Unknown Diners

Chapter Fifty-Six

At thirteen forty, while Lorne and Catherine were enjoying a big fruit salad with yoghurt, the phone rang. Lorne looked at the time as he stood. "Must be the hard drive copy, they said it would take over an hour to complete." He picked up the phone. "Hello."

"Hi, Lorne, it's Denise... Wondering if I could come up."

He turned to Catherine. "It's Denise." He nodded as he passed the phone to her.

"Sure, come on up, we're just finishing lunch. Fifteen minutes we'll be clear." She listened. "No, not at all, we'd love to see you." She listened again. "Yeah, Lorne understands that stuff." She clicked off and looked up. "Said she'll buzz us from the entry phone."

"Yeah, that's the easiest." They returned their attention to the fruit salad, and he was putting the dishes and cutlery in the washer when the phone rang again. "Quick fifteen minutes." He glanced at the clock as he answered. "Hello."

"Wilor."

"What's the date?"

"Twenty-three June."

"Three five nine."

"Package for you."

"I'll buzz you in." He turned to Catherine. "Robotham's hard drive."

He was heading toward the door to wait for the package when the phone rang again. "If that's Denise, press nine."

Half a minute later there was a knock on the door, and Lorne looked through the peephole to see Denise and a man amiably chatting.

He opened the door and smiled at them. "Is this a raid?" He laughed and motioned them in.

"This is Corporal Abadzu," Denise introduced. "Worked with him before my promotion... Small world."

Lorne shook hands, signed for the package, thanked the Corporal and locked the door behind him after he had left.

"Always so busy?" Denise laughed.

"Only when I'm onto... When we're onto something." He smiled at her and motioned along the hall. "Come in."

She nodded at the package. "You need to handle that?"

"Yeah, heavy stuff. Computer contents from Robotham, the defence lawyer. He's out now, but he skipped NSOR four years ago. No trace of him until he tried to kill us Wednesday night."

"God, I should leave and let you go at it."

He put a hand on her shoulder and guided her along the hall. "I need breaks, I have to allow myself big pieces of reality to punctuate stuff like this. It helps me keep my sanity." He led her to the couch and motioned her to sit.

"Tea? Would you like a cup of rooibos?" Catherine asked from the sink as she began filling the kettle with water.

"Lovely, thank you." Denise stared blankly for a short while. "So lonely without Jim..." She looked down at her hand on her belly. "Three weeks into this, he was off to Haiti as part of the United Nations stabilisation force."

"Jim's in the military?"

"No, RCMP like me. People warned us marriage and service life don't mix well. Fifth anniversary's next week. He'll be away for that and for most of this." She rubbed her belly.

Catherine brought Denise the box of Kleenex. "Tea'll be ready shortly." She sat on the couch beside her.

Lorne waved the package. "Work calls. You two relax." He cut the security tape, undid the wrapping, pulled out the USB drive and connected it to a port to begin sifting through it. A search for jpg led to a huge archive of images in Robotham's Documents folder, named Other. He clicked to the list of subfolders: Big, Huge, HugeBoy, Incuse, Me, Micros, Nullos, Penectomy, SelfSuck, Stubs, Trophies. He nodded his head as he scanned their names, then he opened one and scrolled through the images.

Catherine heard his mutter and saw his grimace. "Have you found something?"

He looked across at her and slowly nodded. "Yeah, it looks like he fits the profile."

"How so? What profile?"

"Too heavy for the moment. I'd love more tea." He rose from his seat, picked up the teapot and offered some to Denise and Catherine, poured a fresh cup for himself and sat on the couch, leaning back and sighing.

Catherine stroked his chest. "It's much lighter over here. Leave that for a while."

"Yeah." He sat up and shook his head. "There are some horridly twisted people out there."

"Are you getting a better picture of him?"

"Yeah. He's gay, the bottom half, so he would have been popular in prison. He has a size fixation, both extremes from incuse to huge. He's into penectomies and he collects penises..." Lorne stopped when he heard the gasps.

Catherine and Denise both managed to control their gags, and they sat staring at him.

"Sorry, I've been doing this on my own too long." Lorne's eyes revealed his distress as they flicked from face to face. "Sorry, I didn't stop to think."

Catherine put her hand on his knee and offered him a crooked smile. "Take a long break from it. Denise is telling me about early pregnancy symptoms. That's weird enough for now."

They sat lightly chatting and sharing for much of another hour, then Denise glanced at her watch. "I should be going. Things to do. All of us."

After they had seen her out and locked the door, they stood and hugged. "She's a nice woman. So soft and genuine. It must be hard on her handling the shit her duty brings."

Catherine stared into his eyes. "She was telling me how hard she has to work to remain detached from it. And you. You wallow in much worse crap voluntarily." She squeezed him and rose to her toes. "Kiss me, you crazy man."

They went back to their computers and focused. Nearly two hours later, Lorne thrust a fist into the air. "Yes! Got him!"

She looked over at him. "Watcha got?"

"His avatar. He named the image file BotMan.jpg so we now know BotMan was his screen name then. Maybe it still is. He's a bottom, an asshole with a fixation on big stuff to cram into it."

"Botman, Robotham, Bottom Line. So stupidly transparent."

"It seems to be part of the excitement for some. Showing off and riding the edge of discovery."

"So where do we go now?"

"See if we can find posts, likes, comments from BotMan. One word, uppercase B and M. What theme do you want to start with, the penectomies or the huge?"

She reached a hand across to his crotch and pressed. "Huge. Let's start with this one. We need a break."