Serafina and the Virtual Man (6 page)

There were various other stories, including a statement issued to the press in June by Adam himself, that he was seeking help for drink and drug addiction. By August, he’d sold out to Ewan and was in Australia, reportedly clean and talking of a new gaming venture. In October, he’d died of a heroin overdose, complicated by the cocktail of substances already in his stomach.

The man who’d lived in that warm, beautiful flat with all those books and CDs and an exquisite piano.

Had he even played the piano? There was nothing to tell her. The vast majority of information on him was from the last few months as he went so rapidly downhill. Why? Why did a man sink so suddenly from curious, interested genius to drug-addled saddo?

Somewhere, in the mass of stuff she’d just read, Ewan had said that the pressure had got to Adam. That he’d been too curious to try the dangerous as well as the fun, and like many before him had been unable to get out of the cycle. There were quotes from a few celebrities, including, among other well-known rock musicians, the glamorous Roxy May, expressing surprise and sadness at his demise. Friend of rock stars. Well, there was a hint.

Jilly glared at the screen, trying to work out why she felt so angry about the whole thing. Human tragedies like this happened every day, in every walk of life. Look at her own fucked-up family.

On second thoughts, don’t.

Besides, none of this explained what she’d seen in Ewan’s secret test lab. Or how it related to the poltergeist.

Impatiently, Jilly called up the chat program and pinged Exodus.

He answered almost at once with a “Hey.”

And suddenly she was flummoxed. Where the hell did she start? Before she could even decide, he was typing. And stunned her all over again.

Exodus: What’s wrong?

JK: You!

Exodus: No, you look sad.

Jilly’s hands slid off the keyboard. She stared at the screen, listened to the blood singing in her ears, then glanced wildly round the office for visitors—none—and scanned the street outside. The few people around were all moving and in a hurry. There was a sandwich shop across the street, but she doubted you could see into Serafina’s from there. Not without the right equipment.

The computer pinged.

Exodus: I’ve freaked you. Sorry. Your webcam isn’t on but for some reason I can see you through it.

JK: Bollocks.

JK: All right. What colour are the streaks in my hair?

Exodus: I can’t see any streaks. It all looks blonde to me.

Jilly swallowed, and began what she should have done in the first place—tracing him.

JK: Why are you pretending to be Adam?

Exodus: I’m not. Is that why you’re sad?

JK: He was a brilliant man and he’s dead. What kind of a creep gets his jollies from crawling into a dead man’s shoes? So you can imagine the glory? Or do you just like winding people up?

Exodus: Someone’s winding Dale up. And Petra. Playing tricks. He thinks it’s me.

JK: No, he doesn’t. He knows you’re dead.

Exodus: Then he thinks I’m haunting him.

JK: You seem to be haunting both of us. Or is that stalking?

Exodus: I’m sorry. You seem to be my only connection. And you have a kind face.

JK:
KIND??

Exodus: You’re laughing. But behind the mask, you’re kind.

JK: Even my best friends wouldn’t agree with you there. So you’re stalking me because I’m kind?

Exodus: No, I’m stalking you because you have an amazing computer system that you might just be able to use to work out what the hell’s going on.

So far, her amazing computer system had worked out that he was in the Lothian area and was narrowing it to the south.

JK: That’s true. What do you think is going on?

Exodus: OK, don’t laugh, but I think I’m in the new VR.

JK: You’re a computer program? I thought you were Genesis Adam.

Exodus: Don’t take the piss. I WAS Adam. What’s left of me is in the new VR system that I was showing Dale the night I died.

JK: In Australia…

Exodus: In Scotland. Dale’s house, where I was shot.

JK: OK, I’ll bite. Who shot you?

Exodus: I don’t know. I didn’t see. It came from behind and I fell. But there was someone else in the house, someone other than Dale and Petra and me.

Yes, that would have been my criminal brothers, before you law-abiding guys got the guns out…

JK: And this unknown person shot you?

Exodus: Maybe.

JK: Well, take heart, you got better and went to Australia.

Exodus: Australia, yes… Why
did
I go there?

JK: You tell me.

The trace had narrowed him down to an area south of Edinburgh, toward the Borders. The area that included the Ewans’ house. Was he manipulating this?
Could
he?

Exodus: Was I demonstrating the new system? Dale would’ve been better at that.

JK: He certainly would since you’d sold out to him several months before.

That kept him away from the keyboard for some time, although fortunately he was still online for the trace to home in on. And it was looking increasingly like the Ewans’ residence.

Exodus: No.

JK: Google yourself. You were quick enough to find the stories about the break-in.

Exodus: This is weird.

JK: No kidding.

Exodus: Who are you anyway? What were you doing at Dale’s?

JK: Who do you think I am?

Exodus: Do you work for the company?

JK: Genesis? I wish.

Exodus: Then you are a techie. A bit of a hacker.

JK: Oi!

The insult was in the “
bit
of a hacker,” not in the crime.

Exodus: Dabbled myself at school, before I discovered game making. Are you hacking Dale?

JK: Would you mind if I was?

Exodus: Don’t know. Depends why and for what. Do you work for someone? I don’t even know your name.

No, and you’re not going to
.

JK: I work for a psychic who’s going to rid Dale of his poltergeist.

There was a small pause.

Exodus: Is your employer responsible for the poltergeist?

JK: Do you mean, is she taking the piss? No. She does stuff like this. She’s genuine. Mostly.

Exodus: You believe “stuff like this” is possible? The paranormal? Poltergeists? Ghosts?

JK: I grew up with Sera MacBride. I know it is.

Exodus: Then I really could be a ghost?

For some reason, that froze her fingers on the keys. It just came over as so genuine, so…
lost
, and trying not to be.

JK: You COULD. Although I’ve never come across one that hacked into my computer before.

Exodus: I didn’t hack. You put me here by downloading some of my VR file from Dale’s computer.

Whoa!
Jilly flopped back in her seat. She felt like clutching her head. She’d been sidetracked from doing any more than the briefest scan of those files on her memory stick, but right now, she couldn’t think of a better reason, or any other reason, why he would know this.

She leaned forward again, fingers back on the keys.

JK: Are you Dale’s poltergeist?

Exodus: Don’t be daft.

Jilly let out a breath of laughter. She didn’t know why it was funny, but in the circumstances it just was.

Exodus: You have a beautiful smile. You should do it more often.

JK: Nobody smiles at a stalker. Bastard.

Exodus: Hey, calm down!

Jilly broke the connection, breathing deeply. After a moment, she grabbed some tape from her desk drawer and stuck it over the built-in webcam.

Sera came out of her office, conducting a client to the front door. From her face, Jilly knew it was a serious case.

“Tomorrow at ten,” Sera said to Elspeth for the appointment book.

Jilly said, “Got time to fit in a visit to the Ewans?”

“I need them to go away first.”

“No, I think their poltergeist is Genesis Adam. I think he left some of his messed-uppedness there when he went to Australia, and it’s got all muddled up now with VR.”

Sera blinked and lowered her hip on the edge of Jilly’s desk. “That’s a hell of a theory.”

“I know.” Jilly sighed. “But something bloody weird is going on there, and it started the night of the break-in.”

Sera stood up. “All right, let’s go and pick their brains. We might even persuade them to bugger off this time.”

Chapter Six

Elspeth had phoned ahead to make sure their visit was convenient. But there was another car parked in the drive when they arrived. A bright red sports car.

This time, the door was opened by Dale Ewan, who invited them in cordially enough, although another guest was still standing in the big entrance hallway with Petra.

The guest wore stylish black, all traily lace and silver chains, almost like a punk Victorian. Apart from the sunglasses and the length of her skirt. And the fabulous boots. She had a pale, dramatic face with natural black eyebrows and red, luscious lips, and although she wasn’t actually beautiful as such, Jilly doubted anyone noticed or cared, so forceful was her overall style.

Despite her glamour, she spared Jilly and Sera a quick smile. Perhaps it was this which obliged Dale to introduce them. “This is an old friend of ours, Roxy May. Roxy, this is Sera McBride and Jill—er…”

At least he remembered my first name.
Jilly’s initial sardonic thought got suddenly lost as the name of the other woman penetrated her brain. Roxy May. She knew that name. A singer, pretty good, sang a unique mixture of rock and folk that had a large cult following across Europe and America. Jilly had some of her stuff on her personal stereo.

Sera, who’d obviously caught on before Jilly did, said, “Love your new album.”

“Thanks, I was pleased how it turned out.” Roxy May’s voice was low and throaty, almost the way she sang. She took off her sunglasses and offered her free hand to Sera. “Nice to meet you.”

Jilly gazed at the newly unshaded face as memory fought its way up. A portrait on Adam’s drawing room wall. This girl. Roxy May, with a guitar in her lap and a log fire behind her.

Jilly managed to close her mouth before the singer’s gaze and friendly hand came to her. Roxy May had soft skin and rough, careless nails, an odd failing that somehow made her more appealing, more human. And yet some strange, unrecognisable feeling struggled up from Jilly’s stomach. It
might
have been excitement.

Roxy dropped Jilly’s hand and turned back to Petra. “Thanks for the watch. I still can’t believe he’s gone.” She gave Petra a quick, spontaneous hug from which she broke away to exchange cheek kisses with Dale, and then with a husky, “Good-bye,” she strode out of the house.

Dale closed the glass door behind her, and Petra heaved a sigh.

“She seemed upset,” Jilly observed.

Petra, who still looked surprised whenever Jilly opened her mouth, glanced at her wide-eyed. “Oh yes. Well, she would be. It’s the first time we’ve seen her since Adam died. I met her for lunch, and she wanted a keepsake, so she came back with me to collect the watch.”

“She was a good friend of his?” Sera asked casually.

Petra shrugged. “They had a thing.”

A
thing?
What the fuck was a
thing
?

“She’s Adam’s ex-girlfriend,” Dale said dryly. “They kept it out of the press, but they went out for years, off and on, before she dumped him.”

Petra snorted, though what that signified, Jilly was at a loss to guess. It crossed her mind that Petra was jealous. What had Dale’s wife thought of his brilliant friend and partner? That odd feeling in the pit of Jilly’s stomach tightened, forcing her to wonder, appalled, if it wasn’t
she
who was jealous.

Of a dead man’s relationship with a rock singer? Or his partner’s wife? Come on, Jilly, get a grip!

“Why did she dump him?” Jilly asked.

Dale shrugged. “The drugs, I suppose.”

“Then she wasn’t responsible for getting him into that scene?”

“She might have dabbled. I don’t know. She certainly has friends who’re more deeply involved, and Adam will have known them. But Roxy was in America while most of the shit happened. She’s only just got home. Why? What’s all this got to do with our…problem?”

Sera said bluntly, “We think your poltergeist might be Genesis Adam.”

It didn’t quite have the effect Jilly was expecting. Dale glanced over at his wife, who stared back at him.

He sighed. “Sit down.” He led them over to the sofas, speaking as he walked. “We had another visit from the…problem last night. It…it contacted me on the computer.”

Jilly’s breath caught.

Sera asked calmly, “What makes you say that? What happened?”

“I’d been talking online to one of our major distributors in the US. And his name just suddenly popped up in chat. And then everything started up as usual, throwing things around the room just like—”

“What did he call himself?” Jilly interrupted. “When he contacted you on chat?”

Dale blinked. “What he always did: Exodus.”

Jilly swallowed and sat down with her laptop bag dangling from her right shoulder.

“What did he say to you?” Sera asked.

Dale’s lips quirked to one side. For the first time, Jilly caught a faint air of regret from him, the first sign that he missed his old friend and partner. “He said, ‘Fancy a pint.’”

Poltergeists didn’t hold discussions, not with words, at any rate.

“You’ve been hacked,” Sera said.

So have I. Somehow…

“By someone pretending to be Adam,” Sera continued.

Or by Adam himself.

“Who?” Dale shot back. “Who else would know that’s what he always said when he wanted to discuss something with me?”

“Someone who’s been hacking you for a long time,” Jilly said. “Any leaks about your new system?”

“Absolutely none. Security is—” He broke off, staring at her. “How do you know about the new system?”

“I guessed,” Jilly said breezily. “A company like yours doesn’t stand still even when its founding genius is gone. Besides, your big launch in March is hardly a secret. And there has to be a reason you were hacked.”

“Then you think I was hacked by someone pretending to be Adam in order to get at company secrets, and that we have a poltergeist who is also Adam?”

Jilly looked rather wildly at Sera, who said, “Who else knows about the poltergeist? Besides us.”

“Trust me, it’s not the sort of thing I bandy about at work,” Dale said bitterly. “Or among friends who’d have me certified.”

Petra looked at her nails, saying nothing. Clearly the poltergeist was not a total secret. So, the Ewans really could have a hacker, and Jilly’s hacker surely had to be the same person.

And yet she’d almost convinced herself it was some shade, even some program representing Genesis Adam.

“The thing is,” Sera went on, “if I’m to get rid of this poltergeist for you, it would really help to understand how it came to be in the first place. We’re not here to judge you, or report you. You were promised discretion at Serafina’s, and you’ll always get it. I just need to know what happened the night of your break-in.”

Petra’s nails were just not that interesting, but she didn’t look up. Her husband, however, lifted his eyebrows in mild surprise.

“Break-in? God, I’d forgotten about that. What with this other stuff and Adam’s death, it went right out of my mind.”

Sera leaned forward across the glass table to touch his arm while gazing earnestly into his face. “Did you fire the shot?”

“Shot?” Dale frowned in bewilderment. “There weren’t any shots! We hadn’t switched the alarm on, and these two jokers had managed to wander into the house. When they heard our voices, they bolted. They weren’t even armed. Small-time habitual criminals, according to the police.”

Sera sat back again. “Was Genesis Adam here that night?”

“Adam? No, of course not, why would he be here? He was in Australia by then. Or at least on his way. To be honest, he wasn’t really welcome in our home by that time.”

“And yet he left you everything,” Jilly observed.

Petra glanced up at that, blinking as if she’d never seen Jilly before. “How do you know that?”

“It isn’t a secret.”

“No, it isn’t,” Dale agreed. “Maybe he forgot to change his will, which would have been just like him. Or maybe in spite of everything, he still knew we were his best friends. Which would also be just like him.”

There was honesty in that, Jilly thought. It was there in the odd frustration of his voice, the only half-annoyed flick of his hand through his hair. A genuine if much-tried affection.

“Okay,” Sera said. “I want to try this again with what we know now. But you have to leave the house, or it will feed off your fear. Even just for a few hours. Go to Edinburgh, have dinner, whatever. You don’t have to stay away all night if you don’t want to, but I don’t stand a chance of dispersing this thing with you here.”

The Ewans exchanged looks.

Dale stood up. “Excuse us for a few moments. We’ll discuss it.”

“Be my guest,” Sera said.

The Ewans moved away toward the arch, talking in low voices.

Jilly looked at Sera, who was watching them without blinking. “What do you think?” she murmured. “He seemed pretty plausible to me.”

“Yes,” Sera agreed, “but all the same, he was lying through his teeth.”

“Did you fire the shot?”

“Shot? There weren’t any shots!”

Sera had been touching his arm. She’d sensed the lie.

So was Exodus telling the truth or any part of it?

Dale strode back toward them. “How much access to the house would you need?” he demanded.

“As much or as little as you’re prepared to give. The important thing is that you aren’t in any of it.”

“You’re no doubt aware I keep very sensitive material in the house. Such as stuff relating to the new system.” His glance flickered to Jilly, who smiled beatifically and gazed back.

“We won’t need to be anywhere near that kind of stuff,” Sera soothed. “We just need access to the normal haunts of the poltergeist. Feel free to lock any doors you want off limits.”

“Lock
and
alarm.” Dale looked directly at Jilly, and she knew she’d been rumbled. She’d known too much, said too much that she could only have known by accessing files she’d no business to see. It was almost worth it to see that Petra’s supreme indifference to her presence had now changed to a distinct wariness.

****

Genesis Adam’s heart was lightened by the sight of his beautiful computer hacker stepping out of a beaten-up old Citroen at Dale’s front door. It had been hard seeing Roxy so upset, and so, in desperation, he’d turned his attention to the outer cameras to look out at the grey clouds and misty rain instead.

This house had always been a mystery to Adam. He could understand Dale and Petra building something to their own taste, and he could understand their desire for country living and privacy. But the house stood out like a sore thumb, and now Dale seemed to have practically moved his entire operation here, dishing out projects in a piecemeal sort of way that might well bite him in the bum when it came to actual production. He seemed to have the big launch planned for spring.

It depressed him that Dale might mess up this baby, which was the most fantastic thing Adam had ever come up with or ever would. This would change the face of a lot more than just gaming, and yet Dale was risking its failure by excessive secrecy.

It further depressed him that he couldn’t help, that even alive he’d have had no right to, because, according to JK, he’d sold his share to Dale.

Why the fuck would I have done that?

And yet, stupidly, what hurt him most was the rejection of a stranger, who’d turned on him for an innocent and honest comment about her smile. Of course she’d already been freaked by his presence in the first place and by the fact that he could see her, but still…

Perversely, her overreaction only intrigued him more. He wanted and needed her help, and admittedly it was soul-numbingly boring hanging around Dale’s lab and shooting about his electronic circuits, but there was something about this beautiful girl with the deceptively hard eyes and voice…

He thought so again as she emerged from the scruffy car with her friend, presumably the psychic. They both looked at Roxy’s smart sports car—that was new. America must have gone well for Roxy. He was glad of that.

He couldn’t resist zooming in on JK’s face. She wore makeup like war paint, at once emphasising her beauty and masking her personality. The lipstick somehow hardened the lines of her mouth which, free of makeup, was one of her most appealing features—soft, expressive, and eminently kissable. Likewise, the sharp eyeliner and dark mascara lent her lovely if haunted blue eyes something the impression of a doll’s, without warmth or feeling. Yet when they were unadorned, as they were yesterday evening in the supposed privacy of her own home, you could more easily see the character and sheer intelligence shining out of them.

The hacker was hiding more than her illegal hobbies. The gamer in him was challenged.

And when she began asking Dale questions about the night he was shot, he found himself grinning at the monitor. If she’d come only to deal with the so-called poltergeist, surely they’d just get on with it? But JK was still investigating for him, and she’d got her supposedly psychic friend involved.

Which meant he could contact her again, according to his own sense of honour.

When they’d driven Dale and Petra out of the house and closed the door firmly behind them, the women linked arms and performed a short jig that made Adam smile.

“Okay, what’s the plan?” the other woman, Sera, said after only a few seconds of this horseplay.

JK dropped her arm and stood still. “I suppose you’d better try and get rid of the poltergeist. Do you need me, or can I snoop?”

“Oh, snoop, by all means,” Sera said. “I intend to do a bucketload myself. Where were Andy and George when they heard the shot? Which room?”

Andy and George? The burglars? How come the women were on first-name terms with them?

JK shook her head. “No idea. It’s a big house to search.” She picked up her laptop bag, fiddled unnecessarily with the strap on her shoulder. “What did you get off Roxy May?”

“She’s grieving and bewildered. It upset her coming here.”

Didn’t need to be psychic to spot that much, Adam thought derisively.