’t know what they mean yet. In fact, I’d like everyone to have another look at them, all the staff, before you clean them off; they might mean something to somebody, you never know. There’s one in particular, too, that has … something else. We might start with that one – fourth door in on the left.’
All the heads turned in one direction – towards me. ‘It would appear to be your week, Steve,’ sighed Barry. ‘Shall we go? And Gemma love, will you tell Judy to let the cleaners know they can start soon?’
We crowded into my office. Dave was already there, sitting on the overturned filing cabinet and chain-smoking to drown the stink, unsuccessfully. With assorted mutterings of disgust we all crowded round the sergeant as he gingerly turned my terminal this way and that. ‘No suggestions? Ah well. How about this, then?’
The police had warned us not to touch the terminals, and we’d needed no discouraging; I hadn’t looked closely at what dangled there. Even now it just seemed like more filth, a patch of matted feathers stuck together with something revolting, right in the centre of the screen. I looked at him and shook my head.
‘Funny,’ he said. ‘You’re the only one they favoured with that. And it’s not more crap, that stuff; apparently it’s blood, quite fresh. But mixed into a paste with something – some kind of flour, the boys think. Labs should tell us more.’
We stared at the ugly thing in uneasy silence, thinking each other’s thoughts. Blood? Where from? What? Or whom? Then a new voice, soft and tentative, broke into our thoughts.
‘Sah? ’scuse me, sah?’ Smiles of relief broke out, and we turned away thankfully. This was the head of our cleaners, a plump cheerful creature in her fifties, all calm and motherly good nature. She seemed like the living antidote to the upheaval around us.
‘Oh, Mrs Macksie,’ began Barry distractedly. ‘So very sorry we’ve had to drag you and the girls in! But you see
‘Ah, thass’ all right, sah!’ she said sympathetically. ‘It’s terrible, ain’t it? But we clean it up orright, you see! Now wheah you want us to –’ She stopped, or rather she choked; I thought at first it was Dave’s overpriced gaspers, then that she was having a heart attack. Her eyes bulged; she made no sound but a strange little croak, one hand clutched at her coat. The other she made as if to lift, then let it fall limply. I stared at her like all the rest; but when I met her eyes it was as if a curtain had been drawn behind them.
Clare touched her arm, and she flinched. ‘Mrs Macksie! Are you feeling all right?’
‘What’s the matter, love?’ The CID man spoke softly; but it was a demand all the same. She turned her hooded eyes away, but he persisted. ‘Seen something? Something you recognize? Somebody left a mark of some sort – somebody you know? Want to tell us about it, then?’ Patently that was the last thing she wanted. ‘C’mon, love!’ His voice was taking on just that slight warning edge. ‘You know you’ll have to, sooner or later –’
Barry caught his eye warningly, but too late. She glared up at the policeman, and her jaw set like a rat-trap. ‘What you talkin’ about?’ she demanded. ‘You tellin’ me to my face I done this? I had anythin’ to do with whoevah done this?’
Barry spread his arms. ‘Mrs Macksie, of course not – everyone knows you here, but –’
‘I’m not havin’ anybody tellin’ me I done a thing like this,’ she said obstinately, a little shrill. ‘I’m a respectable woman, my husband was a lay preacher and I’m a deaconess! How long I’ve worked for you now? Five yeah, that’s how long! I’m not standin’ for this boy heah tellin’ me I’ve anythin’ to do with jus’ plain filthy things like obeah –’ She’d said too much. She positively tried to snap the word off, but we’d all heard it. She snorted with annoyance, then turned on her heel and stalked out. She might have looked funny on her plump little partridge legs, but she was too much in earnest. I caught Clare’s eye quickly; she nodded, and hurried after the indignant woman.
‘Obi-what?’ demanded the policeman, of nobody in particular. We all looked at each other, and shrugged. He turned to Dave. ‘Now, sir, I don’t suppose you could – with maybe something of a similar background –’
‘No I fucking well can’t!’ snarled Dave, shedding his usual cool with startling speed. ‘Background? Jesus, you were born nearer her than I was – why don’t you bloody know? She’s Trinidadian, and I’m from Nigeria. I’m an Ibo – a Biafran, if that means anything to you! What’s common about that?’
‘Nothing at all, Dave,’ I said wryly. ‘So slip back into lounge-lizard mode as usual, please, and go ask her. She does have a soft spot for you, after all, though there’s no accounting for tastes.’
‘It’s the letters after my name,’ he said cheerfully, his flash of temper gone as fast as it had come. He lit another cigarette. ‘Mad keen on education, all these West Indians are – worse than the Scots. Okay, I’ll ask.’
But when he appeared a few minutes later he was looking a little ruffled. ‘She’ll tell,’ he said. ‘I think maybe Clare persuaded her, more than me. And – well, could be we do have something like this back home, though not by that name. But city folk, educated classes – it’s not something we’d ever run into. Strictly for the hicks in the stix – straight down from the trees, as you might say, sergeant, eh? Juju, that’s what they call it.’ He grimaced. ‘That word – my old man’d have a fit if he’d heard me use it. Wash-your-mouth-with-soap stuff.’