Cyber Count: A Kat Munro Thriller (The Kat Munro Thrillers Book 2) Read online

  Adam gripped the steering wheel before speaking in a low voice. “Enough, or you can walk.”

  Tommy held his hands up. “Okay, man, just sayin’.”

  “Well, don’t.”

  They drove in silence for a couple of blocks.

  “So, Nancy must be due soon,” Tommy said.

  “About six weeks,” Adam said.

  “If you don’t mind me saying, you don’t seem overjoyed,” Tommy said.

  “It’s complicated, Tommy, you know that.”

  “Are you two back together?”

  Adam shook his head. “We’ll co-parent; however that’s supposed to work.”

  “Then, what’s the issue with Kat?”

  “I can’t be running around with her when Nancy is about to give birth to my child.”

  “But…”

  “Tommy, I’m trying to do the right thing for everyone here,” Adam said.

  “Doesn’t seem to me that you’re doing the right thing for you or Kat.”

  Adam fell silent again for a moment. “Enough about me,” he said. “Tell me how you’re doing?”

  “Great, never been better. You’ve heard the term ‘babe magnet’, well that’s me now. I always thought the uniform helped,” Tommy said. “But hey, I should’ve got some hideous scars and lost a leg sooner.”

  “At least your gallows humour is still intact,” Adam said, glancing across at him.

  “It’s hanging on by a thread, mate.”

  “Is it really that bad?”

  “I might as well be invisible as far as the opposite sex is concerned,” Tommy said. “Why do you think I’m so invested in your love life?”

  “Mine is a mess, you should look elsewhere for inspiration.”

  “Yeah, but seeing that yours is a mess doesn’t make me feel quite so bad about mine,” Tommy said.

  “You’ve just got to give it time,” Adam said. “Get yourself properly healed, get fit again and have your new leg fitted.”

  “Time,” Tommy said, turning to stare out the window. “That’s what the psycho-babblers keep telling me.”

  “Well, you know you’re getting the best rehab in London, working with Marco,” Adam said.

  “I thought you didn’t like him.” Tommy gave Adam a sly look. “Or was it his relationship with Kat that you didn’t like?”

  “And just like that, you’ve pulled the conversation back to her,” Adam said.

  Tommy laughed. “Any word on Jake?” he asked. The car pulled out from the side road and joined the North Circular.

  Adam shook his head. “Nah, but I’m convinced Webster knows more than he’s letting on. He’s up on so many charges that I keep hoping he’ll be ready to trade some information for a reduced sentence at some point, but nothing yet.”

  “It’s just so strange that he disappeared off the face of the earth,” Tommy said. “How long has it been?”

  “Almost three years.”

  “It would be good for Jake’s family to know what happened to him, get some closure.”

  “Yeah, I’m certain he’s dead, but there’s always that glimmer of hope until there’s a body.”

  Tommy nodded and stared out at the traffic. “That there is,” he agreed.

  Chapter 4

  “Earth to Kat,” Shamira said, waving her delicate hands in front of Kat’s face. Intricate, fading henna patterns covered the backs of both hands, leftovers from a family wedding celebration at the weekend.

  “Sorry, I was miles away,” Kat said, shaking her head. “You were saying?”

  “I was saying that he must have a hidden bank account or two. I’ve been trying to rebuild his income and expenditure for the last twenty-four months. I can’t see where all of his money has gone,” Shamira said, running her fingers through her long straight black hair in frustration. She pushed back from her desk. “Are you sure you’re okay? Would you like a coffee?”

  “I’m fine, but coffee would be great, thanks,” Kat said.

  She watched her friend stroll across the open-plan office toward the small kitchen cleverly hidden beneath the stairwell in their newly refurbished office. Forensic Accounting Associates had only been back in the building for a few weeks, following the fire which had destroyed their floor and damaged the ones immediately above and below.

  Nate, the other member of Kat’s team, returned from a meeting in one of the glass-fronted conference rooms on the far side of the floor and dropped onto his chair at the remaining desk in the pod of three. “You’re looking pensive, mate.” Nate looked the antithesis of an accountant, with his long messy blond locks and tattoos that peeked out from beneath the neck of his business shirt.

  “I was just thinking what a nice job they did repairing the office,” Kat said, looking across the polished wooden floors to the red brick walls of the converted grain store that was home to the firm.

  Nate shivered, shaking his head. “I still get chills thinking about that day.”

  “I’m not surprised; you could have been killed.”

  “Here you go,” Shamira said, returning with a small tray containing three flat whites. “I thought you’d want one, surfer boy.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Nate said, helping himself to a cup. “Although there’s not much chance of surfing in this weather. I have to say, it’s the one thing I miss about Australia. You can surf at Bondi all year round.”

  Shamira pulled her chair alongside Kat’s.

  “So, are you going to tell us why you’re so distracted today? You’re not due to testify in the CIP case yet, are you?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” she said.

  “Well, what is it?” Shamira pressed. “We’re not going to let you bottle things up again, so spill.”

  Kat sighed. “I bumped into Adam.”

  Over her head, Nate and Shamira exchanged a knowing glance.

  “What was that look?” Kat demanded.

  “We just know that you’re still a little sensitive where he’s concerned,” Shamira said, her tone gentle.

  Kat glared at her. “You would be too if you’d finally admitted your feelings for someone only to find out that his ex-wife was having his baby. End of story. There’s nothing for me to be sensitive about.”

  “I think it was as much a shock for Adam as it was for you, am I right?” Shamira said.

  “Doesn’t change the facts.”

  Shamira tried to maintain a neutral expression. “And will you be seeing him again?”

  Kat shook her head and took a sip of her coffee. “Not if I can help it, there’s too much water under that particular bridge.”

  “If you say so.”

  “It was just a bit strange seeing him when I was least expecting it, that’s all,” Kat admitted. “I was unprepared, but it’s good that we don’t have to work with him again.”

  “Until the next murder,” Nate said, wiggling his eyebrows.

  “Ugh, you don’t have to sound so excited about it,” Shamira said.

  “Besides, I somehow have a date tonight with a journalist that I met at the gym,” Kat said before her face creased with a frown. “Although, thinking about it again, I might cancel. Now, about that missing bank account, I agree, and I think I know where some of the money might be going.” Kat spun her chair back around to face her computer screens, placing her mug on the desk to one side.

  “Wait, wait, you’ve got a date?”

  “I have.”

  “And you’ve waited until now to tell me.” Shamira’s voice rose, and she looked a little put out.

  “It’s no biggie.”

  “Kat, you haven’t dated anyone since Adam.”

  “She’s right,” Nate said.

  “And I didn’t really date him, if you recall. Now, moving on, please. I’ve found a lease on a flat in that huge apartment complex near the river at Pimlico in the name of one of our politician’s companies.”

  Shamira peered at the screen. “Ah, he’s probably got a mistress holed up there. Why are
politicians such dirt-bags?”

  “Whoa there, you’ve been listening to his soon-to-be ex-wife too much,” Nate said. “There’s no evidence that he’s having an affair or that he’s a dirt-bag. It could just be a shrewd property investment.”

  “Well, why didn’t he declare it to his wife’s lawyers, then?” Shamira said.

  “I don’t know, but just because Deborah Sharp runs a charity, it doesn’t make her a saint,” Nate said.

  “Actually, Jeremy does some good for the business community,” Kat said, pulling a newspaper from her bag. “There was an article in here on the number of start-up businesses that his department’s programme, the Future Sustainable Business Initiative, has been assisting over the past couple of years.”

  “So both of their halos are shining,” Nate said, turning to pick up his ringing desk phone.

  Kat sat the newspaper to one side and faced her computer screen.

  Shamira touched Kat’s arm. “Don’t cancel your date,” she said.

  “It’s not a big deal, Shamira.”

  “Kat, you need to stop pushing everyone away. Life can be very lonely if you don’t take risks and let people in,” Shamira said.

  Kat gave her an exasperated look. “I’m not lonely.”

  “When did you last go anywhere that wasn’t work or the gym?”

  “I went to the Portobello Road Market last Sunday.”

  “With?” Shamira asked.

  “No one,” Kat mumbled.

  “And when did you last come out with Nate and me or anyone else? You’ve got to stop hiding and pushing everyone away.”

  “Kat, do you have a moment?”

  Kat looked up to see their receptionist, a woman in her forties, standing in front of their workstations. Her short greying hair curled around her face, and she had worry lines etched into her features.

  “Sure, Rosie,” Kat said. “Anything to save me from this one and her incessant questions.” She jumped up and followed Rosie across the floor to an empty meeting room.

  Shamira pulled a face and called after her. “You’ll turn into a crazy, reclusive cat lady if you’re not careful.”

  Rosie closed the door and with a heavy sigh dropped onto a chair at one end of the meeting table. Kat slid onto the chair beside her and took in the jumble of modern and historic buildings comprising the cityscape through the floor-to-ceiling windows on one side of the small room, before turning her attention to Rosie.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “My son, Harry, is missing,” Rosie said, pressing her fingers against her temple as if trying to stop a headache. “He didn’t come home from school yesterday.”

  “Oh no, I’m sorry to hear that. Have you called the police?”

  “I did, but they said it wasn’t high risk or something,” Rosie said. “He’s seventeen and sometimes stays over at his friends’ houses or at the boarding lodge at school. He says they’re doing homework, but I always suspect they’re having a gaming session, so I keep hoping it’s just that. But the thing is, he usually calls to let us know.”

  “Have you talked to his friends or the school?”

  “Yes.” Rosie wrung her hands. “He hasn’t turned up for school today, and he’s not with any of his local mates. I wouldn’t normally be worried, but my husband Terry and I were looking in Harry’s room last night to see if we could find the phone numbers for some of his other friends when we found a crumpled statement for a bank account with a balance of over one hundred thousand pounds.”

  She looked up at Kat with red-rimmed eyes. “We’ve no idea where he got that much money from. He was building a few websites for people, but nothing that would earn that sort of money.”

  Kat opened her mouth to speak, but Rosie continued.

  “If I go back to the police and report him missing, then I’ll have to show them, and I don’t want to do that if there is some innocent explanation. He’s a good boy. Do you think that you could come and take a look at his computer? He’s got three screens that seem to talk to each other, but we can’t even get into it.”

  “Sure, if you think it will help to find him. Can I bring Nate? He’s the technology whizz kid,” Kat said. “But if he doesn’t turn up soon, you need to go back to the police.”

  “Thank you.” Rosie looked relieved. “Could you come straight after work today?”

  “Yeah, I’ll check with Nate, but that should be fine. Are you okay to leave around five? I have somewhere to be later?”

  “Absolutely, thank you, Kat.”

  Kat reached over and squeezed Rosie’s hand. “Who knows? He might be home by then, and you can ask him yourself.”

  “I hope so. Terry has stayed home today, just in case.”

  Chapter 5

  When the first note arrived, Adam had ignored it as coming from some nut-job who’d read in the newspaper about the high-profile CIP case he’d worked on a few months earlier. Police officers, especially those featured in news reports, seemed to become targets of people who were a little unhinged or had grudges against those in authority. But now he sat holding a second envelope addressed to ‘DS Adam Jackson’. He turned it over in his hands. This one appeared to have been hand-delivered. There was no stamp or postmark to indicate that it had come via the Royal Mail or a courier. He pulled on a pair of disposable gloves and readied an evidence bag.

  He searched through the drawers of his desk at one end of the open-plan CID office at the station until he found a letter opener and sliced open the top of the envelope. If it contained what he thought, then he would need to have the seal DNA tested. Maybe the sender had licked the glue strip to stick the envelope.

  Setting down the letter opener, he held the envelope away from him and shook out the single folded piece of paper. He dropped the envelope into the evidence bag and put it to one side before spreading the page out on the desk. The letter was handwritten, in black ink using block capitals, on ordinary white paper.

  ‘THEY KNOW THAT I KNEW THE AMBUSH AT HELMAND WOULD HAPPEN…JT’

  Voices in the hallway announced the arrival of his team.

  “Hey, sarge,” Detective Constable Julian Talbot said, dropping his gym bag on the floor beside his chair and kicking it under the desk with his foot.

  “Morning,” Adam said before picking up his phone, photographing the letter and slipping it into the evidence bag with the envelope. He sealed it and filled in the details.

  “What’ve you got there?” Julian asked. His short hair was still wet from his post-workout shower, and he wore his usual self-imposed uniform of jeans and a button-down shirt. A clipped dark brown goatee beard covered his upper lip and chin.

  “Do you remember the letter I got last week, the cryptic one?” Adam said.

  “Yes, the one supposedly from your mate Jake. You thought it was from one of the usual cranks.”

  “I’ve received another one,” Adam said, handing the evidence bag to him.

  “What happened at Helmand?” Julian asked, after reading the note.

  “We were involved in an incident that killed one of my team and injured others, including me. Jake was working in military intelligence at the time, but if he’d had advance warning of an ambush he would have stopped the mission. I know that isn’t from Jake. Someone is messing with me, but who and why now after all this time?”

  Julian shrugged and handed the note back.

  “Who’s Jake?” the newest member of Adam’s homicide team, Constable Eloise Salter, asked, joining the conversation. Her uniform was freshly ironed, and her tumble of wild black hair was tamed into a sleek bun. Since joining the unit, she’d impressed everyone with her quick wit and no-nonsense approach.

  Adam looked pained for a moment. “Jake Truro is my best mate who’s been missing for the last three years,” Adam said.

  “Oh, and there’s been no sign of him?”

  “Have you heard us mention Kat Munro, the forensic accountant that I worked with on the CIP investigation?” Adam said.


  “The girl with the false hand?” Eloise said.

  “She’s a little more than that,” Adam said.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean…” Eloise mumbled, exchanging a glance with Julian.

  Adam inhaled. “I believe that she was one of the last people to see Jake before he disappeared. However, there are holes in her memory as she was involved in a car accident that night.”

  “That’s awful. Did Kat see Jake before the accident, then?”

  “She recalls seeing a man being questioned at South Hill Manor, which is near Jake’s last known location. The owner of the house, William Huntly-Tait, has since confirmed that Jake was there but insists that he was alive when he left the property.”

  “And that’s all tied up with the CIP case,” Eloise said.

  “Yeah,” Adam said. “All of my enquiries into Jake’s disappearance have drawn a blank. It is as though he’s vanished into thin air. The one man who knows what happened is sitting in Holloway Prison awaiting trial and is not saying anything.”

  “Perhaps he’s holding that piece of info to bargain with?” Julian suggested.

  “It’s possible,” Adam said. “Eloise, can you find the letter from last week? I should have copied it.”

  “Sure, I filed it. I’ll just go and get it.”

  “Can you send this to the lab on your way? I need fingerprints and any DNA from the seal.”

  “Okay.” Eloise picked up the evidence bag and left the room.

  “What’s made you take notice of this one?” Julian asked.

  “It suggests some knowledge of my past,” Adam said.

  “And it’s definitely not Jake?”

  “No,” Adam said, scowling. “It’s from someone who is messing with me, but if it leads me to the truth of what happened to Jake, then I’ll play along, for now.”

  Eloise returned a short time later, a little red-faced and breathless from rushing.

  “Here’s the other note,” she said, approaching Adam’s desk.

  Adam took the evidence bag from her and turned it so that the type on the anonymous note was visible.

  ‘Mate, you need to find me. I can’t hold on much longer.’