Thirty minutes later Brian came back into the study, looking anxious. ‘Have you found out what’s wrong with it.’

Jamie swivelled round on the chair. ‘You’ve got a virus. You probably got it from an email or downloading some dodgy program. It looks like the virus you’ve got is a brand new one. There might not even be an antidote for it yet. It’s a bad one as well. It’s running through your system eating the files on your hard disk. Have you got a virus checker on your system?’

‘No.’

‘OK. I’ve got the software downstairs. I can install it for you. First, let’s try and find out where you caught it from.’

He doubled clicked on the email program, Outlook. The screen flickered and Jamie thought the system might crash again. Eventually, though, the inbox appeared, with a list of all the emails Brian had received.

Near the top of the screen, in the list of people who had sent emails to Brian, Jamie saw his own name.

‘What the hell?’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘There’s an email here from me.’

‘I know. You sent it to me on Saturday. What was it meant to be, by the way? I opened the attachment and it just brought up an empty Word document.’

Jamie stared at the screen, the mouse pointer hovering over his name. ‘I couldn’t have sent you an email on Saturday. I was in Scotland. I didn’t send any emails over the weekend.’

‘What?’

‘I was in Scotland!’

‘But that’s definitely come from your email address?’

‘Yes.’

Jamie knew he hadn’t sent anything from his smartphone. Somebody’s been in the flat.

With a trembling hand, he clicked on his name. There was no message, just a paper clip to say there was a file attached. He clicked the paper clip to bring up the name of the file. It was called Honeymoon.

He stood up and ran out of the room, down the stairs, into his own flat. He rushed over and turned the computer on.

‘What’s going on?’ Kirsty asked.

He didn’t reply. The PC was making the same grinding noises that Brian’s computer had made. The desktop appeared and, one by one, Jamie tried to open his files. Nothing worked. He couldn’t even open Outlook to check when emails had been sent from his account. After a few seconds, the computer crashed.

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘Jamie, what is it?’

‘My PC – someone’s put a virus on it.’

‘What? How?’

He turned and faced her, his eyes wild. ‘Someone has been in here. I was right. Someone’s been in here and loaded a virus onto my computer and then sent emails to – God, to who knows how many people – and they’re all going to think it was me!’

‘Jamie, sit down. You’re babbling.’

Brian appeared in the doorway. ‘Jamie, what’s happening?’