Read Online Black Widow by Chris Brookmyre - Free Book Online

an encounter with him after all. Yet at the same time, if that’s what it took, I wanted it done, and quickly. I needed this sorted, otherwise I’d be back to square one first thing on a Monday morning, because nothing would get fixed over the weekend.
    Mainly I wanted to go home. I was feeling so exhausted and emotionally strung out that I had reached the stage where I suspected I would cry if someone said the wrong thing to me. Losing it in front of Craig because he told me my computer access couldn’t be restored until next week would be the final humiliation. And what was making me doubly anxious was that ‘the wrong thing’ might not necessarily be something negative. I feared if someone was solicitous towards me, it might actually be worse.
    â€˜Craig? Is that who you normally get? He’ll have gone by now. I was the one who drew the short straw.’
    Something occurred to him and he looked faintly concerned.
    â€˜I don’t mean as in dealing with you specifically,’ he clarified. ‘I just mean it was last thing Friday and everybody wanted to leave.’
    He reprised the uncomfortable look, perhaps realising he was only digging himself deeper by implying that there was a reason why I might think this the case.
    â€˜Quite,’ I said. My tone would have been more acidic had I not been clinging on by my fingernails and trying to neutralise my emotional responses lest the dam burst. ‘Why ever would I think otherwise.’
    I guess my tone wasn’t quite as neutral as I was pitching, because he picked up on it right away. He looked anxious but good-humoured, as though trying to be tolerant of the fact that there was something going on that he couldn’t possibly understand.
    â€˜Look, I don’t want to put my foot in anything here, but they were a bit coy back at the IT hub when I told them the job. Is there something I should know? Have you had a run-in with hospital IT before?’
    There was a brightness in his eyes that I couldn’t read: either it was innocence openly appealing for a fair shake or it was malice disguised as the first. I was instantly reminded of walking back from one of the few football matches I ever attended with my brothers, the pair of them draped disconsolately in their blue-and-white scarves. A man stopped us to ask the score, and somehow I sensed he already knew, but wanted these young boys to tell him how their team had lost. He had a nasty little smirk as he said: ‘Oh dear. Too bad.’
    â€˜Are you trying to be funny?’ I asked.
    He took his hands off the keyboard in a supplicatory gesture.
    â€˜I’ll interpret that as a yes,’ he replied. ‘I take it we didn’t cover ourselves in glory.’
    â€˜You’re saying you don’t know?’
    His hands rose higher, now more like a surrender.
    â€˜Don’t know, happy to remain in the dark, happy to hear your version of it if you feel the need to vent. The latter might slow down my diagnostic efforts here, but it’s your dime.’
    I stared at him, still trying to read whether he was bluffing. I decided that if he was, he was very good.
    â€˜Does the name Bladebitch mean anything to you?’ I asked.
    He shook his head apologetically.
    â€˜No. Sounds like something out of an MMO.’
    â€˜What’s an MMO?’ I asked, momentarily derailed by his guileless sincerity.
    â€˜Short for MMORPG: Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Like Warcraft, Sacred Reign, that kind of thing. Do you play?’
    â€˜Do I look like I play?’
    â€˜I honestly couldn’t say. Maybe if I saw you in civvies, though even then it’s not good form to judge on appearances. So who is Bladebitch?’
    â€˜It really doesn’t matter. I’d rather not distract you from the task in hand. It’s been a very long day and this is the one thing preventing it from being over.’
    â€˜I hear you,’ he said, his