Peter James - The House on Cold Hill

Ollie could not believe his eyes. Who the hell had written this? A disgruntled former employee of Cholmondley? Someone with computer skills who had hacked his computer here? And this person had somehow found a way in through the website?

He looked again at the Sent box, and saw another email, this one to Bhattacharya.

He clicked to open it.

Hey, Anup, you old fraud, you! You put yourself out as a Brahmin in your caste system, but we all know that really you are an Untouchable. From just how many different, honest, hard-working Indians have you stolen the recipes for your restaurants? How many people have bought from your online ‘deli’ — or should that read, ‘Delhi belly’??? — your amazing Prawn Tikka, or Prawn Dhansak, or Prawn Korma, not knowing that those little curly things are not prawns at all, but monkfish cast-offs?

Oh and you have conveniently omitted that your Nottingham restaurant was shut down for three weeks by the Food Safety Officer and you were fined three thousand pounds after a dead rat was found beneath one of your kitchen fridges.

Ollie sat back in his chair. These were emails sent from this computer, no question about that. But who the hell had written them?

His first thought was Jade. But he dismissed that, rapidly. She might have been able to log in — his password, Bombay7, wasn’t that difficult to crack. But she could not possibly have known the technical details about the Ferrari. Neither could she have known stuff about Bhattacharya, true or otherwise.

He phoned Chris Webb and asked his computer guru if it was technically possible for an outsider to have hacked into his computer and sent these emails.

‘Well, yes. Not easily, but it could be done.’

Webb asked him to fire up the Team Viewer application, then give him the code and password. Moments later Webb had control of his computer and Ollie saw the cursor moving around the screen.

‘I could send any email I wanted, as you, right now,’ Webb said. ‘So which are the two emails you wanted me to see?’

Ollie temporarily took back control and directed him to them.

For the next few minutes, as he stayed on the phone, Ollie watched the cursor shoot up to the toolbar, then move to System Preferences, and then begin drilling down through the options.

Finally, Webb said, ‘I can’t find any evidence that you’ve been hacked — but then again someone good enough to do that would know how to hide their tracks. You sure you didn’t get pissed last night and just not remember sending these?’

Ollie thought back to his weird dream during the night. The one where his laptop went missing. Was it possible he could have sleepwalked and sent these emails, composing them from deep inside his unconscious mind? But why on earth would he have done? That made absolutely no sense.

‘Chris,’ he said, ‘why would I want to insult these clients and self-destruct my business?’

‘You sure you’re OK at the moment, Ollie? You’ve been seeming pretty stressed these past few weeks.’

‘I’m stressed because I’m trying to build my business — and deal with all the work and stuff going on here. But I’m coping with it.’

‘I’m sorry, mate, I just don’t have any other explanation.’

After ending the call, Ollie sat in silence and read through both of the emails again. So who had done this?

Had the energy here driven him to do it?

Had stress?

Without any recollection the next day?

Had he been hacked by a rival?

Cholmondley owed him thousands, and the contract for The Chattri House could have been worth thousands more — money he was depending on.

He had to recover them both.

Somehow.

Somehow he had to come up with a credible explanation — and an apology they would accept.

Ollie was surprised to find Jade already up and dressed so early on a Saturday, as he went downstairs, deep in troubled thought, to organize breakfast. The round metal clock, designed to look like it had once adorned the wall of a nineteenth-century Paris café, read 10.07. He noticed it was at a slightly wonky angle.

Looking a little chastened, his daughter asked, ‘Which pod would you like today, Dad?’ She spun the Nespresso capsule dispenser, which she had racked out with a wide variety. Not only was she in charge of making the coffee, she had long taken charge of keeping the dispenser topped up as well.

‘The strongest,’ he replied. He went to the front door, collected the newspapers, carried them through into the kitchen and laid them neatly on the refectory table. Then he lugged a chair over to the wall, climbed on to it, and reached to straighten the clock.

Jade held up a black pod. ‘Kazaar?’

‘Perfect.’

‘Long or short?’

‘Short, and could you make it a double?’

‘You’ll be flying, Dad!’

He climbed down from the chair, stood back and studied the clock. It was still not completely straight. He climbed back on to the chair again. ‘Yep, well I need a major shot of something — I didn’t sleep too well last night. Nor did your mum. We had this strange little ghost that came in the room and freaked us out.’

Jade giggled. ‘I did fool you, did I? Was my costume quite realistic?’

‘It was very realistic. And not funny, OK.’

‘I thought it was a screeeeaaaaam!!!’

He shook his head, her impish grin making it hard for him to be angry with her. ‘And how did you sleep?’

Jade nodded, inserting the pod in the coffee machine, then flipping down the lid. ‘OK. You haven’t forgotten about Phoebe coming for a sleepover, have you, Dad?’

‘And your boyfriend coming tomorrow, too. How is Ruari?’

She shrugged. ‘Yep. Fine.’

‘Are you still sweet on him?’

She blushed and looked away. ‘It’s sort of not really like that, Dad.’

‘Sort of not really like what?’

‘You know — romantic stuff.’

Ollie grinned; his daughter was lifting his gloom, however momentarily. ‘So you don’t kiss him?’

‘Yuk, snog? Yechhhh!’

He adjusted the clock again then stepped back down. The Nespresso machine was rumbling and he smelled the delicious aroma of fresh coffee. Caro came into the kitchen in her dressing gown, yawned, then went over to Jade, glaring at her.

‘That was seriously not funny, last night, OK?’

For a moment Jade looked like she was going to answer back. Then, seeing the anger in her mother’s face, she bowed her head and said, meekly, ‘Sorry.’

‘Scrambled eggs, anyone?’ Ollie asked. It was one of two things he could cook well. French toast, which Jade loved, was the other.

‘Meeeee!’ Jade raised her arm in the air. ‘Or French toast? Could I have French toast? And will you make that tomorrow, too, for Phebes and me?’

Ollie looked at Caro.

‘Just scrambled eggs. A tiny amount.’ Then she said, ‘Is everything OK? What was that phone call earlier?’

‘It was just Charles Cholmondley — he wanted me to add some things urgently to his website.’

‘Has something gone wrong?’

‘No, it’s fine.’

‘He owes you a lot of money, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes, I’m invoicing him for it.’

She gave him a dubious look. ‘You told me you thought he was dodgy — is he trying anything on you?’

‘No, he’s fine.’

Ollie cooked the eggs, but his mind was all over the place. He burned them. Then he burned the French toast, too.

As soon as breakfast was over he hurried back up to his office, then sat down at his computer and logged on apprehensively, ready to screenshot any message that might appear. An instant later everything vanished from his screen, then the words appeared: