Cut to the Bone (17 page)

‘I have to escape somehow. Bollywood and gossip magazines are all I have.’

The reconstituted document came through five minutes later. Zain read it carefully, looking for the relevant sections. He did a double take, and re read key parts of it. He highlighted those.

‘Greedy fuckers,’ he said.

Michelle Cable grimaced as soon as she saw Zain. Bit harsh, he thought; he wasn’t going to attack her.

‘I got the shredded document through,’ he said, sitting down in an empty chair next to her. He pulled Ruby’s laptop towards him, entered the password he had hit on earlier. The golden ratio.

Michelle ignored him, busy with Ruby’s desktop computer. Zain saw she was running scans on relevant search terms, checking for files that had been permanently deleted.

‘They were screwing her over,’ he said in a friendly tone, remembering Riley’s admonition.

‘How?’ Michelle responded without looking at him, but curious all the same.

‘They wanted seventy per cent of her royalties, anything she earned from her videos or endorsements. Proper avarice. No wonder she shredded it. If indeed she did. How far are you getting with her computer?’

‘Nothing so far. There are thousands of documents, videos, pictures. I haven’t started on her online profile yet, nor her emails and history. Still mining her hard drive.’

‘Anything she deleted that looks suspect?’

‘No hits so far, but I’m still recovering a lot of it. She’s had this for eight months, so there’s a lot to go through.’

Zain opened a command window on Ruby’s laptop. He typed in code to get him into the back end, but it revealed very little. Her internet history was clean, deleted recently. Right before she’d left home, from what he could see.

He plugged in a USB stick, downloaded a software programme. Someone had dubbed it Grave Digger. It checked for her deleted files, pulling them out of memory spaces not yet overwritten. Lines of alphanumeric data flittered across his command window, so he let it run. The software would try and make sense of them. It wasn’t always clean, read like a book full of spelling mistakes, or words the software assumed should be there.

‘You want Grave? It will get through the deleted online stuff quickly.’

‘No, I have my own programmes. Official programmes from NCA.’ The National Crime Agency.

‘Mine are official, too. Well, developed on company time, anyway. NCA only share the stuff they’ve beta tested.’

Michelle tapped some keys angrily, probably wishing it was his head. Zain was used to working with people who welcomed any assistance, any correction. If you let people behave in ways that weren’t cutting edge, you risked lives, risked operations. He couldn’t deal with egos and domains. Kate had told him to learn.

Ruby’s laptop beeped. Grave had finished its job.

‘Let’s see what you just dug up for me, then,’ he said.

Chapter Forty-seven

Ruby’s erased files opened up in Notebook. Zain copied them into Word, saved them to his USB stick. Included in the list were her email account details. She had Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. Yahoo seemed to be the one she used most – it had the most hits – so he tried to work out the password.

He tried the golden ratio again, but it didn’t work this time.

‘You have any password-cracking software?’ he asked Michelle.

‘Yes, from the NCA. It will take a while, though, Yahoo’s encryption isn’t easy to break. Even for us.’

Zain nodded, looking for clues in the thousands of lines of data dumped to his screen.

‘Try to reset her password, it will be easier,’ said Michelle.

Zain logged into Yahoo on an official work terminal. The first prompt for password reset was ‘favourite novel’. He recalled the titles on Ruby’s bookshelves, scanning them in his mind. Which would be her favourite? He remembered one set in particular; she had it in paperback, hardback and a special edition. He typed in
Northern Lights.
It didn’t work.

‘You remember the Philip Pullman books?’

‘
His Dark Materials
?’ said Michelle.

He typed that in. Yahoo said it was successful, so prompted him with question two. ‘Name of your favourite uncle.’ He tried Karl Rourke, Mike Day.

‘Is there an uncle character in those books?’ he said.

‘Lord Asriel,’ she said.

‘That’s it, I’m in,’ he said.

Zain scanned the emails, but they were general ones. Nothing stood out as he started combing through them.

‘I better get someone to read all these,’ he said.

‘I’m busy,’ said Michelle.

‘No, one of the admins,’ he said. ‘Is Lia still here?’

‘They leave at normal times, do normal office hours.’

‘OK,’ he said. He emailed the details to Chris Lewis, who managed the admin teams, and asked her to get one of them to go through Ruby’s emails. He searched instead for emails from Dan or MINDNET. There weren’t any.

‘Can I use your cracking software? For her Hotmail?’ he said.

Michelle came over, gave him a USB key. She smelt of tangerines; it was pleasant.

‘It’s called PITO57095,’ she said. ‘From when it was all done through the Police Information Technology Organisation. They haven’t renamed the software yet.’

He set PITO57095 to crack Hotmail, YouTube and Facebook. Zain used the Yahoo password to change the Gmail account. Ruby had set up a password recovery email from her Gmail to her Yahoo.

Zain scanned the same empty emails. Again nothing from Dan or MINDNET.

‘This doesn’t make sense,’ he said. ‘They must have sent her something.’

Zain plugged in his USB stick again. He had tools that would allow deleted emails to surface if they hadn’t been overwritten on the hard drive yet. He started the software running, but it pulled up fragmented data. Most of it was meaningless. He ran a cleansing tool, which gave him better results.

‘This is more like it,’ he said.

There were emails that Ruby had read on her laptop, which had opened as internet pages, which she had then deleted. Messages from Dan included.

Zain read through recent ones. His heart started racing as he did, excitement in his blood.

‘Fuck me,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve got the bastard.’

Chapter Forty-eight

DS Stevie Brennan was pacing, trying to keep her blood flowing. Her nails were turning blue, her nose threatening to leak. She was wearing a three-quarter-length black jacket. Underneath, she only wore a dress, stockings and ankle boots.

She sat down on the plastic chair they had given her, rubbed her thighs to warm them, then picked up the styrofoam cup with hot tea in it. She held it against her skin, which burned under the intensity of it.

The ward was dark, patients put to bed. Dan had his own room, the door closed. Heart monitors provided a ticking clock. Nurses gave her curious stares as they passed by. She should be home, having a hot bath, catching up on a box set.

Her phone buzzed. A nurse from the nurse’s station looked over at her. Stevie looked back. It was on vibrate; it didn’t exactly ring and wake the whole ward up. She pressed a green button by the main door, went out into the even colder main corridor.

It was Harris. She thought about not returning his call, but put the idea aside. It wasn’t his fault she had been passed over. She hadn’t given him a chance, seeing in him her failure personified. He hadn’t exactly set their unit ablaze, though; she was still confused why Hope and Riley had picked him as second in command on the team.

‘What?’ she said when he picked up.

‘You still at the hospital?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think we may have something.’

Was he crapping her? Trying to act as though he was having a breakthrough, while she was left on guard duty? PC Plod could have sat in a chair; she didn’t understand Riley insisting she stay here.

‘Emails he sent to Ruby. She deleted them, but I managed to recover them from her hard drive. Some nasty shit; he’s a demented fucker. And now I have him in his own words.’

Stevie felt a spasm of annoyance. Why did he have to have a breakthrough? She felt bad then, thinking of Ruby.

‘You told Riley?’

‘Not yet. I need you to do something. I need access to Dan’s phones.’

Dan Grant was dozing in bed, propped up, topless. There was a drip, taking care of his dehydration. His skin was yellow, with areas of pale green and pure white. A bruise on the side of his face, his shoulder and arm. It was where his body had hit the floor when he collapsed in the reception of his building.

Stevie moved closer to the bed, the sour smells of illness pungent around it. The phones were lying on the cabinet to the side of the bed, where Dan’s top was folded. They had been in his pockets when he was brought in.

His heart was beating at a rapid rate, she thought, checking the monitor. A hundred bpm. Shouldn’t it be seventy?

Dan opened his eyes as she approached.

‘Feeling better?’ she said.

He stared at her, his big eyes bloodshot, grey circles around them.

‘We’ll need a statement if you are.’

He didn’t blink. Stevie was used to oddballs. A messed-up kid wasn’t going to freak her out.

‘It’s just a statement, not an interrogation. You won’t need a lawyer.’

Dan’s eyes closed and his head fell forward; he whipped it back. It was the sleep you sometimes fell into on a train, your body waking up before your head fell too far forward. He followed her with his eyes as she walked to the side of his bed.

‘Is there anything I can get you in the meantime? Anyone you want me to contact? Your parents?’

The door to the room opened, the duty nurse came in. She was just as frosty to Stevie as she had been before. Smiling at Dan, she said she had to check his vitals. She deliberately came to the side where Stevie was standing, took out her digital thermometer. Stevie had coached her before she came in, told her exactly what to do.

Distracted by the nurse, Dan couldn’t see Stevie. She slipped his phones into her pocket.

‘I’ll be back when you’re done,’ she said to the nurse.

‘No consideration,’ muttered the nurse, engendering an alliance with Dan, despite being embroiled in Stevie’s plan.

Chapter Forty-nine

Stevie closed the door of the main office the nurses used for processing paperwork. A terminal sat in the middle of the leaning towers of files and paperwork. The computer was logged on, the internet switched on.

She called DS Harris.

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Describe the phones to me,’ he said.

She did.

‘OK, he mainly uses his Android one for personal stuff. Ditch the iPhones. Is there a cable to connect the phone to the computer?’

Stevie looked around, but couldn’t find anything. ‘No,’ she said.

‘Shit. OK, we’ll have to do it the hard way. Is the phone pin-protected?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Double-fuck,’ Zain said.

‘Does it matter?’

‘Depends if he’s switched on the encryption,’ he said.

‘Explain,’ Stevie said.

‘They encrypt the data on them by default now. Makes it impossible for anyone without the pin code to access. Even Google can’t get to the data on the phone without the pin code.’

‘Great. I get protecting privacy, but not for fucktards like Grant,’ she said.

‘Have you got wireless on your phone?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘OK, I need you to open your wireless connection manager, and see what networks are available.’

Stevie did, a list of half a dozen appearing.

‘Any of them look like they might belong to Dan’s phone?’

‘No. They’re all generic.’

‘OK, have you got Bluetooth switched on?’

‘No, it’s not secure,’ she said. ‘Michelle forbids us from using it on work phones.’

She heard the accusation in her tone, the defence of her friend. She had to stop being so prickly; it couldn’t be easy being the new guy.

‘Switch it on, and see if you pick up Dan’s phone,’ said Zain.

Stevie changed her settings, and immediately Dan’s phone appeared as a connection she could make using her Bluetooth.

‘He’s called himself Wolf,’ she said. ‘WolfDan and WolfDaniP.’

‘Ace. OK, can you connect to his Bluetooth for me? The WolfDan link. I’m guessing the IP is one of his iPhones. I’m emailing you something to your phone, and I want you to run it. It will force his phone to connect to yours,’ said Zain.

Stevie did as she was instructed, once Zain’s email had come through, and sure enough she had her Bluetooth request accepted by Dan’s phone.

‘I’m sending a second lot of software. I want you to transfer it to his phone,’ said Zain.

Stevie did this. Dan’s phone came to life, and she saw his password prompt disappear, allowing her full access.

‘You’ve impressed me,’ she said, monotone.

‘OK, now open up an internet connection on his phone. Is it 4G?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Log in to the IP address I’m sending you,’ he said.

She was focused, following what he said. She typed the address into a browser on Dan’s phone. There was a commotion outside, shouting.

‘I think he’s realised I’ve got his stuff. We don’t have long,’ she said.

‘No worries, shouldn’t take long,’ Zain said. ‘Just downloading from his phone now.’

It took another five minutes, by which time the nurse was in the room, shaking her head. They were going to claim the nurses had taken Dan’s phones when he had been admitted. If he claimed they were by his bedside, they would say he was delusional because of the drugs.

‘OK, done,’ said Zain.

Stevie disconnected the internet from Dan’s phone, and switched off the Bluetooth.

‘Thank you for your help,’ she said to the nurse, handing the phones over.

Chapter Fifty

Zain watched as the data downloaded to his screen. Text messages, thousands of them, sent and received by Dan Grant. Zain had managed to access those that Dan had deleted from his handset, but which had been backed up by his provider to the cloud.

He couldn’t access the data files or photos on the phone; the pin code protected them. He needed the phone physically to get to those.