Page 42 of Hoodoo House
“His visitors? I guess that might be. But truthfully, he usually met them in his office and I kept to the kitchen. I never saw him head down to the cellar with anyone, but I suppose they could have met at the back entrance to the tunnel. Had I known this was going on…” She shook with anger. “And with a young boy in the house, no less.”
Declan probed, “Did he always have visitors to the house?”
Mrs Cameron shook her head. “No, it was only recently. Just when I thought I couldn’t hate the man anymore.”
Declan said, “Well, let’s lock up the room and we won’t trouble you any further.”
They turned off the light, closed the door and made their way up from the cellar. Henry was waiting for them at the top of the stairs.
“I had hoped we might find you at the kitchen table doing your homework,” Mrs Cameron said to him.
Henry ignored her and looked towards Charlie. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
Charlie smiled and held the laptop in the air. “Yup. And it’s all thanks to you.”
Henry’s eyes lit up. “Can I see what’s on it?”
“We have to take it back to the office to find out,” Charlie said. Then he whispered, “I’ll let you know if we find anything important.”
Charlie winked at him. Henry winked back.
* * * *
Traffic was light and it only took an hour and a quarter to get back to the office. Charlie set the laptop up on his desk and got to work. Declan stood behind him, watching. Charlie pursed his lips. “How about I come and get you when I have something to show you?”
“Right,” Declan said, patting him on the shoulder. “Don’t drive the tech genius crazy by hovering. I’ll be upstairs putting on a change of clothes if you need me.” Declan disappeared into the office and up the stairs to his apartment.
Charlie sat at the laptop working his magic and in less than thirty minutes he was in. The desktop showed dozens of folders. Interestingly enough, the primary documents folder had nothing in it, which meant that, on an old machine like this, Malcolm Tull likely wasn’t automatically uploading his files to the cloud. If that was true, it meant the files on the desktop were probably only accessible through the machine in Charlie’s hands.
Charlie scanned the names and honed in on two folders that caught his eye. One was labelled ‘Manuscript’, and the other was labelled ‘Videos’.
The ‘Manuscript folder’ contained a single file calledUntitled_ME.
The ‘Videos’ folder held three files which were namedSmoothStud123,BurlyBiker27andWordsmith105.
As tempted as he was to look at them right away, Charlie thought Declan should be down there for the big reveal. He took the laptop into Declan’s office and hooked it up to the large TV monitor, then popped up to the apartment above. Charlie tapped on the door. “We have something, and I think it’s good.”
Charlie led Declan down to the office and sat him in his office chair, then went to the computer and opened the manuscript file. The title page identified it asUntitled by Marjorie Ellis.
Charlie started to scroll through the document. Within the first few pages, he lost track of the number of obscenities and improbable sexual positions it contained.
“Is this why Marjorie Ellis was your mother’s favourite author?” Declan said, with a sly grin on his face.
“If my mother saw this, I think she would have dropped from a heart attack after page one. I don’t get it. Maybe he was writing a raunchy spoof of her work just to piss her off?”
“Let’s see what Sinclair says when he comes in,” Declan suggested.
“That’ll be in”—Charlie checked the clock on the computer—“thirty minutes.”
“Let’s move on to the videos,” Declan said.
Charlie opened the main folder.
“Okay,” Declan said, “let’s start with the one labelledWordsmith105.”
Charlie opened the file. It had definitely been shot in Tull’s playroom. A figure walked towards the bed and started to undress. He was only visible from the back. He looked tall and well-muscled. Charlie quietly inhaled when the figure peeled off his underwear, unveiling a perfect ass. The man slowly turned around. It was Sinclair.
“Well, you said he looked great in a Speedo, and now we know why,” Declan said.
