Free Looking Good Dead by Peter James Page A

happened again,’ Chris Webb said, sounding exasperated as if he were addressing the class imbecile.
    Both salesmen looked at Tom.
    ‘I opened my computer on the train this morning and it wouldn’t boot up. It was dead,’ he said.
    ‘It’s booting up fine,’ the techie said. ‘But there’s no data, is there? That’s why you’re not getting anything up on the screen.’
    Lowering his voice in an attempt to lose his audience, Tom said, ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘There isn’t much to understand, mate. Your database is wiped clean.’
    ‘Not possible,’ Tom said. ‘I mean – I haven’t done anything.’
    ‘You’ve either had a virus or you’ve been hacked.’
    ‘I thought Macs don’t get viruses.’
    ‘You did what I told you, didn’t you – please tell me you did. You didn’t hook this up to the office server?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Lucky for that – it would have trashed your entire database.’
    ‘So there’s a virus.’
    ‘You’ve got something in there. Nothing’s wrong with your hardware. I just can’t believe you were so stupid – putting in a CD you found on a train. Jesus, Tom!’
    Tom glanced past him. The rest of his team seemed to have lost interest. ‘What do you mean, stupid? It’s a computer, right? That’s what it does. It’s got all the anti-virus software – which you installed. It plays CDs. It ought to be able to play any CD.’
    Webb held up the CD. ‘I’ve had a read of this, away from any machine it could harm. It’s spyware – it will reconfigure your software and plant God knows what kind of stuff in your system. You found it on a train?’
    ‘Last night.’
    ‘Serves you right for not handing it in to Lost Property right away.’
    Sometimes Tom couldn’t believe he actually paid this guy to help him. ‘Thanks a lot. I was trying to be helpful – thought I might find an address on it I could send it to.’
    ‘Yeah, well next time it happens send it to me and I’ll look at it for you. So, apart from this, have you opened up any attachments you didn’t recognize?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘I never do – you warned me not to, years ago. Only the ones that come from people I know.’
    ‘Porn?’
    ‘Jokes, porn, the usual stuff.’
    ‘I suggest you wear a condom next time you surf the net.’
    ‘That’s not even funny.’
    ‘That wasn’t a joke. You’ve picked up a very nasty virus; it’s extremely aggressive. If you’d logged on to your office server this morning, you’d have wiped that clean, and all your colleagues’ computers as well. And the backup.’
    ‘Shit.’
    ‘Good word,’ Chris Webb said. ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself.’
    ‘So how do I get rid of it?’
    ‘By paying me a lot of money.’
    ‘Great.’
    ‘Or you can buy a new computer.’
    ‘You really know how to cheer someone up, don’t you?’
    ‘You want the facts, I’m giving them to you.’
    ‘I don’t understand. I thought Macs didn’t get viruses.’
    ‘They don’t very often. But there are some floating around. You might have just been unlucky. But most likely it’s from this CD. Of course there is another possibility.’ He looked around, found the mug of tea he had put down a while ago, and swigged some down.
    ‘And what’s that?’ Tom asked.
    ‘It might be someone who is pissed off with you.’ After a few moments, Webb added, ‘Flash tie you’re wearing.’
    Tom glanced down; it was lavender with silver horses. Hermès. Kellie had recently bought it on the internet in some closing-down offer – her idea of economizing.
    ‘It’s for sale,’ he said.
    11
    Shortly after half past four in the afternoon, at the end of three hours of painstaking scrutiny, the dismembered remains of the young woman beneath the awning in the rain-lashed field of rape had come close to yielding as much as they were going to out here, the Home Office pathologist decided.
    He completed the primitive but effective technique of pressing Sellotape against