Killing the Beasts

But it always gave him a kick to put one over on the company, so through force of habit he put the box under his arm and set off for home.

A few days later one of the directors from London called. Putting aside the delivery schedules for the printer in Dublin and praying he wasn't going to be asked for any status reports, Tom waited for Sarah to put him through. 'Hi, Andrew.' He was careful to sound upbeat. 'How can I help you?'

'Hi there, Tom. Listen, Jim Morrell has finished his search of the computer system. There's some good news and some bad news.'

There was silence as Tom sat back in his chair and shut his eyes. 'OK — perhaps the good news first?'

'Good news is, he's found nothing amiss with the files on the main server. Tracking back through all the activity on Ian's computer, it's apparent he'd been accessing a lot of files and printing them off. But nothing more.'

It was all too little too late — they'd had to struggle along with misfiled documents for the last month. If that was the good news, Tom wondered, what was the bad?

'Now, the other news isn't so welcome. He found quite a few locked files — ones needing a password for access. Apart from the ones in finance, they shouldn't have been there.'

'So who had created them?'

'They were all on the computer of a George Norris.'

'Creepy George?'

'I'm sorry?'

'Creepy George — it's what we call him up here.'

'To his face?'

'No, we're too childish for that.'

'Well, the name isn't too far off the mark. Perhaps add on perverted and sick.'

'What do you mean?'

'It took Jim a while to get into them — he treated it as a bit of a challenge eventually. And he thinks he's only found a fraction of the offending material. He suspects a lot more has been transferred on to a laptop to keep it clear of the main server.'

'What offending material?'

'You've heard of snuff movies?'

'Oh God, you're not serious?'

'Not movies. Photos. Lots of them. They're of women and they don't look asleep. More collapsed. Maybe dead, maybe unconscious. Clothed, semi-clothed, some naked. Indoors, outdoors. He's been downloading a lot from a US site called — you're not going to believe this — comatosex.com. It has information on date-rape drugs too — benefits and disadvantages of each type. Where you can order them from.'

'Jesus Christ, how do these sites get away with it?'

'God knows, but it gets worse. You know the staff photo gallery on our company web site?'

'Yes.'

'Was there a photo taken recently of Julie Bowers? Her one on the Manchester site is different from our one down here.'

'Yes — George insisted on taking it a few weeks ago.'

'Well, he's been using a shot of her face, eyes shut, and mounting it on the corpse of another female.'

'Corpse?'

'Well, you know, a torso. Someone sprawled out on the floor in a dressing gown against the same blue background cloth as the company mugshots. He's used Photoshop to comp the two images together. At first we actually thought it was Julie.'

'Oh, Christ. So he's actually taking these shots himself?'

'He appears to be. Tom, this isn't just a sackable offence. It's highly bloody illegal.'

Tom thought for a few seconds. 'So what are we going to do?'

'Get rid of him, fast as possible. Look at it this way: what if he's planning to attack Julie Bowers? Does he seem the sort?'

'Seem the sort? How do I bloody know?' Tom felt himself getting angry. 'Did the Yorkshire Ripper's bloody wife think that he seemed the sort? Surely that's the point with these people — you can never really tell them apart from the rest of us.'

'All right, Tom. This is how we'll play it. Jim's wiped all the offending material from the computer system. Under no circumstances can we afford for this to get out. You just have a quiet word with this George character, tell him that if he goes without a fuss, we won't create one either.'

'So it's OK for us to sack him, but not for us to tell the police?'

'Tom, we've got a company to look after here. What he gets up to in his own time isn't our concern.'

'And what about Julie Bowers? Just because George no longer works here, doesn't mean he's not a threat to her.'

'We'll move her back down to London; I assume you can do without her?'

Tom wanted to laugh. 'Oh yeah, we've never been quieter. She's just twiddling her thumbs most days. Just like the rest of us.'

'She can carry on helping you from down here. It's the only way to play it.'

Just a few more days of this shit and I'm out, thought Tom. He suppressed the urge to giggle because he knew if he did, he might not be able to stop. He imagined the reaction if waves of hysterical laughter suddenly started flooding out of the director's earpiece. 'OK, but you have the conversation with Julie. I'm not dealing with them both.'

'Done. I'll call her now.' Tom hung up, reached for his powder and headed straight for the toilets again.

He emerged a couple of minutes later, got a cup of water from the cooler and as he slowly sipped it, worked out what to say to George. Feeling slightly better, he rang upstairs to George's desk.

'Hello,' came the reply, sounding faintly hostile, as if no one was meant to know his extension number.

'George, it's Tom. Could you pop down to Ian's old office? I need a word.'

As he waited for George to appear he imagined how the conversation would go, picturing George's abject embarrassment. He guessed hardly any eye contact would be made — certainly not after he revealed what he knew.

There was a knock at the door, the top of George's bushy haircut appearing first as he looked round the door.

'Come in, George. Sit down,' said Tom, now adding a note of formality to his voice.

George did as he was asked, dead eyes staring across the desk dividing them. 'George, I've just had a call from the London office about some material the IT department has found on the system up here.'

'Material?'

'Certain locked files on your system. You know what I'm talking about?'

George leaned back and folded his arms. 'No,' he said warily.

'George, the IT guy has gained access to them. You've got a…' he searched for the right word, '… glut of offensive images stored on your computer. Or you did; the lot has been deleted.'

He waited for George to start squirming, eyes fixed to the floor, but to Tom's astonishment he sat up in his seat, genuine fury in his face.

'Someone's destroyed my personal files? Without my permission?' He glared directly at Tom. 'That's bloody outrageous! An invasion of my human rights.'

Thinking about the human rights of the women in the photos, Tom raised himself up slightly too. 'George, the only outrageous things in all of this are the images on your computer.' He had to bolster his argument, turn the emphasis back on George. He resorted to a lie. 'I've seen them. I've seen the images you've created of Julie upstairs.'

Still George was indignant. 'You … you bloody snipe! You've got no right, no right at all.'

His anger was beginning to antagonize Tom, who pointed a finger across the desk. 'Listen. You've been using company property to access sites of a sadistic nature. If we turned that stuff over to the police, what do you think would happen?'

He paused to let the comment sink in.

Finally George broke eye contact, looking to the side and quietly saying, 'Sadistic, am I?'

Tom didn't know how to answer that comment, so he carried on in a more conciliatory tone. 'Look, George, we're not going to pass it on to the police. But I'm going to have to let you go.'

George stared at him, hatred in his face. 'You've destroyed my personal property and now you're sacking me?' He brooded for a second. 'What if I'm not prepared to go?'