Preface to Murder, M Morris [best selling autobiographies TXT] 📗

of getting distracted at work, but it was hard to put thoughts of Marion aside. Their night out on Saturday had been great, and they had spent Sunday morning together too, walking through the University Parks and exploring its Genetic Garden, planted with all kinds of interesting species and hybrids. It had been a thoroughly beautiful weekend.

But Diane Gilbert’s phone and laptop weren’t going to give up their secrets unless Ffion knuckled down to some hard work and gave the task her full attention. She went to the kitchen to fetch herself a mug of her new favourite tea. Yerba maté was brewed from the leaves of a South American variety of holly tree. It had a smoky flavour similar to lapsang souchong, and gave a sustained energy boost, said to aid focus and concentration.

She carried it back to her desk and returned to the task of sifting through Diane’s emails. She had divided the messages on Diane’s phone into two categories: personal and work-related. The personal correspondence was mostly with her son, Daniel, her sister, Annabel, and her ex-husband, Ian.

The messages to her son were of most interest and seemed to reveal an imbalance in their relationship. On a number of occasions Diane had messaged Daniel to say that she would be in London for one reason or another, and did he want to meet up for lunch or afternoon tea? Her tone was always light and friendly, not expecting too much, just making the offer. But in every instance, Daniel had offered some excuse for not being able to see her – he had a meeting; he was snowed under at work; he was visiting a client in Essex. If he’d declined just one or two invitations, Ffion wouldn’t have thought anything of it. But to turn down every invitation? The pattern suggested that he was deliberately avoiding her. Yet Diane had persisted with her efforts to meet up with him. Her behaviour suggested a powerful desire to win her son back, whatever the reason for his antipathy. Ffion made a note of her observation and moved on to the message thread with Annabel.

From these conversations, Ffion learned that Diane had enjoyed a much closer relationship with her sister than she had with her son. She and Annabel had met up frequently in Oxford for a coffee and occasionally for lunch, and had been regular visitors to each other’s homes.

Despite the yerba maté, Ffion found her thoughts drifting to her own sister, Siân. She and Siân had never enjoyed a relationship as warm as Diane and Annabel’s, but they had kept in touch over the years, and Siân had been instrumental in bringing about the family reunion and reconciliation that had occurred this Christmas. Now Ffion had begun to talk more regularly with her sister, and hoped to visit her and her family again soon.

She shook her head, forcing herself to return once again to the task in hand. This new habit of losing focus was becoming a nuisance, and she was going to have to discipline herself better.

She moved on to the conversations between Diane and Ian. She was surprised to discover that they had met up now and again for coffee or lunch. Ffion couldn’t imagine being on such friendly terms with an ex-partner. What could they have talked about? Daniel, possibly? But it wasn’t as if he was a child and they had to discuss his schooling or childcare arrangements. More to the point, what did Louise, Ian’s new wife, make of these meet-ups between her husband and Diane? There was no indication that Louise had been included. Ffion jotted down a couple of thoughts before turning to Diane’s work-related messages and correspondences.

Diane’s discussions with her colleagues were often esoteric and highly academic in nature and mostly beyond Ffion’s understanding. But a string of emails from her boss at the Blavatnik stood out. Professor Al-Mutairi, it seemed, had been in the habit of raising concerns about Diane’s papers and publications. His sustained attacks might even be described as a vendetta. In one particularly virulent message he had warned her that her new book was likely to create a political storm and urged her to withdraw it from publication. In a final message from Diane to her boss, which she had sent shortly after the argument that her colleagues had overheard at the institute, Diane threatened to expose the professor if he tried to take any kind of action against her. Ffion made a note.

Having reached the last of the messages, she put the phone aside and moved on to the laptop. This was where she expected to find out about the real Diane Gilbert. Text messages and emails might reveal someone’s outward-facing persona, but it was the private contents of a computer that gave a glimpse into their soul. Ffion was buzzing with excitement at the thought of extracting the documents from the hard drive.

She powered up the laptop and waited for the login screen to appear. As expected, it was password protected. Ffion had a few goes at guessing the password, before reaching for her trusty alternative. A USB cloning device. She plugged the pocket-sized gadget into one of the laptop’s spare ports and waited for the machine to boot up. Her handy device would bypass the laptop’s operating system and make a copy of all its data so that she could examine it on her own computer. The process didn’t take long. By the time she had refreshed her mug of tea, a cloned copy of Diane’s data was waiting for her and she sat down to peruse it at her leisure.

Within seconds her hopes were dashed. The data on the laptop was encrypted. Without knowing the password, there was nothing she could do to access the files on the drive. From beyond the grave, Diane Gilbert had slammed the door in her face and bolted it firmly shut.

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