14 #3
‘Hello, love – I’m Nick. What’s up, then?’ he asked briskly, dropping his tote bag gently to the ground. ‘Jase was a bit vague about what you needed.’
‘Well – I think my apartment might be bugged,’ Lyssa said, apologetically, still aware that she sounded like someone from a Bond movie. ‘I’ve had a flat invasion, which might be burglars, or maybe not. So, I thought I’d better check there’s nothing . . . well, sinister going on.’
She shrugged, aware that she must sound like a bit of an idiot, but chipmunk Nick didn’t bat an eyelid. Just then, Bibbie came up and began to sniff at the bag on the floor. ‘Nice cat,’ her visitor said, approvingly. ‘So is it just the phone, or do you want the whole works?’ he asked briskly.
Lyssa blinked at him a little helplessly.
Nick Rattle looked her up and down, which was rather comical, since she was a good six inches taller than he was and he had to slightly crane his neck, but she immediately recognised the appreciative male glint in his eye.
She bit back a sigh, hoping that she wasn’t going to have to fend off any amorous advances.
She didn’t think she could cope with a chipmunk with libido trouble.
‘Never mind, just leave it to me, yeah?’ he advised. ‘Let’s start with the phone. You have a landline?’
‘Yes – and a mobile, of course.’
‘Natch,’ the chipmunk said, and went straight to the landline.
Lyssa, not sure of the etiquette in times such as these, wandered automatically to the kitchen and put on the coffee machine. ‘Coffee?’
‘Love one – milk and three sugars,’ Nick said, opening up the bag he’d taken with him, and proceeding to attach something that looked like a baby monitor (but surely couldn’t have been???) to her landline phone cradle.
He switched something on and something buzzed.
‘Yup,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Someone’s listening in on this right enough.
That’s the thing with old-fashioned landlines.
The kit’s pretty basic. It’ll be harder to spot on the smartphone – that it?
’ he asked, turning to point at what was obviously her mobile phone lying on her work desk next to her laptop.
Lyssa, aware that her mouth was hanging slightly open, closed her jaws together with a snap, staggered to her sofa and dropped into it.
‘The phone is bugged, then?’ she gasped.
‘Oh yeah,’ the chipmunk said casually. ‘Want me to see if anyone’s been hacking your emails?’
‘Might as well,’ Lyssa said faintly.
An hour later, Nick had finished his work and had presented his findings.
Both her telephones were being monitored, and her emails intercepted and copied to an unknown address.
There were no actual recording devices found in the flat itself, which, Lyssa supposed half hysterically, was something, but her laptop had been investigated and all her files copied and sent to a separate unknown and untraceable address.
‘So, what do you want me to do?’ Nick said, sitting opposite her on one of her armchairs and drinking his sixth (yes, six – she’d begun counting them) cup of coffee. No wonder he seemed to practically vibrate with kinetic energy. She dreaded to think how much caffeine was in his system.
‘Do?’ she repeated now.
‘Yeah – do.’ He regarded her patiently. ‘Do you want me to install anti-tampering gear, f’r instance?’
‘Oh. I don’t know. I’m not sure. I suppose so,’ she said, in quick succession.
‘Righty-ho. That’ll cost extra, mind,’ he warned.
Lyssa blinked at him, still feeling as if she was reeling from a punch to the face. Someone had been monitoring every aspect of her working life. And now she was convinced that the car she’d seen before really had been following her. It would fit in with the emerging pattern.
But who was doing it – and why? It baffled her.
‘You know – my fee. Jase did tell you my rates, right? I am gonna get paid, yeah?’ the chipmunk said, not liking her sudden silence.
Typically, Jason hadn’t done any such thing, but Lyssa was not concerned about that. Elizabeth’s ‘expenses’ would cover it.
‘Yes, that’s fine,’ she quickly reassured him. ‘I can pay by card, or you can send an invoice with bank transfer details if you prefer.’
‘I prefer cash,’ the chipmunk said cannily.
Lyssa just bet he did! If this young man’s tax returns weren’t works of fiction, she would eat her hat.
‘Do what you can to make everything secure. I really need to be able to use my laptop and phone for my work. Just let me know how much it’ll be and when you want to come back for it, and I’ll go down to my bank and draw it out for you,’ she promised.
‘Fair enough,’ Nick Rattle said. ‘I’ll get started. Couldn’t have another cup of coffee, could I?’
Some hours later, when Nick finally left the block of flats, Neville casually sauntered out after him and crossed over to the other side of the road, where he trailed him to a nearby car park.
There he took an obvious shortcut to a nearby supermarket but via a route that took him close enough to note down the young man’s car registration.