Free The Stone Gallows by C David Ingram Page A

would you if I smacked you off the side of your desk like that.’ I took the seat opposite and held out my hand. ‘You’ve probably broken it by now.’
    He passed over the offending item. ‘I only tapped it,’ he said sullenly. ‘Besides, I never wanted the bloody thing in the first place.
    You can’t break an old-fashioned diary.’
    â€˜How true.’ I probed the screen. It wasn’t broken, or at least, didn’t appear to be. ‘What’s your code?’
    â€˜Code?’
    â€˜Entry code. So that only you can access it.’ His face was blank. ‘To prevent your private information falling into the hands of the dark forces of the night.’
    â€˜The dark. . . Cameron, I don’t know anything about a bloody access code!’
    â€˜Did Becky give you anything with it?’
    Grumbling, he fished around in his pocket, eventually coming up with a small booklet and passing it over. The operating instructions.
    â€˜Joe. . . ’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Did you even look at these?’
    â€˜Becky said it was easy to use.’
    â€˜Not that easy.’ I tried to come up with an appropriate metaphor, failed completely. Joe was instant death to anything with a microchip, with an uncanny ability to make computers crash just by looking at them. Christ knew what Becky had been thinking. I showed the booklet to him. ‘See?’
    Written across the front cover in heavy black pen was ‘Access code: 6960.’ I recognised the hand-writing as that of Joe’s wife.
    He had the grace to look slightly sheepish. ‘That’s Becky’s birthday.’
    I used it to enter the system and retrieve the required phone number, scribbling it down on a scrap of paper. ‘Joe, just one question. If you don’t know how to use it, how come all your phone numbers managed to get in it in the first place?’
    â€˜Becky did it,’ Joe said, not so much an admission as an accusation.
    â€˜She copied them out of my diary.’
    â€˜Do you still have the diary?’
    He nodded.
    â€˜Then maybe you should just use that instead.’ I stood up. ‘I’m going to make a coffee. Want one?’
    â€˜Oh, God, yes, please.’
    3.2.
    The kitchen was the size of a shoebox, but it was all that we needed.
    As I waited for the kettle to boil, I spooned instant into two mugs – the Partick Thistle one for Joe and the British Superbikes one for me.
    The office was the smallest suite on the seventh floor of a city centre block. It comprised four rooms – a main reception area, Joe’s office, the kitchen, and a tiny bathroom. When I wasn’t out in the field, I hung out in the reception area, doing whatever it was Joe needed of me – answering phones, computer searches, typing general correspondence. I guess you could call me a secretary.
    The phone started ringing. I walked the three inches from the kitchen to my desk and picked it up. ‘Banks Investigations.’
    The woman had one of those breathy, little-girl voices that were fine on nineteen-fifties movie starlets but don’t really cut it in the real world. She sounded muffled, like she was cradling the receiver between her shoulder and her chin, watching her nail polish dry while a Pekinese yapped around her ankles. ‘Is that Mr Banks?’
    â€˜My name’s Cameron Stone. I work for Mr Banks. Can I help you?’
    There was a long pause. ‘I’d really prefer to talk to Mr Banks.’
    â€˜May I ask what it’s regarding?’
    â€˜I might have some work for him.’
    â€˜What’s your name, please?’
    â€˜Sophie Sloan.’
    â€˜Hold on, please.’ I put her on hold and dialled zero. ‘Joe, there’s a potential client on the other line. Name’s Sophie Sloan.’
    I put her through and headed back to the kitchen. Once it sensed it was being watched, the kettle took another thousand years to