Invasion of Privacy: A Deep Web Thriller #1 (Deep Web Thriller Series) (16 page)

At the top of the stairs, Jenny saw Disney princess cut-outs mounted on the bedroom doors with the forenames of the housemates pre-printed on them. Undeniably practical, but presumably done as some kind of in-joke between the housemates. Kim’s was Belle from
Beauty and the Beast
and Anna’s was Jasmine from
Aladdin
. Jenny wondered if there had been any rationale behind who was which princess. And if it had been malicious in any way, assuming that being likened to a Disney princess could even be done unkindly. 

Jenny reached in her coat pocket, found some latex gloves and pulled them over her hands. She pushed open the door to Anna’s room.

It was smaller than she expected, though maybe that was the dark purple walls lending a claustrophobic feel to the room. A double bed in one corner took up much of the floor space. The cream covers were thrown back, as if the occupant had just got up. She noticed squares had been cut out of the sheets: the work of the crime scene team. Brightly coloured clothes were strewn across the back of a chair by a desk in another corner. Shoes, some with impossibly high heels, were piled up randomly underneath the desk. 

Evidence of Anna’s musicianship was everywhere. A cello leaned against one wall. She owned more than one, then. Next to it, hanging from their necks on wall mounts, was a violin and an acoustic guitar. A mouth organ lay discarded on the desk. On the printer, Jenny picked up some papers. A half-completed essay about someone called Dvořák. Jenny scanned the text and deduced he had been a 19th century composer. Lots of posters, mostly of music bands or album covers, brightened up the dark wall beside the bed. She recognised The Beatles, but the rest she’d never heard of. On the side table next to the bed, an empty iPod dock sat next to, of all things, a record player. It was a sixties style red box, open with a record in place. The round lever in the bottom corner was set to 33 rpm and, although Jenny had only ever owned CDs herself, she innately knew that meant it was set to play an album rather than a single. She lifted the arm. Automatically, the turntable rotated. She placed the needle on the record. The volume was set quite high. There was some audible crackling in the background, but the sound quality wasn’t too bad. Despite the haunting classical music not being to her taste, she left it playing anyway.

Jenny continued to nose around.

She sifted through the clothes hanging in the wardrobe behind the door. She saw well-worn denim jeans and baggy jumpers next to short dresses and see-through tops. Her student life and her nightlife. Were they two separate lives or one life completely intertwined? Was her killer from Trinity College or from the nights out that Kim had mentioned? Or both? Or from some other aspect of her life that she kept secret?

The room had a fireplace, but with only an empty glass vase within its recess. On the mantel were three photos in matching frames. On the left was a studio style portrait of a middle-aged couple. From the likeness, especially the woman, Jenny guessed they were her parents. In the centre was a nice one of Anna and Kim in Trafalgar Square, their arms around each other’s waists, huge toothy grins plastered on their faces and pigeons perched on their heads and shoulders. The last picture was of Anna herself, picked out within an orchestra, serious concentration on her face, playing her cello and wearing a stunning lime-green ballgown. 

Jenny sat down on the bed, disturbing a giant teddy bear, and studied the three photos of Anna’s life from a distance. The parents from her past, her closest friend from the present and her love for performing music, her stolen future. Anna Parker’s whole life summed up in three images.

Jenny wondered if three images could sum up her own life. She herself had not gone to university, unlike both her older brothers who had studied academic subjects like Engineering and Politics. Instead, she had been naturally artistic and, following A-Levels, had become a trainee hairdresser in a top salon in London, believing it was the most practical way to earn a living from her impractical skills. After two years, she had decided that she enjoyed working with the public but found washing, brushing and styling hair meaningless. At the same time she had just been ungracefully dumped by her first love, a trainee officer in the City of London police whom she’d dated since the age of seventeen. In a fit of rage or a bout of inspiration – she’d never really worked out which – she applied to join the Met. She’d never looked back.

Jenny wondered how different her life would have been if she’d gone to university like her brothers and most of her school friends. She’d probably have chosen one far away from her childhood home in Kent. Perhaps as far as —

She caught sight of movement out of the corner of her eye.

The door was slowly being pushed ajar. 

She felt the hair lift on her arms and nape. A knife blade glinted in the gap between door and frame. She felt the colour drain from her face.

She rapidly looked around.

There was nowhere to run to.

CHAPTER 6

Half-empty aluminium foil trays lay strewn about Brody’s desk. Thai spices, initially bright and fragrant, had dissipated, transmuting into a sticky fug that attached itself to Brody’s cotton shirt and denim jeans. Slowly, a queasy feeling forged in Brody’s stomach. He wasn’t sure whether to blame the takeaway meal or the growing dread from hours of continuous failure.

SWY’s defences were amongst the best he’d ever seen. It was as if every security precaution he’d ever recommended had been collated and applied to this one site.

He was running out of ideas.

For the umpteenth time that evening, Brody logged back into the CrackerHack forum. He scrolled through that day’s chat logs, tentatively scanning for Matt_The_Hatter’s announcement that he’d got root already. 

He reached the bottom. Nothing there.

Thank God.

Earlier, he’d spotted a new post from Matt_The_Hatter and had thought the game was up already. But it had turned out to be nothing more than Matt_The_Hatter arrogantly picking on a newbie for asking dumb questions on the forum. Matt_The_Hatter must still be overly confident of pwning SWY if he felt able to take time out to torment new victims.

A few of the members had been chatting to each other about the challenge, quickly polarising into Fingal or Matt_The_Hatter supporters. Some pointed out that Fingal must have a massive ego if he thought he could outwit Matt_The_Hatter in a get root challenge. Gratefully, he saw that some more experienced forum members had fought his defence, denouncing Matt_The_Hatter as little more than a script kiddie. His friend, Doc_Doom, had gone one step further and pointed out that Matt_The_Hatter exhibited borderline personality disorder tendencies. Which was effortlessly summarised by another member, who commented that Matt_The_Hatter was just a forum bully and that anyone supporting him was only scared shitless of his infamous vengeance.

Other than losing the challenge, Brody personally feared little from Matt_The_Hatter. He had the experience and knowhow to make himself completely untraceable back to RL – real life. Other weaker forum members, hackers with limited skills, had been known to fall foul of Matt_The_Hatter’s wrath. In one extreme case only two months before, a newbie forum member called Queen_Xoltan had accused Matt_The_Hatter of claiming credit for her friend’s hack. In an online fit of rage, Matt_The_Hatter declared that Queen_Xoltan was dead in the online world and that he would track her down and publicly ‘out’ her. Four days later, Matt_The_Hatter cheerfully posted Queen_Xoltan’s real world name and address for all to see, including the numerous law enforcement agencies that anonymously prowled the hacker forums trying to track down black hat hackers. To Matt_The_Hatter’s evident delight, Queen_Xoltan turned out to be a confused teenage boy from the Faroe Islands.

Brody’s Samsung Galaxy phone beeped. It was a message from Doc_Doom, checking to see how he was getting on with the challenge. There was a link to a private secure online chat site in case he “wanted to knock about any ideas or just needed some moral support”. He’d be there for the next hour or so.

Brody genuinely appreciated Doc_Doom reaching out to him like this. It wasn’t the first time either. Brody doubted whether his friend would have any ideas that he hadn’t already tried, but he was gratified by the moral support from someone who understood more than anything else. Perhaps just talking things through for a few minutes would help.

He switched to his tablet PC and clicked on the link. The chat screen took over the centre monitor, the ones on either side still displaying network maps and dumps of the SWY site.

Fingal:
Hi Doc. 

Doc_Doom:
You winning?

Fingal:
Not yet. SWY’s a tough nut to crack. I think Crooner knew what he was doing all along.

Doc_Doom:
Yup. Think you’re right there, man. It certainly was a strange way to ask for help. You think this is all about him showing off on the forums?

Fingal:
Yeah. Looks like it. Just hope Matt_The_Pratt is having as tough a time as I am.

Doc_Doom:
He’s all talk. Not a squeak from him since the challenge. Anyway, why’d you offer to help in the first place? 

Fingal:
Bit stupid, really. I was on a high from a job I’d just finished.

Doc_Doom:
Yeah, I’ve been there too, man. You feel like you can do anything.

He was spot on. The bravado whipped up from successfully completing a hack was addictive. But, for Brody, the biggest high came from social engineering, where he combined hacking computers with hacking humans. They added the extra dimension of putting his physical, real world self in the firing line, hugely increasing risk, but exponentially intensifying the euphoria from success. Last week’s Atlas Brands job had been one of his slickest yet and he now realised that his ego had got the better of him. In the Atlas video conference he’d hacked into this morning, he’d shown off. A lot. The euphoria had become arrogance and he’d allowed it to affect his judgement. And one impulsive click later, he’d registered his interest in Crooner42’s pentest without doing any of the normal due diligence.

And so here he was.

Stuck.

Fingal:
Any ideas, Doc?

Doc_Doom:
Does the site use Java?

Fingal:
Yes

Doc_Doom:
Have you decompiled the Java bytecode?

A bit obvious. Of course, he had. 

Fingal:
Yes, but there were no passwords, application paths or anything sensitive.

Doc_Doom:
I’ve heard about a new exploit for Java on the Eastern European forums. Give me a minute, I’ll search for it . . .

This could be promising. 

Brody waited, drumming his fingers on his desk. He looked up at the TV screens to see if anything interesting was happening in the Saxton household. Mrs Saxton sat next to the cot in the baby’s bedroom, reading aloud from a picture book. The baby lay quietly in the cot. Audri was in her bedroom, getting changed. 

Now
that
was interesting.

He wheeled his chair over to the laptop connected to the TV, maximised the video stream from Audri’s room and unmuted the volume. 

Audri dropped her bathrobe onto her bed, revealing white bra and panties. She opened her wardrobe and withdrew a bright red coat. She held it against her and stood in front of a mirror, checking the length. Satisfied, she dropped it on the bed and quickly removed her bra and stepped out of her panties. 

Brody licked his lips and then realised he’d done so. He’d never have guessed that voyeurism could be so thrilling. A moment like this, a girl undressing, was the reward for hours of monotony. The whole thing was beguiling.

Audri picked up the red coat from the bed and put it on, directly over her naked body. 

Now Brody was intrigued. And, he realised, quite turned on.

She stepped into a pair of black high heels and grabbed a matching handbag. She picked up something from her bedside cabinet. Brody looked more closely. It was the unstamped letter she’d received earlier that day. She opened the envelope, glanced at the letter it contained, stuffed it back in the envelope and slid it into her coat pocket. Checking herself once more in the mirror, she nodded and spoke something in Swedish to her reflection. 

Brody thought he heard a slight noise, like a car driving over gravel. Audri obviously had, as well. She looked down out the bedroom window, then turned and flew out of the room.

Brody swiftly minimised the screen, revealing all seven feeds from around the Saxton household. No cameras covered the stairs or hallway, but he saw light appear in the baby’s bedroom from the doorway. He clicked on it to hear the audio. Mrs Saxton paused her reading and looked towards the light. Although not visible onscreen, Audri’s voice whispered, “My taxi’s here, Mrs Saxton. I’ll be late tonight.”

Hilary whispered back, “Okay, Audri. Have fun with Ornetta.” 

“Will do. And don’t worry; I’ll make sure I’m up by 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. I haven’t forgotten.”

Mrs Saxton smiled. “Thanks, Audri.” The room grew darker again. Then she added, “Don’t forget your keys.”

“Got them. Bye.”

A few seconds later Brody heard a large door bang shut. Hilary Saxton paused a moment, checked on the baby and then resumed reading aloud.

Brody muted the audio again and mused over what he’d seen. There was no way the au pair was going out to see her girlfriend dressed, or more literally undressed, like that. The mysterious letter she’d received earlier that day had something to do with it. Brody recalled Mr Saxton kissing her that morning. He didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work this one out. She was off to meet the husband somewhere else for a night of illicit sex.