Chapter 38
His new website was getting more attention than he’d anticipated, although judging by the contact emails coming in, most of the traffic was from ladies of the Wadebridge WI.
Dear Mr Lewis, one woman wrote, (or can I call you Craig?
??), I’m afraid your talk, while super informative in itself, has made me rather anxious about fire safety in my home. Do you by any chance do home visits?
At his feet, Cobalt was dreaming. His eyes were half open, showing only the whites, and his whole body was trembling as he made puppy-like whimpering sounds. He reached out with his bare foot, running it soothingly along the dog’s flank.
Closing the site, he ran another Logan Quick search.
In the two days since the story had broken, as he’d anticipated, the national print and news media had picked up on it.
With relatively little in the way of concrete content to work with, because both Tara Webb and Sabri Carter were staying tight-lipped, they’d focused their attention on Barker, Momen and Dodds, the Exeter-based firm of solicitors that were handling Quick’s will, and the London offices of Quick Holdings.
Both establishments had been well prepared for the media shitstorm.
They’d brought in extra security to prevent unauthorised persons accessing their premises and the media relations rooms were operating on voicemail only.
A brief, almost identical statement appeared on both websites to the effect that no further comment would be made, at this time, on the subject of Mr Quick’s inheritance plans.
Jasmin Basri of BBC Cornwall had done a piece-to-camera appeal for other token recipients to get in touch, offering in return advice on financial and personal security matters and an opportunity to tell your side of the story.
One of the news agencies had sent a team to the Isles of Scilly, even chartering a helicopter to fly to the private island of St Helen’s where Logan Quick lived most of the time.
They’d been refused permission to land on the helipad but managed to get extensive footage of the luxury home that Quick had built only a few years earlier.
Quick appeared to be something of a mariner.
A yacht was moored in the bay and tied up to a pontoon not far from the house were a high-speed RIB and a flash-looking motor cruiser.
The online version of BBC Cornwall was featuring a breaking story about a possible third token having surfaced, this time in St Austell, but carrying the proviso that the reports were, as yet, unconfirmed.
Social media, on the other hand, was awash with speculation and several enterprising souls had modelled up their own version of what the tokens might look like.
Some were genuinely claiming to be recipients, others, brandishing gigantic chocolate coins, were taking the piss.
Logan Quick and tokens were both trending on X; some of the memes were actually quite funny.
‘Hey!’ A warm hand dropped onto his bare shoulder.
He hadn’t heard Lauren getting up. She leaned closer until her breasts brushed against his back. At the same time, he moved the mouse to wake it up and fought the instinct to close down the screen. No secrets, that’s what he’d promised her. No secrets between the two of us.
‘You OK?’ she asked.
‘I’m good,’ he told her. ‘Cobalt woke me barking at something. Couldn’t get back to sleep.’
She glanced down at the dog, now snoring contentedly. ‘Watcha doing?’ she asked.
She leaned closer, gave a heavy, disapproving sigh, then stood up abruptly and walked to the adjoining bathroom.
He checked his phone. It was instinctive whenever he was with her. Her husband – his best friend – was many miles away.
She reappeared, leaning against the bathroom doorframe. ‘I think he’s suspicious,’ she said.
Something sharp tugged at his insides. Not now. Not when they were so close.
‘I caught him with my phone the other day. He said he’d heard an alert and was bringing it to me, but he looked shifty.’
He can’t access it, though, can he?’
‘He can if he holds it in front of my face while I’m asleep.’
‘We’ll be careful,’ he told her. ‘It won’t be much longer. Go back to bed. I’ll be there in a minute.’
Lauren climbed back into the bed and turned on her side with a heavy sigh. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d fallen asleep again. Sleeping was practically her superpower.
Opening up Facebook, he saw that both Webb and Carter had set their accounts to private and so he typed Sabri Carter and tokens into Google.
The first image that flashed up was one taken of Carter getting into her ambulance.
She’d turned, possibly at a tap on the shoulder, and her face showed a mixture of anguish and fury.
He had a feeling she’d be the first to break.