‘My police one. [email protected].’
‘Go and shut it down on your screen, please,’ she said. ‘Then come back and sign in here.’
By the time he came back, she had the sign-in screen in front of her. She stood up and looked away while he entered his password. He suspected it was just for show. She probably had a record of every keystroke on her system. Once he was in, he stepped back and let her at the screen. She cocked her head and looked at the subject line. ‘Let’s go for it,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got every virus protection known to humankind and one or two alien ones running on this system.’ He wasn’t entirely convinced she was joking.
The email unfurled on the central screen on the lower level. On the screen above it, a stream of numbers and letters suddenly sprang into life. But Ambrose was only interested in the message.
Hi, Detective Sergeant Ambrose
My partner, Diane Patrick, said you wanted me to contact you. Something about my car? Sorry not to phone, I’m in Malta on business and it costs an arm and a leg, plus I’m working pretty much full on so email is easier for me. If you let me know what it’s all about, I will get back to you asap.
Best
Warren Davy
DPS Systems: www.dps.com
‘Interesting,’ Stacey said.
‘Looks pretty straightforward to me,’ Ambrose said.
‘Except that it’s not been sent from Malta.’ Stacey pointed at the upper screen, which had come to rest with a very straightforward message. ‘It’s come from a computer owned by Bradfield City Council libraries department. He’s in town, Sarge. And either he doesn’t care that we know it or he’s an arrogant twat who thinks we’re a lot less sophisticated than he is.’
‘Either way, he’s probably getting ready to roll. How are you getting on with your trap?’
Stacey shrugged. ‘It’ll be done when it’s done. These things are hard to predict.’ She began to tap the keys again, her eyes flitting between screens. As Ambrose watched, she suddenly froze. Seconds ticked by and still she didn’t move. He thought she’d even stopped breathing.
Then her fingers were flying over the keys, almost too fast to register. ‘Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha,’ she said, her voice a crescendo from whisper to shout. ‘We’ve got him,’ she yelled.
Almost before her words had died away, they were all clustered round. Carol Jordan elbowed her way through. Ambrose made room for her at the front. ‘What is it, Stacey? What have you got?’
‘I’ve got two. BB and GG. BB is on top right, GG top left. Both scrolling down to the bottom screen.’
They stood there transfixed as text unrolled before their eyes. BB was chatting to someone calling himself DirtAngel. From the sound of it, BB was setting up a meeting so they could go dirt biking the following day. He was promising to teach him the secrets of the sport. ‘He’s on the move tomorrow, ‘ Carol said.
GG and his chat-mate weren’t online live, but Stacey had pulled up their last chat. ‘He’s pretending to be a girl. He’s setting up 1dagal for a makeover. After school on Thursday. Look: “Tel no1. I’l show u t bigst secrt. U’l look gr8 when we’re dun.” Secrets again.’
‘He’s playing with them,’ Tony said. ‘He knows their biggest secret, the one they don’t know about themselves. So he teases them with the idea of secrets.’
‘Who are these kids, Stacey?’
‘I’m working on it,’ she said absently. ‘Why don’t you all bugger off and leave me in peace? I’ll email you all I’ve got from the C&A. Now I need to backdoor these accounts and the less you know, the better.’
They melted away. ‘She’s something else,’ Ambrose said to Paula.
‘She’s the best. She only works here for fun, you know?’
‘This is her idea of fun?’
Paula chuckled. ‘Oh yeah. She gets to poke her fingers into all sorts of stuff and nobody’s going to be coming after her for it. But when she’s not here? She’s busy making millions with her own software company. Talk about secrets. She thinks nobody knows about her other life, but one time she let the name of her company slip to Sam and that was a red rag to a bull. No way he was going to stop till he’d found out every last cough and spit.’ She cast a speculative look at Sam. ‘God help her if he ever realises she’s in love with him.’ Suddenly she stopped short, her face shocked and puzzled in equal measure. ‘Why am I talking to you like this?’
Tony, who had been standing behind them unnoticed, suddenly spoke. ‘Because he’s like you, Paula. People talk to him. The same way they do to you.’
Ambrose’s laugh was a low rumble in his chest. ‘It’s a scary gift.’
‘Don’t tell Carol,’ Tony said. ‘She’ll be recruiting you before you know it.’
Ambrose looked around the room where he already felt so at home. ‘A man could do a lot worse.’
Tony studied Carol, who was talking to Kevin, her head bent over her desk. ‘He could. On the other hand, you could say she deserves better than any of us.’ And he walked away, completely heedless of the small sensation his words left behind.
It was definitely Stacey’s day for demonstrating her value to the MIT. She’d been delighted by Paula’s suggestion of searching the national DNA database for familial connections to the murdered teenagers. ‘We can do it with the boys,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask me to explain, but it doesn’t work with female relatives in the same way.’
Paula backed off in mock-horror. ‘Oh please, Stace. Not the scientific explanation, I’m just a simple city girl.’
But Stacey was already sending an urgent request to the database, attaching the three sets of DNA. Unusually, she followed up her email with a phone call to one of the analysts that she’d worked with before. Paula, still hovering in the background, noticed there was no small talk. If the ICT staff had needed that to make things run smoothly, there wouldn’t be a functioning system in the Western world, she thought.
