case, we’ll have two pints of lager shandy.’
Nursing their drinks, they found a stretch of wall facing the canal and sat companionably in the sunshine, talking in circles about the poisonings and the bombing. Gradually the crowds began to thin as people finished their drinks and headed off to make the most of the sunshine. ‘If we were on the TV, this would be the point where one of us had a penetrating insight that solved the whole case,’ Chris said, staring placidly out over the canal, where a brightly painted holiday rental narrow boat was negotiating the first of the three locks leading into the basin.
‘If we were on the TV, you’d never have bought the drinks,’ Paula pointed out. That would have been my job as the trusty but stupid sidekick.’
‘Damn, I knew I was doing something wrong.’ Reluctantly, Chris pushed herself upright. ‘Better get some work done, hadn’t we?’
There were no longer jostling crowds at the bar waiting for service. The barman saw them approach and came round the end of the bar to greet them. He looked like a student eking out his grant, his long black fringe and his wispy goatee supposedly marking him out as artistic and sensitive. He needed all the help he could get on that score, given his burly frame and budding beer gut. ‘What can I do for you, ladies?’ he said, a Welsh accent now apparent. ‘Sorry about earlier, but it gets mobbed on a Sunday lunchtime, and we can’t afford to let up. We’ve got this deal: if you don’t get your food within twenty minutes of ordering it, you don’t pay for it.’ He pulled a wry face. ‘And it comes out of our wages.’ He led them to a recently vacated table in the far corner and sat down. ‘I’m Will Stevens,’ he said. ‘I work weekends.’
They introduced themselves and Chris said, ‘Were you on yesterday lunchtime?’
Stevens nodded, twisting a chunk of his fringe round his finger. ‘Yeah. It’s not quite so crazy on a Saturday. What’s all this about, then?’
Paula spread a selection of photos on the table. ‘Do you recognize any of these men as having been in here yesterday?’
He pointed straight at the photo of Jack Anderson. ‘Him.’ Light dawned on his face. ‘He was drinking with that bloke that died after the bombing yesterday. What was his name…it’ll come to me, we were watching it this morning when we were setting up, and I went, “He was in here yesterday, I served him.” Cross, that was it. Sounds like he was a real hero yesterday.’ He paused. ‘Didn’t they say something about him being a copper before he retired?’
‘That’s right. So, he met this man-’ she pointed to the photo of Anderson ‘-in here? Lunchtime?’
‘That’s right. Cross, he was here first. He had a pint of something, I don’t remember what. Then this younger bloke, he arrived. They acted like they knew each other. He had a glass of house red. I wasn’t really paying attention to them, we were too busy. Next time I looked, they were gone.’ He tapped the photo of Jake. ‘I’ve seen him in here before. He’ll meet people in here, they’ll have one drink, then they’ll all go off together. Always the same routine. He never eats in here. I think it’s just a handy place to meet up with people. He probably lives local.’
‘I don’t suppose you know his name?’
Stevens nodded, his smile as smug as the party child who’s won Pass the Parcel. ‘I do. It’s Jake.’
‘You’re sure it’s Jake? Not Jack?’ Paula asked.
‘Jake. That’s what your Mr Cross called him. Definitely Jake.’
‘And they didn’t eat here?’
He shook his head. ‘No way. Just the one drink, then they were offski.’
Chris stood up. ‘Thanks, Mr Stevens. You’ve been very helpful.’
He looked up at them, beaming. ‘Is there a reward, then?’
There was a camaraderie among geeks that transcended other differences. Carol may have formally assigned Chris Devine to liaise with the CTC, but Stacey had already built her own connections. One of the many things beloved of geeks is back doors into other people’s systems, and Stacey had an admirable collection. When it came to swap-shop time, she always had something to trade. It didn’t hurt either that, in geek terms, she was the Mona Lisa.
She’d bonded over Aziz’s laptop with the CTC’s main geek, a rotund twenty-something with a skanky ponytail and an inadequate concept of personal hygiene. What Gerry lacked in personal charm, he made up for in his knowledge of systems and his willingness to deal. In exchange for a back door into a confidential social security database, he’d given her HM Customs and Revenue, probably the only major government access she didn’t already have. They were both well aware that what they were doing was illegal, but each was confident of their ability to stay out of jail. They were, after all, the only people in their organizations qualified to catch themselves.
Stacey hadn’t expected to need the new access quite so soon. But when Carol told her to start looking for a Jake Andrews living in central Bradfield, and Chris called to confirm that Jake Andrews and Jack Anderson were one and the same, she was pleased at the chance to play with her new toy.
What she was not pleased about was that Jake Andrews was as much an invisible man as Jack Anderson. At least there had been trace evidence of Anderson until three years before. But Jake Andrews, resident of Bradfield, had left not even a smudge on the official records. The violence of her reaction surprised Stacey herself. She’d been so sure she would be able to provide the crucial information with her unique systems access. But cyberspace had let her down. Some small-time killer had evaded her electronic spider’s web.
As pissed off as she’d ever been, Stacey marched into Carol’s office. Her boss looked up from the pile of witness statements CTC had asked her team to check. ‘Any luck?’ Carol asked.
‘He’s not on any of the records I can access. No phone. No mobile phone. No council tax. No National Insurance or tax ID. No TV licence. No car registered in his name. No passport or driving licence. No credit history. Mr Nobody, that’s who he is.’ She knew she sounded like a small child but she didn’t care.
Carol leaned back in her chair, linking her hands behind her head in a stretch. ‘I didn’t really expect you to find anything,’ she said. ‘But we had to look. If he went to all the trouble of killing off Jack Anderson, I didn’t think he’d be so obvious as to step straight into another documented ID. What’s your take on it?’
‘I think there’s a third ID,’ Stacey said. ‘He’ll have all his official stuff under that ID. He’ll use Jack Anderson when he’s luring people who might have known him at school, and Jake Andrews for anything else. And ID number three is the one that has left traces.’
