Splinter the Silence (32 page)

Stacey felt a glimmer of comprehension. ‘And you think he bought all the books at once?’

‘Exactly,’ Tony said triumphantly. ‘I knew you’d get it. Now, I’ve done a bit of quick and dirty research here and you’re not going to find all three of these books in your average high street bookshop. Your best bet would be an online retailer. And when it comes to books, we all know who the number one e-tailer is, right?’

‘Valhalla.co.uk,’ Stacey said. ‘The evil empire.’

‘Do you think they’d search their records and tell us if anybody in the last twelve months bought all three of those books?’

Stacey couldn’t stop herself snorting in derision. ‘Are you kidding? It’d be easier to get a Swiss bank to reveal who owns its numbered accounts.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ Tony said. ‘And everybody knows that, right? Everybody knows Valhalla are so paranoid about commercial confidentiality that they won’t tell anybody anything about anything.’

‘Exactly. So there’s no point asking. Even if you got a warrant, it would somehow take months or even years to execute it.’

‘Perfect.’

‘What do you mean, perfect? I thought you wanted this information?’

‘Of course I want it. But it wouldn’t be there to be found if our perpetrator thought it would be retrievable.’

‘Either I’m being very stupid or you’re not making sense.’

‘Sorry. This guy is smart, Stacey. He knows how to cover his traces. All I’m getting at is that the killer could safely order from Valhalla because he knows, as everybody knows, that it’s an article of faith with Valhalla not to release any information. So he wasn’t taking a risk by ordering all the books from Valhalla. He knew we’d never get our hands on that information legitimately. But what he couldn’t know is that we have you.’ Tony ended on an exultant note.

‘So, let me be clear about this. You want me to make an illegal hack, break through the legendary security of Valhalla.co.uk and find out whether any single purchaser bought all three of the books associated with our victims?’ She didn’t even try to keep the incredulity from her voice.

‘That’s it. You’ve got it. You can do that, right?’

Stacey sighed. The trouble with being as good as she was was that everyone expected miracles as routine. Because none of them knew anything about what went on behind the front end of the systems they took for granted, they assumed that what she did was a level playing field of complexity. They thought it was as easy to hack a security-obsessed multinational corporation as it was to open a teenager’s social media account. ‘It’s a big job, Tony,’ she said. ‘And I’m not sure I’ve got what it takes.’

‘You’re kidding, right? I never cease to be amazed at the back-door stuff you come up with. You’ve got a real feel for how systems work.’

‘That’s not what I mean. I’m talking physical kit. I’m not sure what I’ve got can do the job. I might have to build something and I’ll certainly have to write some code. Or adapt some I’ve done before, depending on what I find in there. It might be easier and quicker to get somebody else to do it.’ Stacey wasn’t sure why she was making such an admission to Tony. Her standard operating procedure with her colleagues was to say nothing and get on with what they’d asked for. Maintaining her mystique as a hacker in a white hat. She never talked in any detail about how hard or how easy a particular task might be. She just presented results like a magician displaying high-level prestidigitation as if it was an everyday skill. If she was honest, she wanted them to think she was amazing. But her relationship with Sam had changed her in so many ways. Perhaps it was possible to admit to fallibility and still have people think she was amazing. If there was a safe place to do that, it was with Tony.

‘Is that secure? Have you done that before?’

Stacey paused and took a deep breath. ‘Yes. There are two people I trust implicitly. One of them I’ve asked for help before and he gave it, no questions asked. And all it cost us was a return favour, which is all paid off now. The other I’ve known since I first started writing programs. We’ve done stuff together for years, but nothing work-related. But – you know I have a private business, right?’

Tony laughed. ‘Well, I figured out a long time ago that you either had some kind of business on the side or else you were siphoning money off from the Bank of England. You don’t get a lifestyle like yours on a detective’s salary.’

Stacey felt a momentary twinge of anxiety. ‘Does Carol know?’

A moment’s pause for thought. ‘I’d say she chooses not to know. As long as it doesn’t have any impact on what you do for the MIT, she’s not going to pick a fight with you about what you get up to on your own time. What were you going to say about your own company?’

‘Only that my friend has done quite a bit of work for me over the years and he’s never let me down. A lot of what we do is commercially confidential. He could have destroyed my income stream pretty much any time in the last ten years and he’s never given me any cause for concern. So if I do need help, there are people I can turn to.’

‘And it has the added advantage of keeping your hands clean if it all comes on top,’ Tony added, his tone wry.

‘That doesn’t hurt,’ Stacey said. ‘I don’t want to go to jail. But neither do they. So the chances of it all going horribly wrong are vanishingly small. These are clever boys, Tony. They’ve been doing this a long time and they have a very clear-eyed understanding of what they can and can’t do. So if I do have to outsource what you’re asking me…’ She paused, considering. ‘I think we’ll come out of it in one piece. There’s only one problem.’

‘What’s that?’

‘If this is the key evidence that nails our guy, we’re going to have to work backwards to find a different explanation for how we fixed on him. We can’t go to court and rely on material that shouldn’t be in our possession.’

Tony made himself sound positive. ‘We’ve always found a way to protect you before. There’s always something that emerges that we could reasonably have fixed on earlier in the game. I don’t see why this should be any different.’

Except that they’d never been confronted by a killer quite like this one.

41

I
t was supposed to have been a bright shiny new start. But thanks to the weekend papers, Carol’s eager anticipation had been replaced by a gnawing apprehension. She’d slept badly, knowing every time she woke up that if there had been a drink in the barn, she’d have swallowed it without a moment’s hesitation. Though she’d hated him for it in the moment, she knew Tony had been right.

When she woke up for the seventh time a few minutes after six, she finally gave in and got up. She dressed in dog-walking clothes and took Flash up the hill at a steady jog. When they reached the top of the moor, Carol slowed to a brisk walk, gazing down the valley to the pale smudge in the distance that she knew was Bradfield. She tried to convince herself it would be all right. She’d overcome worse obstacles than a bunch of journalists, after all. It might be headlines today, but by next weekend, it would be history.

Except that every time she asked for support from one of her six client forces there would always be a question mark behind their eyes. Her integrity was tainted and it was nobody’s fault but her own. She’d snatched at the chance to reclaim her life the easy way when she should have had the guts to accept that she’d forced herself into a corner. But it was too late to take back what she’d done. The damage was out there.

All she could do was face them down. Maybe one day, she’d manage to outrun this new past. Till then, all she could do was hold her head up.

By the time she arrived at Skenfrith Street, Carol had built her resolve brick by brick till it felt strong enough to withstand whatever the media could throw at her. John Brandon was waiting for her in the new MIT squad room, where a couple of electricians were putting the final run of sockets in place. ‘Amazing job,’ he greeted her. ‘I didn’t quite believe they’d get it done in time, but they’ve proved me wrong.’

‘Thanks for making this happen, John,’ Carol said, reaching a hand out to shake his. ‘I’m sorry I made it harder for you than it should have been.’

He sighed. ‘I won’t pretend I don’t wish it had been different. We’d have been fine if some shit hadn’t leaked it to the press.’ He tightened his lips.

‘What line are we going to take? Because it’s bound to come up.’ She pushed her shaggy hair back from her forehead and let it fall.

‘I thought about that over the weekend,’ Brandon said. ‘We’re going to brazen it out.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Are you ready? I’ve got three chief constables and three deputies downstairs ready to nail a smile on their faces and say how bloody delighted they are that your MIT will be working with their dedicated detectives to bring serious crimes to a swift and satisfactory conclusion. Sound about right to you?’

Carol gave him a relieved smile and followed him down to the recently tarted-up media room at Skenfrith Street. To her relief, James Blake had passed the welcoming committee job on to his deputy, a former drugs squad chief whose face and uniformed figure seemed to consist entirely of straight lines and sharp angles. ‘Good to see you back in harness, Carol,’ he said in a clipped North Wales accent. ‘Can’t wait to watch your team in action.’ She was almost convinced he meant it. She made her way along the rest of the top brass, all affable smiles and firm handshakes.

And then, suddenly, they were on the platform, staring down the barrel of a couple of dozen cameras. The room was crammed; there must have been sixty journalists and camera crew in a room designed for a maximum of forty. The buzz of their chatter stilled as soon as Brandon cleared his throat. He introduced himself and went along the platform before outlining the working of the new Regional Major Incident Team, ReMIT. Hearing the acronym, Carol couldn’t prevent a quirk of satisfaction twitching the corner of her mouth. She’d been spot on.

Then Brandon turned to her. ‘It gives me great pleasure to present Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan, the officer who has been chosen to command this elite specialist squad. DCI Jordan has had a long and distinguished career, much of it here in Bradfield, where she ran the Major Incident Team very successfully for a number of years. I’m not going to bore you with a catalogue of her triumphs because you’ve all got the internet at your fingertips. Suffice it to say I don’t think there’s another officer anywhere in the UK who can match her for experience and ability. When I was her chief constable, we called her the Closer because of her astonishing success rate.’

That was news to Carol. She suspected it was news to her team too. She wondered whether it had been the idea of one of the civil servants. It didn’t sound like Brandon.

When she tuned back in, he was talking about the stellar quality of her team. The hacks were starting to become restive now, eager to get to something more juicy than an animated press release. Finally, Brandon wound up with the dreaded ‘Any questions?’

Several started to speak at once. ‘One at a time,’ Brandon chided them. There were a few questions about the structure of the ReMIT, with individual senior officers being asked about the impact on their detective teams of the new elite squad. All very anodyne. Then Brandon pointed to the next questioner. ‘Woman over there, blue top.’

The woman gave a frown to indicate her gravitas. ‘DCI Jordan, there have been reports that you were arrested last weekend for drink driving. Does that make you an appropriate person to run this elite MIT?’

Carol forced her mouth into a formal smile.
Come out fighting.
‘It’s true that I was mistakenly arrested because of faulty equipment after a routine traffic stop. I don’t see why being the victim of a broken breathalyser should have any impact on my ability to do my job.’

‘Are you saying you hadn’t been drinking?’ The reporter wasn’t giving up yet.

‘I’m saying that the case against me was dismissed. I left court without a stain on my character.’

‘Are you denying that you’ve got a drink problem?’

Carol felt the tide of anger rising in her head. ‘What is this? Character assassination or just another example of everyday sexism? If I was a bloke, this wouldn’t even have caused a ripple. Because if you’re a bloke who has a drink, you’re one of the lads. But if you’re a woman, you’re breaking all the rules. You’re given a hard time not for what you’ve done but because you refuse to fit the neat little woman box. The only problem I have with doing my job is people who know nothing thinking they know best.’

Brandon broke the stunned silence. ‘I think we’ll move on,’ he said, pointing at a plump sweating man in the middle of the front row. ‘You, sir?’

‘Who discovered the breathalyser was faulty? And how was the discovery made?’

Carol maintained the smile. ‘I have no idea. That’s an operational question that’s well outside my area of responsibility. You’d have to ask West Yorkshire Police that question.’

‘Mr Brandon, is it true the Home Office intervened in this case?’

Brandon’s bloodhound face creased in puzzlement. ‘This was a local case resolved at a local level. Do you think Home Office officials have so little to do that they would concern themselves with something like this? Look, there’s no story here, in spite of what some of you have insinuated.’

‘The story’s not going away though, is it?’ The questioner was persistent. ‘It’s all very convenient for DCI Jordan.’

Brandon bristled. ‘It’s the opposite of convenient. All DCI Jordan wants to do is to get on with her job, but instead she’s having to deal with cowardly innuendo and unfounded allegations. You lot are being used to blacken her name by jealous individuals who have been thwarted in their own empire-building.’

Carol’s heart sank. She knew Brandon meant well, but in effect, he’d thrown more fuel on the flames. Again a cacophony of questions broke out. ‘Can we focus on what actually matters here?’ She cut through the noise with a voice like a blade. ‘My team exists to save lives. Right now, there are killers we don’t even know about yet. There are murderers in waiting out there. It’s my job to stop them in their tracks. We’ve barely started yet and already we’re on the heels of a killer nobody suspected existed till we started examining some recent cases. So can we kick the trivia into touch? I have more important things to worry about than rumour and gossip, and if you had any interest in doing your jobs you would have too.’ A surge of adrenalin made her heart race and she pushed her chair back, unclipping her lapel mike.