when he had looked up train times yesterday. There was also one to the Polstar Vodka site he had visited yesterday, in order to brief himself for this afternoon’s meeting. Then there was one he did not recognize at all.
It was a long, complex string of letters and slashes. Chris Webb’s parting words as he had left were that he should not log on to any unfamiliar website, but Tom had been using the internet for years and years now and had a good understanding of it. He knew that you could pick up a virus from opening an attachment, but he just did not accept you could get one from a website. Cookies, yes. He knew that many retailers used the unscrupulous trick of sending a cookie when you logged on to their site. The cookie would sit in your system and report back to them everything you subsequently looked at on the net. That way they could build individual customer profiles on their database and learn what products people were interested in. But viruses? No way.
He clicked on the address.
Almost instantly the message came up on his screen:
Access denied. Unauthorized login attempt.
‘Anything else you need tonight, Tom?’
He looked up. Olivia, holding her handbag, was standing by his desk.
‘No, that’s fine, thanks.’
She was beaming. ‘Got a hot date. Have to go to the hairdresser!’
‘Good luck!’
‘He’s the marketing director for a magazine group. Could be some business there.’
‘Go kill!’
‘I will!’
He looked back at the screen and clicked on the address again.
Within moments the same message appeared.
Access denied. Unauthorized login attempt.
Later that evening – after a larger martini than usual, dinner and almost an entire bottle of a particularly yummy Australian Margaret River Chardonnay, instead of his usual couple of glasses – Tom sat down in his den, opened his laptop, went to his email in-box and started working. More emails came in every few minutes.
Two in succession contained decent repeat orders, which pleased him. One was from the marketing director of one of their major clients, thanking him personally for all his help in making their recent half-centenary such a success.
Feeling distinctly cheered, he scanned the rest of the emails, filing some, deleting some and replying to others. Then another new one appeared.
Dear Mr Bryce
Last night you accessed a website you were unauthorized to visit. Now you have tried to access it again. We do not appreciate uninvited guests. If you inform the police about what you saw or if you ever try to access this site again, what is about to happen to your computer will happen to your wife, Kellie, to your son, Max, and to your daughter, Jessica. Take a good look, then have a hard think.
Your friends at Scarab Productions
Barely before he had time to register the words, they vanished from the screen. Then all the rest of his emails began to vanish, also, as if they were being dissolved in acid.
Within a minute, maybe less, as he watched helplessly, his brain too paralysed to think about switching the machine off, everything on his computer vanished.
He tapped at the keys. But there was nothing, just a blank, black screen.
13
Dennis Ponds, the senior Sussex PRO, had been given the sobriquet Pond Life by many officers. Too many stories got leaked to the press, and the prime suspect was always his office.
A former journalist, he looked more like a City trader than a newspaper man. In his early forties, with slicked-back black hair, mutantly large eyebrows and a penchant for sharp suits, he had the tough task of brokering the increasingly fragile relations between police and public.
Roy Grace, swigging a bottle of mineral water, stared at him across his desk, feeling empathy with the man. Ponds wasn’t trusted by many police and the press were always suspicious of his motives. It was not a job anyone could win at. One police PRO had ended up in a sanatorium; another, Grace remembered well, sipped from a hip flask all day long.
Ponds had just laid the entire collection of morning newspapers on Grace’s desk and was now sitting in front of him, wringing his hands. ‘At least we managed to keep it off the front page, Roy,’ he said apologetically, his eyebrows rising like two crows preparing for flight.
They’d been lucky; a Charles and Camilla story took most of the front-page splashes. It was a reflection of modern times that the headless torso story made just a few lines on the inside pages of some papers, and was not mentioned at all in others. But, like the entire half-page of the
‘You did your best,’ Grace said. Unlike many of his colleagues he recognized the importance of public relations.
‘You handled the conference well,’ Pond Life said. ‘The best thing we can do is build on the torso story today. I’ve set a con for two. You up for that?’
‘Ready to slay ’em,’ Grace retorted.
‘Can you give me anything for them, in advance?’
Grace fiddled with the bottle cap, screwing it on then unscrewing it again. ‘No matches from the fingerprints. We’re waiting for a DNA report from the labs. Meantime we’re checking through the missing persons lists.’
‘Are we telling them the head’s missing?’
‘I don’t want anyone to know that yet. I’m just going to say that the body was badly mutilated, which is hampering the identification.’
‘I thought I was the one who doctored the truth for you guys.’
Grace smiled. ‘You’ve obviously been a good teacher.’
The eyebrows now flexing like wings in flight, Ponds asked, ‘Any hot leads?’
‘Come on, Dennis. Now you’re sounding like a journalist.’
‘I’d like to throw them a bone.’
‘There are several possible matches.’
‘Yes, but I hear the most likely is a Brighton girl, a trainee solicitor. Is that right?’
Stunned at this information, Grace asked, ‘Where did you hear that?’
The PRO shrugged. ‘Word on the street.’
‘What street? Who the hell told you that?’
Ponds stared at the Detective Superintendent. ‘Three different journalists have already rung my office.’
Grace remembered his conversation with Glenn Branson over his mobile phone yesterday afternoon, when Glenn was speculating who the young woman might be. Had someone listened in? That was near impossible – the new phones sent digitized signals, scrambled. With anger rising inside him and jabbing his bottle at the ceiling, Grace said, ‘Who the fuck talked to them? Dennis, that dead girl, whoever she is, has a family. Maybe a husband, maybe a mother, maybe a father, maybe kids, who all loved her. We’re not in any state to start speculating.’
‘I know that, Roy. But we can’t lie to the press, either.’
Thinking as ever about Sandy, Grace said, ‘Look, can’t you understand that everyone who has a missing loved one who fits her description is going to be glued to every word that’s printed, to everything that’s said on television and on the radio? I’m not in the business of raising hopes, I’m in the business of finding criminals.’
Dennis Ponds jotted furiously on a shorthand pad. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘That last line. Can I use that in our press release?’
Grace stared at the man for a moment. So typical of a press officer that. Sound bites. That’s all Ponds ever wanted, really. He nodded and looked at his watch, wanting to get over to the Incident Room and brief his team
