But it needn’t be that, either: once you moved in the kinds of circles he did, there were countless ways to make and lose money. He knew so many entrepreneurs and speculators, and he was always talking about someone or other with a new project in the works who was looking for venture capital. Only a few days ago he’d been talking about a guy who was trying to raise cash to set up a TV production company, and last month there had been someone who was buying mining land in Brazil. What if Mark had decided to remortgage the house, empty his savings and invest in something like that? Well, if he had, shouldn’t he perhaps have mentioned it? ‘Pass the marmalade, would you, Han? Oh, and by the way, I’ve decided to put half a mill into a Kazakhstani oil pipeline. I’m having to remortgage the house but no need to worry your pretty little head about it, sweetheart.’
In the quiet of the office she heard herself snort. Maybe that was it – the scale on which he operated surprised her less and less these days. Immediately, though, she remembered something else. About once a month in New York, he and a group of four or five friends had had poker evenings. Generally, Mark came home half-cut afterwards and she’d assumed that the poker was really just an excuse for them all to get together and have a few beers. One night, though, he’d got in some time after two and put fifteen hundred dollars on her bedside table and she’d realised that they played seriously. Teddy, who’d lost most of the fifteen hundred, Mark said, had been chilly with both of them until the next poker evening, when the tide had turned somewhat and he’d gone home a thousand richer at Ant’s expense, much to Roisin’s fury.
What if this was down to gambling? Could something that had started off as a bit of a laugh have escalated into something more serious? Maybe when she thought he was at business dinners he was really at casinos. Maybe he’d had a big win and got addicted. On the other hand, was he really the kind of person to keep beating his head against a brick wall when he was losing? Would he do that, Mark, keep telling himself that the next big win was one more bet away – then one more?
She turned away from the window, went back to the box-file and lifted the pile of paperwork out on to the desk. Nothing in the Coutts statement suggested he was gambling; there were no transactions with anything that sounded like a casino or a bookies or, as far as she could tell, any online gambling site. There were no huge cash withdrawals, either, just the £250 he took out once a week or so for newspapers and drinks and cabs. She set the statement and the mortgage letter aside and flipped quickly through the rest of the papers, looking for anything that related to debt – letters about loans or demands for payment. There was nothing, though. Even his three credit cards weren’t maxed out: together, they had a combined balance of just under seven thousand pounds, which, when your finances worked on Mark’s sort of level, was nothing at all.
She flicked through the last few papers, Coutts and Mastercard statements from over a year ago, her eyes still skimming the transactions but no longer really expecting to find anything relevant. When she turned over what she thought was the last sheet, however, her hand stopped in mid-air.
In front of her on the desk, the very last piece of paper in the file, was a statement from Birmingham Midshires. Mark didn’t bank with Birmingham Midshires, though. She did.
She picked up the paper, noticing a slight tremor in her hand, and looked at the name and address in the top left-hand corner. Her name, not Mark’s. She looked at the date. It was the most recent statement, the one she’d been sent at the end of the tax year in April, showing her new balance with the year’s interest added: just under £47,000. She remembered opening it, feeling frustrated by how low the interest rates were then filing it away in her accordion file. So why was it here? Why was it in Mark’s box?
The tremor in her hand magnified and she slapped the statement down on the desk, the sound startling her. There was no other explanation: the only way the statement could be in his file was if he’d taken it out of hers and put it there.
She glanced at the clock above the door. How long had she been here? David would be back with his lunch any minute, surely. Well, that was a risk she’d just have to take, wasn’t it? If he came in and found her, she’d think of something. She couldn’t wait until she got home; she needed to know now.
Pulling the chair up to the desk, Hannah opened Mark’s laptop and turned it on. A few seconds passed and then a dialogue box appeared demanding a password. Shit. Well, of course it was going to be password-protected, wasn’t it? DataPro was one of the most sophisticated corporate software-design companies in Europe. Glancing at the clock again, she tried to think. Numbers, not just letters or a word: she’d got a telling-off about that when he discovered she used MalvernHills as the password for her Hotmail account. Leaning forward, she tapped in his birthday, 110772, and hit return. The password you have entered is incorrect. Please re-enter your password. She thought again then tapped in her own birthday. Wrong again. Shit, shit. How many chances did she have before the system shut itself down? Would it send out an alert? One more go, she decided: three strikes and you’re out. She closed her eyes and focused. Numbers and letters, she realised, not one or the other; personally significant but not legal data. She opened her eyes. It was a long shot but – yes, it felt right. She typed in the name and street of their old favourite hotdog restaurant in New York: Westville10. Heart thumping, she hit return. Bingo.