He took the rebuke well, his eyes locking with theirs in turn. ‘You’ll get no argument from me on that score. As DS Bliss pointed out, I was a bit of a prick. But I didn’t have that equipment seized out of spite, nor to get one up on this unit. You were busy, I knew I could help, so I took it upon myself to get that part of the job done. I didn’t want any squabbles over who did what, either. I realise I went about it the wrong way, but if you’re at all interested, I think I have some good news for you.’
‘Go on, then,’ Bishop growled, eyeing him warily. ‘Redeem yourself.’
Ashton nodded. ‘I brought myself up to speed with the case file. So far, you’ve been unable to confirm who the other killers were. Understandable, really. People in that kind of business are hardly likely to concern themselves with genuine names. But this is where ERSOU comes into its own. First of all we drilled deep into Dark Desires, looking at all the men who’d previously requested girls willing to be choked. The site required legitimate identification, so we have a list of authentic names.’
‘How does that help to match them against our killers?’ Bliss asked. ‘The intel is one-sided.’
‘Because even Knowles had to have a way of letting these men know he had girls willing to go further for less money. As we already knew, he also used a dark web chat room. In there, the members use fictitious names only, lacking proper ID.’
‘Hold on a moment,’ Bliss said. ‘If the users have fake names, how were you able to pick out Knowles?’
‘With him, we were able to work backwards. We began by looking at what he was doing on there in the first place, so were able to look out for the kind of messages he’d be posting. See, the only real secret a dark web user has is their name. What they want or what they offer is usually pretty transparent. In this case, we looked at posts from somebody calling themselves DogOwner, who offered for rent young animals not requiring a slip lead.’
‘The fucking evil bastard!’ Bishop said. ‘A slip lead prevents choking.’
‘Precisely. So Knowles was easy to find, but identifying his clients from their user names alone would have been a nightmare.’
Warburton raised her eyebrows. ‘Would have been?’
Ashton nodded. ‘The type of men who use these boards almost always use several others across the web. ERSOU’s proprietary software examines the use of language, to help us build up a profile of these people on the dark web – the algorithm seeks out the same linguistic idiosyncrasies. These men had to have started off with normal agencies, or using one or more of the numerous websites out there matching sexual preferences with the right women. Also, they love a good message board where they can discuss their perversions with others. We have undercover investigators and officers posing as people with similar tastes, which makes it relatively easy to get involved in the discussions.’
‘And I’m guessing you got hits,’ Warburton said.
‘We did. It’s not an exact science. But I do have a list for you, containing thirteen possible suspects. We can’t narrow that down any further with software alone, but I thought that’s where Major Crimes might be interested in taking up the final part of the challenge. I think your team is best placed to whittle it down to find your killers.’
‘Our killers, Glen,’ Bishop told him. He gave a firm nod of appreciation. ‘What you did was uncalled for, but you’re forgiven.’
‘By everyone?’ Ashton glanced around, including at Chandler, who had joined them and had been listening for some time.
The silence was electric for a few moments, but Bliss took it upon himself to close the distance between them more than metaphorically. He stepped forward, holding out his hand. ‘You have a lot to learn, Glen’ he said. ‘But so did we all at one stage in our careers. We could probably have dealt with you differently, and I’ll take the blame for that. The main thing is, you did right by us in the end. You did right by Operation Phoenix. Which means you also did right by the victims. That earns you a lot of points.’
While Bliss was speaking, Chandler had taken a call. She looked at him when her own conversation ended. ‘That was Belmarsh. They can confirm that Drake borrowed a phone and spoke to Nicola Parkinson while we were en route. Seems he asked her if she knew why we were paying him a visit.’
Bliss grimaced. ‘Just as we thought: she must have realised we were going to talk to him about Dark Desires, and that once we did he’d be wondering about her.’
‘Only we know she didn’t have anything to do with it. So why would she do a runner?’
‘Guilty by association, maybe. After we spoke to her about it, she must have wondered if somebody else in the organisation was pulling a fast one behind her back. If they were, it was happening on her watch. Perhaps we’ll never know if she had any suspicions about her own son. Also, what are the chances she wasn’t siphoning off some of the cash that passes through her hands? If Drake was about to get busy digging into the way his organisation was operating, she probably realised
