He waited for Samir to go back into the garage and close the door, and then he knocked. He kept knocking till Samir opened the door, looking both scared and confused.
‘Don’t worry,’ he had said in a soothing tone, handing Samir his business card, which showed he was Operations Manager at Gravitas. ‘You’re not in trouble. I’m here to help you.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Think of me as your guardian angel.’ Zack grinned. ‘I’m going to save you from Lewis Grant.’
40
2025
Zack told us all this with his head down, speaking so fast that it was hard to keep up with all the details. Avril, keeping her rifle trained on him, had to ask him to repeat himself a couple of times. As he spoke I began to wonder if he was glad to be unburdening himself, if the guilt of what had happened to Samir had been weighing heavily on his soul. At the same time, there was a whining quality in his voice, like he was a child claiming that some other, bigger kid had made them do it.
‘Samir created your face recognition app,’ I said. I had been right about that. I just hadn’t seen Lewis’s role in it.
‘Well, yeah. Of course. Lewis had immediately seen the potential in it and was funding the development.’ Zack addressed both Miranda and Holly: ‘Did you know he was completely broke? After Charles kicked him out of the company he cut him off, said he finally needed to make his own way. That car he was driving was borrowed from this woman he was sleeping with.’
So that had been one of Lewis’s truths; he’d told us the Mercedes didn’t belong to him.
‘What woman?’ Miranda asked.
‘Does that matter? The point is, Lewis had run up massivedebts borrowing money to pay for the servers they needed to make the app work. It’s like AI– it uses a lot of processor power—’
Avril was beginning to twitch with impatience.
‘Anyway, whatever. Lewis was broke.’
‘So you decided to help him by stealing his app,’ I said.
‘I was unburdening him.’
‘You arsehole.’ That was Holly, finally speaking. The whole story had made her look deeply distressed, which was hardly surprising. She had only lost her brother earlier today. In Zack’s story, Lewis had been alive and well.
I hated seeing her upset, but I still needed to know why Zack’s discovery had led to Samir’s death.
‘So,’ I said, ‘you found out what Samir was developing, showed it to Charles, and he immediately saw the potential, too.’ He had explained all this to us earlier, when he and Charles had told us how he’d met Jasmine.
Zack nodded.
‘And it was exactly what you needed. Something that would move the company away from hardware and into the gleaming virtual future.’
‘You sound like you’re rehearsing lines for your next crappy documentary.’
That gave me a jolt. How could I make a film about Samir now, with Holly’s family so involved? I couldn’t do that to her. Besides, I was still the number one suspect. It would be hard to make a documentary from a cell.
‘What happened next?’ I asked.
Zack eyed Avril’s gun. I was sure he was thinking about how he was going to get out of this. He might have been acting compliant, and even regretful in a whiny way, but I had to remember how calculating he could be. I had watched himkill Morag in cold blood. He had tried to frame me. Zack was still dangerous– and then there was the question of Charles. Was he still working out downstairs? It was almost midnight. Surely he would appear before then.
‘I knew we had to move fast,’ Zack said. ‘I told Samir that if he dropped Lewis– who hadn’t paid him anything at this point and kept breaking his promise to do so– and came on board with us, we would give him a contract, ensure he was paid handsomely and that he’d get a massive bonus once we launched. It was easy to persuade him because Lewis had done nothing except stick him in this shitty lock-up and shout at him. I think Samir, despite being wet behind the ears, suspected Lewis was going to rip him off and drop him the moment the app was ready.’
‘Charles had no compunction about stealing the app from his son?’ I asked. ‘Or did you tell him it was all your idea?’
‘Actually, that’s where the plan changed. Charles was furious with Lewis because he had “stolen” the CV from us. But I think he was also impressed. His good-for-nothing son had stumbled across something remarkable. So he made him an offer. He told him that if we wanted we could employ Samir and there would be nothing Lewis could do. He could have nothing, or he could accept an offer from us. Some extra shares in the company in return for keeping quiet and not making a fuss. And no, before you ask, I didn’t kill Lewis because he knew about our connection to Samir. I have no idea what happened in that cave yesterday.’ He turned to face Miranda, grimacing with pain as he did so. ‘I promise you that. Charles and I were still at the hunting lodge. I knew Lewis would never rat us out. He wanted the app to be big. Needed the money from those shares, which would soar in value once Fase was launched.’
He licked his lips. ‘Can I have another drink? I need painkillers, too. There must be some in that first-aid kit.’
Miranda reached for it, but Avril said, ‘No. You can tell us the rest now. I want to know why you killed my mum. Then you can have painkillers. You can take a fucking overdose. for all I care.’
