‘How much longer do you need to keep my own laptop?’ John asked. ‘I need it back pretty badly.’
‘The analyst is bringing it back for you – both your computers.’
‘Thanks.’
‘We got the registration of the red Mitsubishi from the security cameras at the Channel Tunnel late yesterday,’ he announced. ‘The plates are false.’
John and Naomi said nothing.
‘At seven o’clock this morning I got a phone call from France. This car has been found at a small airport in Le Touquet. We’ve managed to ascertain between us that a man and a woman, in their mid-to-late twenties, boarded a Panamanian-registered private jet with a small boy and girl who fit Luke and Phoebe’s description, at half six in the morning yesterday. The pilot had flown in from Lyons and filed a flight plan to Nice. But the plane never showed up there.’
‘Where did it go?’ John asked.
‘It left French airspace, and disappeared into thin air.’
‘Does anyone have information about who owns this jet?’ Naomi asked.
‘We’re working on it.’
‘What’s the range of one of those aircraft?’ John asked. ‘How far could it travel?’
‘I’m told it depends entirely on the size of its fuel tanks. It had taken on sufficient fuel, given that its tanks weren’t empty when it arrived, for fourteen hours of flight. Apparently this particular aircraft has a cruising speed of three hundred and fifty knots. Which basically means enough to get to America and halfway back.’
Going back to his desk, Pelham produced a map of the world, which he laid out in front of them. It had a curved line drawn on it in red ink. ‘This line covers all the destinations the plane could have made safely on its cruising range.’
John and Naomi stared at it bleakly. The line stretched from Bombay in one direction, to Rio in another. And that was without taking into account any refuelling stops.
Their children could literally be anywhere on the planet.
107
The high tech crime analyst had a pallid complexion, bloodshot eyes and a large gold earring. He was dressed in grubby jeans and several layers of T-shirts and reeked of cigarette smoke. Addressing the floor rather than John and Naomi’s faces, he said, ‘Hi, I’m Cliff Palmer,’ then gave each of them in turn a wet-fish handshake.
Naomi noticed he had a slight nervous tic.
He sat down, placed John’s computer in front of him, then pushed his hair back from his forehead with both hands. It immediately slid forward again.
Renate went out of the room to fetch him a drink.
‘You’ve been looking through my computer and the kids’ computer?’ John said.
‘Yes, uh-huh.’ He nodded pensively, and pushed his hair back again. ‘I’ve made copies of both hard disks, I thought that was the best thing to do. I’ll go down to the car and fetch your children’s computer in a minute. You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve not been to bed yet – I worked through the night.’ He looked at each of them in turn, as if expecting sympathy. Naomi gave him one tepid quiver of her lips.
‘Have you found anything of interest?’ John asked.
He put his hand in front of his mouth and yawned loudly. ‘Yes, well, it might be of interest – stuff on both the computers, but I can’t do anything without the keys.’ He raised his eyebrows at John.
‘Keys?’
‘The encryption keys.’
‘Do you mean for the passwords?’ John asked.
Cliff shook his head. ‘Not just those – although there are plenty of those in both systems that I haven’t been able to get beyond, or bypass, yet. But it’s the language they’re using in emails and on chatrooms.’
Renate Harrison brought him a mug of tea and set it down, and coffees for John and Naomi.
John said, ‘I warned Detective Inspector Pelham about that yesterday when the computers were taken to you – that they’ve developed a speech code of talking backwards, with every fourth letter missing.’
The analyst stirred sugar into his tea, then sipped it. ‘Yes, I was told – but it’s way more sophisticated than that. From the progress I’ve made so far, all I can tell you is that they’ve been in touch with quite a number of people all over the world for at least a year – that’s as far back as I’ve gone at the moment. But all the addresses are encrypted and the language is impenetrable.’
He sipped some tea. ‘I’ve tried all the usual encryption suspects but there’s no match to any of them. There are ciphers out there that are just not breakable by anyone, you know that, don’t you?’
‘These are three-year-old children, Cliff,’ Renate Harrison reminded him.
‘Yes, I know,’ he said, a tad irritably. ‘But it’s the same on both machines.’
‘Are you saying they’ve devised these?’
‘Someone who has been accessing these computers has either been devising them or borrowing them. I can’t tell you who, all I can do is try to find out what they say, and I think I’ve hit a brick wall.’
Naomi looked at John. ‘What about your guy, Reggie?’
‘Reggie Chetwynde-Cunningham? I was about to say that. He’d be the person for this.’ Addressing the analyst, he explained, ‘I work at Morley Park. This man has an entire research facility there – he’s the top encryption expert in the country.’
Cliff gave a nod. ‘I wouldn’t normally like to admit defeat to a pair of three-year-olds. But under the circumstances-’ He gave a nervous laugh.
No one laughed with him.
108
Lara reversed the rental Fiat into the car park bay so that when she returned she would be able to drive out forwards, saving precious seconds, should she need them.
Figuring out the pay and display machine, she bought a ticket for the maximum time, four hours, and stuck it where the instructions told her, on the inside of the windscreen. That would give her until six o’clock this evening.
She tucked the straps of her rucksack inside the bag, then, carrying it like a holdall, she crossed the busy street and entered the front of the Royal Sussex County Hospital. From the little shop in the foyer she bought a small bunch of carnations wrapped in cellophane. Despite the terrible nervousness she felt, she tried to look nonchalant, to blend in, to be just another visitor coming to see a patient and bringing a few belongings for them.
She hovered for some moments near the information desk, looking for a plan of the place. There were plenty of people around to ask, but she didn’t want to draw any attention to herself, so she just carried on walking, trying to appear confident, as if she knew where she was going, whilst silently and invisibly asking God for guidance.
She went up an incline and came to a junction of corridors. There were signs here. X-RAY. CARDIOLOGY. OUTPATIENTS. HISTOPATHOLOGY. RENAL UNIT. MATERNITY. PHARMACY. NEUROSURGERY.
She climbed three flights of stairs, then walked along another corridor. She strolled past medics, orderlies, nurses, visitors. She passed an elderly man in a dressing gown and slippers, inching his way on a Zimmer frame with grim determination, and a gurney on which another old man lay, mouth open, toothless, bewildered, as if someone had abandoned him out here.
Up another flight of stairs. Another corridor. Past a staff rest room. Peering through the window, she could see five female nurses in there. Lara understood the rhythms and beats and logistics of hospitals. She understood
