Don’t Get Burnt by Nic Roberts

Author:Nic Roberts [Roberts, Nic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-01-19T13:00:00+00:00

“I’ve been doing a little digging on the company,” Archie said as Liv drove the car away from the Keegan household. “Apparently, they were due to have a small publicity launch for a firewall project called Lock and Key. But the launch was cancelled at the last minute.”

I’ll bet Michael Keegan had something to do with that.

Olivia wondered if all businessmen had some default setting that started with aloof politeness. “How can I help you, detectives?” Browning asked as he sat in his office, as though he had a million different things to juggle, all of which were more important than a visit from the police.

“We were hoping to talk to you about one of your freelance contractors,” Olivia started. “Michael Keegan?”

Browning’s face fell. “Ah, I’m sorry to hear about his death. He was a very experienced software designer.”

Funny how he said ‘experienced’ rather than ‘good’, she noted to herself.

Archie decided to take the lead. “Mr Browning, we would like to ask you some questions about your working relationship with Mr Keegan.”

He leaned back in his chair while shrugging.

“If I’m honest, I wouldn’t have thought there was much to talk about. He came in for me, did a job, and left,” he explained. “In fact, he wasn’t even in the building. We communicated mostly by email. Seems to be what everyone does.”

“And there were no problems?” Olivia probed. “No glitches that needed to be ironed out?”

His face twitched.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Olivia remembered walking through the office of the computer tech company and exchanging looks with much of the staff. She noticed how all of them looked stricken, as though they’d all been given a death sentence beforehand.

“Mr Browning, it has come to our attention that things between you and Michael Keegan were a little…” She paused to find the right word. “…temperamental.”

“I guess you could say that,” Browning noted, his tone much more bitter. “We hired him to install a new firewall for our technology. We’ve always hired contractors and have done an admirable job of it. But then he started telling us about all these other things that were needed for the product to function. I had some of our tech guys look at it, and they all came to the same conclusion, that the guy was trying to squeeze as much out of us as possible. So, we paid him the agreed fee for the work he’d done and sent him on his way.

“And then, a few hours before the launch, all the computers in the company started malfunctioning. Nothing would work. There was just a snapshot of a green worm popping up on the screen.”

Browning reached into his desk and pulled out a snapshot of the image, handing it to Archie. “I’m pretty sure that’s a centipede,” the detective noted, unable to silence the pedantic side of him.

“Who cares?” Browning snapped, agitated. “The point is we were locked out of our computers. And then, half an hour later, I got an email from an unknown user, telling us to wire some money to an account.

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