Dangerous Encounters

Chapter 23 The muck thickens and sickens despite the love

I've dedicated this piece to Hobnails, for tremendous support, and for a great story read his Cousins novel.

Thursday went to plan. Mandy with a wide grin on her face took a Jaguar to Ruth's caravan and brought clothes and toiletries. Ruth spent the day on the word processer, tapping out nearly two hundred letters to clients and other organisations, trawled from the records. Mandy joined her later. 

We asked Ellen to leave us out for a few days but paid her standard cleaning wage, and asked Steven Rampling to continue with his work. I sent him to get a large incinerator. 

Liz, once more stylishly dressed, was almost continuously occupied on the phone, leaving it to talk to various local delivery people and to make Maggie Stenson and Phillipe Lancombe redundant. The two seemed pleased with their settlements, and made us an enjoyable lunch. Mandy had changed, not quite competing with Liz but I'd not seen her look so smart. 

"Don't worry Pat," I said, as in contrast to the other three, we sat for lunch in our dirty jeans and sweaters, "The proletariat will have their day." 

Pat and I moved the files and tapes into the study and furniture onto the first floor landing. We looked in the low sun heated height of the roof space, but it was empty. 

We found and dismantled the camera system. 

The bug detector arrived at three o'clock, and we found voice activated radio transmitters in every room except Eve's flat. We searched high and low for the receiver. In frustration Pat switched on the hi-fi in Eve's bed sitter. It looked normal until we found that the digital VHF tuning range which ordinarily topped at around 108 MHz on domestic receivers, went on to 130. As I raised the frequency beyond 110, Liz's, Ruth's and Mandy's activities came clearly into the room. 

I looked at the casettes that were in the rack by the Hi Fl. 

"Oh bugger," I said, "more stuff to listen to. Look at the titles. They're monitoring tapes for this set up." 

"What a life," said Pat. 

"You what, love?" 

"Eve's. Writing up all those files, listening to the tapes and looking at the videos. Getting the thing organised. Where was she? Looking over everybody else's shoulder to get her life. That's really sad." 

"Don't say you're starting to feel sorry for her?" 

"Well, if you had the choice of this whole house and set up for what - ten years? and one cuddle with Ruth, what would you go for?" 

"No contest, but I'm a different animal from Eve. Hell, so's Ruth." 

"That's what I mean, Mandy and I see you and Ruth get a great charge from every second of your time together, what could anyone get from this?" 

"Pat, think back to your care home days. Some people get a bigger kick from power than they ever do from sex or comradeship. The knowledge in Eve's libraries is her power. I'm sure she used it. I'd guess she's a rich woman on the quiet. Whether we'll ever prove it I can't say." 

She sighed, her young face full of puzzlement, "I suppose so." 

Rosemary came at four. Ruth and Liz broke off from their labours. Ruth and I explained our dilemma, now compounded by the audio tapes. 

"Amanda's sampling idea is good, but I think we can do better still. Feed the tapes through the computer system at work and it can analyse the picture material for children by image recognition, and the audio by speech spectra. Image recognition is difficult for computers. It'll have to be a week-end or night job. We flatbed scan the written material and turn it into a database, and you can surf that however you like.