Joshua had always been sloppy about computer security in the office.
Apart from being one of those team members that just seemed to get all the flack and ribbing, he was also whispered about because he was not good at socialising with women. For this reason he had been without any kind of partner for some time, and he could see no change in his current lifestyle occurring any time soon.
Richard, on the other hand, was the Casanova of the office; with a string of women, some married, some not. He was also the nastiest, as far as Joshua was concerned. He liked to play pranks on people, and this included the event that was about to unfold on Monday morning. Richard had been waiting for Joshua to leave on a Friday without logging off and his time had come.
On the morning in question Joshua came in and found an email waiting for him from ‘Perfect Match.com’. At first he was confused; strictly speaking the company didn’t allow this sort of traffic on office computers and he wondered how it had got through. It was only an advert, an invitation in fact. He had contacted the site on several occasions at home, but wasn’t expecting anything to show up here.
The date being offered, based on his profile, looked very interesting. In the following days a time and place was arranged to meet up with Rosie, the girl in the photo. Anybody watching Joshua carefully would have detected a certain quiet elation in his demeanour. This, of course, was the case with Richard, who was secretly enjoying what he saw.
The date, Rosie, had suggested they meet at a coffee bar in town, but Joshua had made the brave move of making a last minute request to meet in the local park by the fountain instead. He also apologised for not being able to get there until quite late. Under any other circumstances this would not have been acceptable. However, he was not surprised to receive her agreement to what was clearly an unusual request.
When the night came, Joshua was having to hold down his growing excitement. He had carefully studied the layout of the park’s fountain, the surrounding trees and the nearby seats, set out randomly along the lawns’ edges. There was one that gave a perfect and well concealed view of the fountain.
Joshua dressed appropriately for the evening, packed a small bag with items he felt sure would be a complete surprise, and made his way in the fading light. As he entered the park he was pleased to see, as predicted, the back of Richard’s head and shoulders, silhouetted against the glow of the fountain. He was sitting in the seat facing the fountain, but at a safe distance, set back and hidden from view, a prime viewing spot; also as predicted.
Joshua kept his breath steady and silent. He was crouched now, dressed entirely in black, checking the contents of his bag; latex gloves, a bottle of chloroform, a gauze pad and a scalpel.
Nobody had any idea just how much expertise Joshua had developed in the matter of breaking into, reading and deleting other peoples’ personal emails. There would be no clear motive for what was about to take place, other than several angry husbands of course.
Joshua pulled on the gloves, soaked the pad, picked up the scalpel and crept forward very slowly…