I reported the missing computer to Maltbie when we took the keys back.
I had mentioned its existence in the first place so I felt that I had to. I hadn't seen his self-assurance shaken before. "Are you sure about this?" he asked me, in a tone that said as clearly as words that this was a great inconvenience and that he wished it would go away.
I didn't like my word or my intelligence being questioned. "I'm sure Joe had a spare telephone jack point in his study upstairs. I'm sure I've received e-mail from him in the past. I'm sure this was in his bookcase." I tossed the owner's manual on to his desk. Then I reached into my jacket's inside pocket. "Even you can be sure about this," I told him, as I unfolded a sheet of pink paper and laid it in front of him. "I found it among Joe's personal files." The solicitor picked it up and peered at it through his half-moon glasses. It was a receipt, from PC World, for the purchase around eighteen months before of a Shoei 1900 laptop computer, with optional extended warranty.
"Damn," he said, earnestly. "What am I going to do with this?"
"You're the bloody lawyer," I replied, amiably. "You tell me." He frowned at me. "But if you want a hint," I continued, 'there's a detective superintendent called Tom Fallon up at police headquarters.
You might report it to him."
"You really think so?"
"Too right. This isn't a box of paper-clips that's missing; it's a valuable piece of kit."
He made a small tut ting sound. "Do you want to report it, then?"
"Bugger that," I exclaimed sincerely. "I'm not the beneficiary here, the nominated charities are, and you're the executor, so you do it."
"But he'll want to question my staff. It'll be very inconvenient."
"He's as likely to question his own bloody staff. They've had more opportunity than your people. But the first thing he'll do is something I didn't have time to. He'll check with PC World, to see whether the machine's in for repair, and if they don't have it, he'll go through Joe's papers for a receipt from another specialist. It's only after he's exhausted those possibilities that he'll start a theft investigation."
"You really think I should inform him?"
"No, Mr. Maltbie. I insist that you do." As I looked at him I realised that his imagination didn't stretch beyond the walls of his own office. The absence of the computer changed everything. Yes, it was possible that the machine was in a repair shop. Or maybe, as Susie had suggested, Joe had lent it to a friend. But neither of those explanations solved the riddle of the missing CDs.
According to the PC World receipt, Joe's laptop had been fitted with a CD rewriter, with which he'd have been able to copy files, music, and the like. When I'd gone back upstairs after searching the living room, I'd found in the cupboard in his desk a box of blank Sony CD-RW data storage disks. The trouble was, there were only four in the box, and there should have been ten. More than that, the four were all still in their plastic wrappers, not just unused but unopened.
I had looked for the missing six disks as carefully as I'd looked for the computer; they were nowhere to be found. I'd even checked his CD collection, in case he'd been downloading or copying music. Sure, maybe Joe had lent those to a pal as well… and maybe not. And sure, maybe a bent copper had nicked the laptop… but almost certainly not.
The theft of the computer shone a completely different light on Joe's death. Fallon couldn't overlook it, but the trouble was, a few days before we'd sent the old boy up the chimney at Daldowie, so any reopened investigation would be hamstrung from the off.
Of course there was another angle. If Joe's death was to say the least suspicious, as I thought it was, did it connect in some way to Susie's letter-bomb, that I'd been so quick to lay at the feet of the Neiportes? Clearly, that was another line of investigation for Fallon … only I'd covered the bloody thing up. Perhaps I'd have been able to talk my way out of it, but I had a feeling that telling porkies to the police might not be all that good for my career.