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caught enough of the conversation between Stabfield and
Lewis to know roughly what was happening, and to know what
he had to do.
25
A sound across the other side of the main office area startled
him, and he ducked down behind Stabfield's desk. He killed
the torch and held his breath. A flexible desk lamp loomed
over him like a cobra poised to strike. Sutcliffe watched it
carefully, but it did not move and the sound did not come
again. After a while he relaxed, took a deep breath and set
about breaking into the drawers of the desk.
The lock resisted his attempts to open it. It was electronic,
with a slot for a magnetic card. Sutcliffe knew it was based on
a German design, and that there would be only one magnetic
key. He stroked his thin beard, and looked round for something
to force open the drawer. 'Problems, problems,' he muttered.
The main drawer of the desk was easily levered out with the
promotional paperknife. Like his watch, the knife was a free
gift from the company, complete with I2 logo engraved on its
plastic presentation case. He shone the torch inside the drawer.
It was empty apart from a compact disc.
Sutcliffe snapped open the slip case and popped out the disc
inside. Like most recordable CD-ROMs, neither side was
labelled. It had been no trouble to find an identical one to
replace it with. He stuffed the CD into his inside coat pocket.
Then the lights came on.
It took a while for his eyes to adjust from the dim light of the
torch to the painful brightness of the fluorescent strips. He
could vaguely make out two blurred shapes standing in the
doorway, one with its arm extended to the lightswitch. He had
not heard them enter perhaps they had been there all along.
The image cleared, and Lewis took his hand off the switch
and smiled, his face cracking across. Johanna Slake was
standing beside him in the doorway, her head slightly angled
so that the black ash hair that framed it fell away from one
perfect ear. It was a stance at once accusing and mocking.
'Mr Sutcliffe from the Publicity unit, I do believe.' Lewis
knew very well who he was exactly who he was. 'Perhaps I
can help you. Were you looking for something?'
Had they seen him take the CD? Or had they arrived after he
pocketed it?
'Er yes yes, I was that is ...' Sutcliffe moved closer to
them, closer to the door, as he blustered.
26
'Yes?' prompted Lewis.
'I was running an overnight test case on the latest OffNet
driver. You know, helping out. My LAN connection went
down some software problem as usual. Always problems. I
thought maybe the one in here was still working.'
'So you thought you'd try Mr Stabfield's PC.'
'Yeah.'
'In his locked office.'
Sutcliffe shrugged, using the gesture to edge closer still. 'It
wasn't locked, actually.'
'A machine with a power-on password like all the
machines here.'
Johanna was still blocking the doorway, her hands in her
jacket pockets. But she stepped forward, into the room, as she
added: 'Without any lights.'
'Hey,' Sutcliffe took a step forward and spread his hands in a
pretence of innocence, palms open towards her. 'I couldn't find
the switch.' He continued the gesture, bringing his hand up to
point to the light switch between Johanna and Lewis. Then he
leaped forward and the room was plunged into sudden
darkness.
Just as fast, Sutcliffe pulled away. He grinned as he heard
them try to grab at him and find each other instead. He ran for
the space he hoped the doorway occupied, caught his shoulder
painfully on the frame, and slammed the door behind him.
Almost immediately he heard the door being thrown open
again. He ran towards the emergency exit sign, crashing
through the door and bounding down the dimly lit concrete
stairs beyond. Above and behind him the lights came on again
they would know the way he had gone and be after him. He
paused slightly as the staircase turned back on itself, glared at
the security camera swinging round to follow him. But there
was nothing he could do in the seconds he had, so he carried
on down the stairs, taking them three at a time and bouncing
off the artex of the side wall as he went.
The street was as quiet as any in the London evening. The
relative calm was smashed by the juddering crash of an
emergency exit door being slammed back on its hinges.
27
Sutcliffe glanced behind him no sign of anyone yet. Then
he made for the grey 'R' registration Vauxhall Cavalier parked
on a double yellow line several hundred yards away.
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