Conumdrum Ch. 01

"Ways and means, Matt. Ways and means." In other words, don't ask. He rubbed his hands together, and licked his lips to get the last remnant of fried egg into his mouth. "Right. Let's have a look at your computer." Matt showed him where it was, and stood looking over Gary's shoulder. Gary looked up.

"Sorry, Mate. But I am going to have quite a bit to do, and, well some of it is trade secrets. You don't mind, do you?"

"Oh no. I have some phone calls to make anyway. I'll leave it to you."

Two hours later, Gary came to find him.

"I thought you said your wife was not computer literate?"

"No she isn't."

"Matt. I have news for you. Either she is, or someone else has been on this machine. I have found out some stuff, which doesn't mean much, but there is something there, which someone has gone to a lot of trouble to hide." Matt was bemused.

"For God's sake. She couldn't even change the security code on her mobile phone! There's no way she could be that sophisticated on the computer."

"Well someone is. Look! I am going to have to take the machine away. I can download it all onto my equipment, and sort it out. O.K.?"

"No problem. Did you find out anything?" Gary didn't say anything for a moment. Matt could almost read what his hesitation was about.

"Gary. I want to know. If it's something that will upset me, I still want to know." Gary shrugged his shoulders.

"Whoever has used that computer has been accessing a lot of pornography."

"You mean Beth has been accessing pornography."

"Yes. But it is a particular kind."

"Go on."

"Bondage and stuff like that." Matt sat down.

"Gary. There is a bottle of Laphraoig in that cupboard. Would you get it, and a couple of glasses. I think I need a drink."

With amply filled glasses in front of them, Matt looked at Gary.

"O.K. Give it to me."

"It's strange, Matt. She has been looking at sites with stories on. I wouldn't say they were sex stories exactly, although sex is involved, but they seem to be about dominance and submission to a Master. There are stories about people being in Bondage, and some where punishment is involved. Now I can follow her trail quite easily, she hasn't tried to hide any of this. She started at one site then clicked on links to take her to others. But she has accessed one site where the evidence has been deleted, and the recycle bin has been cleared as well. Now! Either she has done that or someone has done it for her. But if that was deleted, why not the other sites? It doesn't make sense." Matt gave that some thought. He didn't voice his thoughts but it was opening a window into Beth's mind, which would also explain some of her passive behaviour, especially where sex was concerned. He got back to the task in hand.

"So we can never know what this site was?" Gary shook his head.

"We can try, Mate. You can delete as much as you like, but the hard drive never, never wipes itself. It will be there somewhere, we just need to find it, that's all."

"You can find it?"

"I expect so, but that's why I need to take your computer away. I have to drop the complete contents of the drive onto some equipment I have. Then I can dissect everything bit by bit."

"How long?" Gary shrugged his shoulders, and spread his arms palms upwards.

"How long is a piece of string? I could drop on it within a couple of minutes, or it could take four or five days. It just depends on how much is on the drive. I can try and guess keywords. But that could waste a lot of time, so slow and methodical is the way. Sorry."

After Gary's departure, Matt sat with a cup of coffee and gave this some thought. There seemed a number of contradictions here. Beth seemed to have tried to cover her tracks, but left gaping loopholes in the plan. Did she not think that when her promised phone call never happened that Matt would not start searching for answers? Was it deliberate that she left her mobile phone at home, switched on! Matt was sure that she wouldn't have been able to defend her computer with a password, unless someone told her how to do it. Then didn't she think that the very fact that she had set up a password would give Matt reason for suspicion. It almost seemed to Matt that she had deliberately encouraged him to investigate, but the woman's general naivety would argue against that. He was coming to the conclusion that someone else was encouraging Beth to cover her tracks, but she was not competent enough in the technology to carry it out properly. Matt wanted to find that someone else, and ask some very pointed questions. He was preparing to go to work, when another thought came like a thunder flash. Beth had arranged her leave from work a week before! This wasn't a last minute opportunity as her note said. As thoughts do, one thing led to another, and an insidious worm crept into his head. Was Beth ever going to come back to him? If she did return, and he discovered that she had deliberately betrayed him then she wouldn't stay for long, she would be history as far as he was concerned. He pushed that thought aside, but like lots of these worms, it kept returning over the next few days.

To be continued...