‘We got the go-ahead to use the undercover legend. It’s already in play. Bish used the card – and the legend held up, because he got back the spreadsheet and the directions. It worked a treat. He said typing Enter into the A1 cell ran something that brought up a link in that buried cell further down the sheet. The password came in another separate e-mail, and they’re in.’
‘How bad is it? Did he say?’
‘No. Just that we were in and work had already begun on monitoring.’
‘Perhaps this was a wasted trip.’
Bliss was undeterred. ‘Maybe. But you saw how Drake reacted. I’m confident he knows nothing about the site, which I wouldn’t have known if we’d not come. I’m equally certain we now have him wondering if he’s been cut out of a money-making machine being run by somebody inside his outfit. Believe me, after what he heard from us, Lewis Drake is going to do some digging of his own. All of which means our visit might still bear fruit.’
‘I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of whoever is doing this on the side. What he lacks in size and stature, he more than makes up for in viciousness and lack of scruples. You still reckon it’s Parkinson?’
‘She’d be my prime suspect, yes. Nicola has a unique position inside the organisation, and few people know that business better than her. I wouldn’t be surprised to find her son and daughter involved, either.’
Chandler was listening to him, but checking her own phone at the same time. ‘This isn’t so good,’ she said, still reading a text. ‘Yeva heard back from Sara. Somebody else in the WhatsApp group confirms Abbi Turner has been off the grid since Wednesday.’
He cursed and turned his face to the rain that had begun falling from a sky swollen with malicious intent. As they had suspected, it was looking like their killer had already abducted his new victim. Bliss had been prepared for this moment since first hearing from the Met about the other murders, but now he and the entire team had to face one clear truth: they were up against the clock, and a young woman’s life expectancy was ticking down with each second that elapsed.
Thirty-Two
By the time Bliss and Chandler arrived back in the city, both DC Ansari and Glen Ashton had news about the investigation. Bishop was not in the incident room, so it was Ansari who updated them while wincing at the taste of her vending machine hot chocolate.
‘With ERSOU’s assistance, we’ve been monitoring traffic coming in and out of the Dark Desires website since we first located it. There’s a whole technical explanation for what we’re doing and why we’re currently waiting for further results. Do you want to hear it?’
‘Is it possible to tell us in layman’s terms?’ Bliss asked. ‘I’d be okay with all the geek speak, but you know how slow on the uptake Pen can be at times.’ He received an elbow nudge from Chandler for his troubles.
Ansari gave a knowing smile. ‘I’ll do my best. A full technical explanation would involve telling you all about up and down data streams, IP traffic, proxy servers, private networks, public domain, and virtual private networks. Am I right in thinking you aren’t interested in any of that?’
‘Absolutely. After all, I’m getting on a bit, and Pen is as thick as a plank.’ That earned him a second nudge aimed at the ribs, which he managed to avoid. The less-than-nimble movement resulted in several muscles complaining with sharp jabs of pain, leaving him groaning and wishing he’d taken the elbow instead.
‘You all right, boss?’ Ansari said.
Bliss winced and stretched his limbs. ‘Yeah. Just ache a bit.’
Chandler snorted and chuckled. ‘Don’t worry about him, Gul. He’s playing the martyr here, but he banged on about it all bloody morning on the drive down to London. Only one thing worse than man flu, apparently, and that’s man ache.’
Bliss shook his head. ‘Don’t ever become as cynical and unsympathetic as her, Gul. Heart like stone, this one. Go on with what you were telling us.’
‘All right, let me think how best to describe it more simply… Okay.’ Ansari walked over to the closest whiteboard and began drawing on it with a blue marker pen. She outlined a rectangle on the left side of the board and another in the centre. In the first she wrote an L and in the second she wrote DD. She then took a step back and tapped the first shape with the marker. ‘Let’s say this is your laptop. This here in the middle is the web server on which the Dark Desires website resides. If you go online and access a site in the usual way, the security protocols at the other end can see your laptop’s network address – its IP number.’
‘That much I’m aware of. So does it work the other way around? Can my laptop see the Dark Desires IP address?’
‘Not the server itself, no – not easily, anyhow. But if it was a standard site with a domain, you would at least be able to see the external address it shows to the public. For instance, what website do you visit most often?’
‘Besides Pornhub, Jimmy,’ Chandler said.
Bliss ignored her. ‘I suppose that would be the Chelsea website.’
Ansari nodded and took out her phone. Seconds later, after a dazzling display of thumb-typing, she said, ‘Okay. So when I ping the website name, the IP address comes back as 151.101.2.133. That isn’t the IP of the domain server, rather the public-facing one
