Page 75 of Between the Lies

Holding his own pint up, Robert asked, ‘Would you like a top up?’

‘Why? Tired of watching me eat?’

Robert held back a hoot of laughter. He’d watched her eat a massive plateful with extra chips, mushy peas and a side of chicken goujons. A plate he’d hinted might be too much for one person. He’d also deciphered exactly which chicken strip had been one too many for her. Still she’d stuffed herself, adjusting her trousers so she could dump some more into her mouth.

And she’d topped it off with two pints of Guinness.

‘Not at all,’ Robert managed to say. The last thing he wanted was another reason to grovel. ‘Just wondered if you wanted a refill.’

Nina suppressed a burp then shook her head. ‘Open that laptop.’

Robert passed her the backpack. When they’d left to get dinner, Nina had insisted they carry it with them. Apparently, she’d had an idea.

‘Nina, you said Dickheadson questioned you about the article you were writing.’

Nina booted up her laptop and snarled, ‘The bastard called my work threadbare.’

Robert watched her type then studied her face. ‘Er, if you have your laptop here, how did he find your notes?’ He curled his lip. ‘I don’t think Dickheadson has hacking skills to get your data from the cloud or something – the man can’t even find the letters on a keyboard.’

Nina rolled her eyes. ‘I had printed out some preliminary notes to get started on my article. He found them in the flat. This laptop doesn’t connect to the cloud. It’s got extra firewalls on it – and tech that ensures my work remains encrypted.’

Robert snagged a stray chip from her plate. ‘So why did you ask me to bring your backpack along?’

Nina fetched the camera. ‘The last time I booted this up, I couldn’t find the wire that would connect it to my laptop. Then a simple internet search made me realise that these things have memory cards in them.’

She twisted the camera around, studying the body again. The more she twirled the thing, the deeper her frown etched on her face. She sighed. ‘A memory card I can’t ever find.’

Robert held his hand out for the camera. When Nina handed it back to him, he turned it around in his hands, but the thing didn’t seem to have any sort of slot. He brought his phone out and searched for the camera’s specs on the internet – its make and model had been engraved on the bottom in grey.

It took him a minute to find a manual and then a video, then a good five minutes of studying the camera to find the latch for the memory-card slot. He pressed down on it like the video instructed him to. Nothing budged.

He looked up another video, tried again. Once more, nothing. Robert frowned at the device. ‘That’s strange.’

Nina reached out and grabbed the camera back. She held the thing under the light and said, ‘Fuck! He’s glued it closed.’

They both leaned in, heads pressed together and saw the slight remnants of something silvery stuck to the latch.

Robert sat back. ‘Well, that leaves us with nothing.’

The glint in Nina’s eyes said otherwise though. She shook her head. ‘It tells us this device contains something Jonas didn’t want people finding. If you pull the memory card out with force, it might damage not just the device but the card too.’

Robert stared at Nina, she gazed back, a small smile tilting up her lips. ‘You know what that means?’

Urgh, just his damned luck! Robert groaned. ‘Fucking Finn.’

Nina set the camera on the table. ‘You know he’s best placed to deal with it.’

It would also entail sitting through the bastard’s constant moaning. And Robert knew Finn would make him beg first.

‘What if we go to the shop Jonas purchased this device from? Maybe they have some tricks to get the memory card out?’

Nina scowled at Robert. ‘Jonas could’ve bought this from any shop – online or in store. Do you know how many camera shops are here in Glasgow alone?’

He didn’t know exactly, but Robert had walked past many. He growled, then in a last-ditch effort to avoid Finn, grabbed the camera bag.

The thing had fluffy cushioning on the inside. Nina had called it toaster-sized, and he tended to agree. The padding would certainly save the most fragile device from a fall.

Nina packed up her laptop. ‘What are you doing?’

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