Altered Life Read online

CHAPTER TWO

  I GRIMACED INWARDLY at this new information but kept my features neutral. So it was intellectual property, or copyright theft, or industrial espionage. What you might call the conceptual side of private investigation—not my strength. Though to be fair, two years in business and I was still trying to work out what my strength was. When I found out I was going to brag about it in my cheap advert in the Yellow Pages.

  ‘Who are “they”?’ I said.

  ‘I’m getting there. You know, I’m enjoying this. Talking it over. Seeing it through your eyes, so to speak. It’s good for me.’

  ‘It’s an additional benefit of the service I offer.’

  He looked at me sideways, then carried on. ‘So anyway, a year ago we had just twenty-three people working here. Twelve consultants, a couple of people looking after the accounts, some sales and marketing whiz-kids and admin. We were growing the company. Making a reputation.’

  ‘Hasn’t really worked, has it? I’d never heard of you before yesterday.’

  ‘One-man businesses aren’t exactly our target market,’ he said, rather tetchily. ‘Anyway, I suddenly hit the motherlode. I had an idea for a new direction for the company. That’s what I do – come up with ideas. When you get to know me better you’ll see me doing that all the time. Can’t help myself. So now I needed money for investment, which meant I had to go cap in hand to the people who had it. Long boring meetings, ton of paperwork.’ His eyes closed slowly at the memory—then snapped open. ‘They call it venture capital—nothing adventurous about it. Dot the i’s and cross the t’s till your hands bleed. But eventually we got it.’

  ‘So you became rich all of a sudden,’ I said. ‘Life is good.’

  He ignored this. I wasn’t sure whether he didn’t get sarcasm or that it was just beneath him to acknowledge it. ‘Let me tell you something, Sam. Our target market is largely the people in human resources. Ask them what they do and they’ll tell you they’re “people people”. Unfortunately they know everything about people, but nothing about computers—and they want to know less. But all around them the world’s been changing. Manufacturing, service industries, call centres—everything depends on computers and the web. That’s the new battlefield.’

  For some reason, this talk of battlefields made me think of my dad bent double to scrape coal from the Thurnscoe seam. He used to talk about fighting and winning against the Coal Board, and there was always talk of campaigns and tactics and wars. It was a language that pervaded our household. A battlefield to him was a serious place and meant more than a few electrons whizzing across a VDU display. I looked at Brand again, hoping that my disdain wasn’t leaking out.

  ‘So what’s in it for you?’ I said. ‘If the people you want to sell to don’t understand what you’re selling, why bother?’

  ‘Three million quid,’ he replied coolly. ‘That’s the capital I got for developing the software.’

  I needed him to slow down now. He’d gone a step ahead of me. ‘What software?’

  ‘That’s what I’m telling you. Our new technology. I bought in expertise from this geek I met, and when we got the venture capital we set about expanding the company. We call the software Compsoft. Because it measures competency.’

  ‘I guess that’s consultant speak,’ I said.

  ‘I saw a gap in the market. There was a need for software that measured people’s abilities at work, then compared them to a national database. I tell you, Sam, the night I came up with this idea was bloody exciting. When you have a brainwave like that it literally takes your breath away. I had to sit down or I would have burst.’

  I suddenly saw where this was going. ‘So this software means that companies could tell where their folk stood in relation to the competition.’

  He smiled slowly, like a father seeing his child take those first unsteady steps.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘You find out where the skill gaps are in your own company. And then Compsoft lets you see where you are against other companies nationally.’

  ‘You can track what your competitors are doing by looking at the skills of the people they’re hiring.’

  ‘There’s a bit of educated guesswork, but you can make sure you’re never lagging behind. It’s called competitive advantage.’

  He was too pleased with himself for my liking.

  ‘So three million quid does what,’ I said, ‘apart from giving your bank manager orgasms?’

  He lifted his arm sideways rather grandly, gathering in this office and the people outside. ‘Ramped up the workforce. Recruited a couple of dozen programmers and researchers. Designers. Testers. Improved our image.’

  ‘I can see that. Your backsides get to sit on nice comfy chairs. So how’s it going—what have you sold?’

  His eyes slid away. ‘Well, nothing yet. The program’s not finished. There’s a demo of Compsoft on our website. It just needs a couple of months’ more work.’

  I stopped writing and put my notebook away. I’d heard enough. Brand watched me, his cologne filling the air with musk as he breathed in and out.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said. ‘The dogged detective run out of questions? Don’t just sit there looking superior.’

  There wasn’t an easy way to say it, so I just said it. ‘I can’t help you, Mr Brand.’

  ‘Why the hell not?’ he said, though he looked like he was expecting it, expecting disappointment.

  ‘From what you’ve said, I’m guessing that you’re worried someone’s trying to buy out the share of your company held by the venture capitalists.’ He nodded warily. ‘I can understand that,’ I went on. ‘After all, you’ve persuaded them to lock three million quid into it and it might be a quick way for them to get their money back. But what you’re telling me is pure speculation. Until something concrete happens, I can’t help.’

  ‘I’ve got to wait until I’m shafted before you’re willing to do anything?’

  ‘All you’ve got at the moment is the suspicion that you might be sold out. But in this game suspicion’s not enough.’ I spread out my hands. ‘People tell me I’m a pretty good detective. But I can’t invent a case where there isn’t one.’

  ‘Even though I know there is?’

  ‘You go for outside investment, you run the risk they’ll sell on their share. Have you talked to them?’

  ‘I don’t want to frighten them if I’m wrong. I told you, this conversation is between you and me.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do right now. If a chair or a person or a bit of your software goes missing, I’m your man. I’ll chase it up hill and down dale. Until that happens, to be honest, I’d be wasting your money. And while I’m not against that in principle, the least I can do is tell you upfront.’ Sam Dyke, the honourable detective.

  He scowled. Like many entrepreneurs, he allowed a full range of emotions to show in his face as an attempt to manipulate the other person: this is important to me, so it should be to you. They acted as though a display of naked feeling was enough to create a commitment to buy what they sold. But I wasn’t buying today.

  ‘What if I had more information?’ he said. ‘Something that would make it easier?’

  ‘It’s not a question of easy or hard. It’s a question of what I can do. I won’t take your money and then sit staring into space waiting for someone to make you an offer you can’t refuse. I don’t work like that.’

  ‘Right, a code of ethics,’ he said mockingly.

  ‘Plain Yorkshire common sense.’

  He turned his head and looked through the windows at a ripple of grey cloud that had been slowly advancing towards us, making the room grow darker by the minute. As the weather sometimes does, it seemed to reflect his mood. At last he said quietly, ‘I’ve got a suspect.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Got your attention, didn’t it, Mr Confident? Let’s say I know that certain people have been in talks with certain other people, who in turn are interested in having my scalp.’

&nbs
p; His phrasing was way up there on the theatrical delivery scale, but nonetheless I felt the question being dragged out of me. ‘Who are you talking about?’

  He sat back heavily in his chair and folded his arms. It struck me that he was actually quite frightened but I hadn’t seen it before. He’d developed a good act to cover it up.

  ‘I don’t know who the bastard is who wants to buy the company,’ he said. ‘But I know who set the ball rolling. Who put out the feelers to see if anyone was interested. Who inserted the knife between my shoulder blades and hammered it home with the end of her expensive Italian shoe.’

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  His eyes turned towards me and he blinked slowly, once.‘My lovely new wife, Tara.’