by M. W. Craven
‘So it might not even be real?’
Poe shrugged. ‘Opinions are divided.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think that when the Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that one hundred and thirty child suicides took place in a six-month period, almost all of them were in the same internet group and they were all from good families.’
‘Jesus … And that’s what we have, a sicker version of Blue Whale?’
Bradshaw changed the screen.
#BSC6
‘The Cowells certainly thought so,’ Bradshaw said. ‘I believe they were selected because of their intense sibling rivalry, which, to anyone who knows where to look for these things, is discoverable online. Robert Cowell says that after they were sent an invitation they ended up daring each other to play. Hashtag BSC1, the first Black Swan Challenge task, was to commit a low-level act of vandalism. Robert destroyed a tree in a local park and his sister went one better and slashed a police vehicle’s tyre.’
‘And that’s it? It escalated into murder?’ Nightingale said.
‘No, Detective Superintendent Nightingale,’ Bradshaw said. She changed the screen again. A chatroom exchange appeared.
‘This is where the Black Swan and Blue Whale Challenge differ. Whereas administrators in the Blue Whale Challenge manipulated their victims using the psychological techniques I mentioned earlier – induction, habituation and preparation – the administrator in the Black Swan Challenge simply used blackmail. This is a screenshot of an exchange Robert Cowell had with him. As you can see, when he logged on for the next task, he was told that malware had been inserted into his computer and that he had to keep playing or all his files and personal information would be made public. I’ve run a diagnostic check and, although there was no virus, Robert Cowell clearly believed there was.’
‘What was it he needed to stay secret?’
‘That’s just the thing, Detective Superintendent Nightingale: I couldn’t find anything on his computer that would make Robert Cowell susceptible to blackmail.’
‘Nothing?’
Bradshaw shook her head.
‘So why did—’
‘His perception is his reality,’ Poe said. ‘Even if he didn’t have anything on his computer he could have been blackmailed over, he obviously thought he did.’
He and Bradshaw had already had this discussion. He privately agreed with Nightingale – that someone with nothing to hide couldn’t be easily threatened – but she’d persuaded him that vulnerable people didn’t have the same cognitive processes as him.
‘And that was enough to blackmail him into committing murder, was it?’ Nightingale said, shaking her head. ‘Please tell me it’s not that easy, Miss Bradshaw.’
‘I can,’ Bradshaw replied. ‘The administrator also applied similar techniques to Blue Whale. Between each challenge, which got progressively more serious, he had them watching videos. Instead of horror films though it was war crimes, beheadings and executions. Instead of desensitising them against pain and the fear of death, he desensitised them against violence and the consequences of violence.’
‘What were the other challenges?’
‘We’ve prepared a briefing pack, ma’am,’ Poe said, ‘but essentially the second and third were more of the same. Nuisance stuff mainly. It wasn’t until the fourth challenge that it started to get serious …’
Chapter 43
#BSC1, 2 and 3 had been low-level offences, annoying to anyone directly involved, but although they were on the wrong side of criminal behaviour, they weren’t on the wrong side of public opinion.
#BSC4 changed all that. When Robert Cowell had told Poe what he and Rhona had done, it had taken every ounce of willpower he had not to slap him in front of his solicitor.
Instead he’d called a break and walked up to the dog section to see Edgar. As he’d stroked the spaniel’s soft ears, he thought about what Cowell had told him. Had it been enough to set him on the path to murder?
Although he knew he might be biased, Poe thought if someone was capable of stealing a wounded soldier’s prosthetic limb they were probably capable of anything …
The Cowells had travelled across the A66 to Catterick Garrison and made their way to Phoenix House, the recovery centre run by Help for Heroes. Posing as family members they’d tricked their way into the hydrotherapy pool where Robert had stolen the trans-femoral prosthetic leg of a Royal Marine who’d had an above-knee amputation after stepping on a landmine in Helmand Province. Rhona had recorded him. The video was on the cloud and Cowell gave Poe the password.
As Cowell described posing for a selfie with the leg outside Phoenix House before discarding it in a ditch on the A66, Poe’s grip on the edge of the table tightened until his knuckles turned white. A marine’s independence, fly-tipped like a piss-stained mattress. Willpower aside, if Cowell had smirked once, or allowed his expression to be anything other than conciliatory, Poe didn’t think he’d have had it in him not to launch himself across the table and pull his face off.
‘Anyway, I’ve called North Yorkshire Police and they have a report on file,’ Poe told Nightingale. ‘Rhona Cowell still hasn’t said anything of substance but Robert has signed a statement saying they were both involved so you should be able to bring charges against them both. Even if she denies it, you can hear her egging him on in the video.’
Nightingale nodded in satisfaction. Although Robert Cowell wasn’t going anywhere, things hadn’t been quite as clear-cut for Rhona. They suspected joint enterprise but without evidence she could easily have walked. The theft of the marine’s leg changed all that. Rhona Cowell had more chance of finding a one-ended stick than making bail.
‘What was the fifth challenge, Sergeant Poe?’ the chief constable said.
‘What was the fifth challenge, Robert?’ Poe had asked.
Cowell’s cheeks flushed. He swallowed a couple of times.
‘We played a joke on someone,’ he said.
Poe took some details then stopped the interview. What Cowell had described wasn’t a joke; it was the abduction of a child. Poe checked with the detective inspector observing. There had been an abduction. A five-year-old girl called Lucy had been taken from Chance’s Park in Carlisle. Although she’d been returned unharmed a few hours later, there was still an ongoing police investigation.
The cop leading the abduction investigation was called Rachael Carrigan-King. Poe had known her when he’d been with Cumbria Constabulary. She was a solid, no-frills detective inspector. She’d asked to see Poe before she went in to speak to Cowell.
‘Is he full of it?’
Poe had shrugged. ‘Hard to say. He’s cooperating now but that could be him attempting to condition us before he starts denying the more serious stuff.’
‘Do you believe he abducted my victim?’
‘I believe Robert and his sister abducted someone. Rhona Cowell isn’t talking but Robert has already admitted they stole a Royal Marine’s prosthetic leg and I’ve confirmed that offence took place. A DC from North Yorkshire is on his way now to interview him.’
‘It must be my victim then,’ Carrigan-King had said. ‘Lucy’s our only open abduction investigation.’
‘And she wasn’t harmed?’
‘Not at all. She was taken from Chance’s Park on Wigton Road. She’d been chasing a dog and her mum wasn’t paying attention. Lucy said that a man with a long coat gave her some sweets then just drove her around in his car. Dropped her off at Houghton Hall Garden Centre. She was only gone three hours. Didn’t even know people were looking for her.’
They’d chatted for ten more minutes, then spent half an hour reviewing the interview footage.
It took forty-five minutes for Carrigan-King to get everything she needed. Cowell hadn’t held anything back. Hadn’t tried to minimise the impact his actions had had on Lucy’s family, the wider community and the already stretched resources of the police. Didn’t offer any mitigation. Just told her that he and
his sister had been forced into doing challenges and abducting a little girl had been the next one.
Chapter 44
‘Surely there’s a point where the blackmail threshold is passed,’ Nightingale said when Poe had finished.
He knew what she meant. Whatever it was on his computer that Robert didn’t want made public – and Bradshaw still hadn’t found anything – it couldn’t possibly be worse than the offences he was committing to keep it private.
‘Ordinarily I’d agree with you, ma’am,’ Poe replied. ‘But I think there was also some sibling rivalry at play, and by this time our man had successfully subverted any moral code that either of them had left. It seems implausible but the evidence is compelling – when it came to the sixth challenge they were both willing participants.’
‘What does he say about the murders?’
Poe invited Bradshaw to take the room through the final challenge.
‘Thank you, Poe,’ she said. She sent another image to the monitor. ‘This is a screenshot that Robert Cowell took of a conversation he had with the site administrator. It took place in an untraceable private chatroom.’
She blew up a section of dialogue near the bottom.
SITE ADMIN: THIS IS YOUR FINAL TASK. DO THIS AND YOU’VE SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED THE BLACK SWAN CHALLENGE.
RC: WHAT IS IT THIS TIME?
SITE ADMIN: KILL A STRANGER. DISPLAY THEIR BODY PARTS.
RC:
‘Robert hadn’t replied when he took this screenshot so we don’t know how he responded,’ Bradshaw continued.
‘And it’s hardly subtle,’ Poe said. ‘Kill a stranger? Tilly and I were expecting something a bit more … I dunno, psychologically complex.’
Bradshaw nodded. ‘This instruction has none of the induction, habituation or preparation associated with Blue Whale.’
‘It did the job, though, it seems,’ Nightingale said. ‘I gather he’s denying the murders?’
‘Absolutely,’ Poe replied. ‘Said that as soon as he saw the final challenge he took a screenshot then turned off his computer. Claims he hasn’t had any contact with the site administrator since then.’
‘Why didn’t he come to us?’
‘He couldn’t. Not without his other crimes being exposed.’
‘Convenient,’ Nightingale said. ‘And he’s still claiming his kite was stolen?’
‘He is.’
‘What about the printer test-page you found in his bin?’
‘He has no explanation for it. Didn’t even try to account for it.’
‘He didn’t try to shift the blame onto his sister?’
‘No. Said that she’s innocent as well.’
Nightingale turned to the chief constable.
‘I think we’re in a good position to take it to the CPS, ma’am. We have enough to charge Robert Cowell with murder. We’ll charge Rhona with abduction but keep investigating her.’
The chief constable said, ‘Poe, you were in the room with him – what are the obvious sticking points?’
Poe considered the question for a few moments.
‘I don’t know why he killed three people when the instruction was just to “kill a stranger” and I don’t know why he used different methods to amputate the fingers. If the yellow dot tracking didn’t link him directly to all three murders I’d have said that the Cowells weren’t the only people playing the Black Swan Challenge.’
‘Could Rhona Cowell be behind all this?’
‘I thought that, ma’am, but if she is, why expose herself?’ Poe said. ‘She’s almost certainly going to prison for the abduction.’
The chief constable nodded. ‘Anything else?’ she said.
‘I’d like the printer,’ Poe replied. ‘Cowell’s defence is going to be that he’s being framed – it’s his only option – and by saying his kite was stolen he’s already sowing the seeds for that. If we find the printer we negate a large part of his strategy.’
‘Where are we on tracing this administrator, Tilly?’ Nightingale said. ‘Tell me you have some good news?’
‘No, Detective Superintendent Nightingale,’ she replied. ‘He’s used his own websites to host the chatrooms in which he spoke to Robert Cowell and presumably anyone else playing the Black Swan Challenge. This is the URL for one of them.’
She brought up a fresh screen.
dhwehi234o8757o4632obf.onion
‘I’m assuming that’s a dark web address?’
Bradshaw nodded. ‘They all are.’
‘You said he used more than one?’
‘It was like a game of whack-a-mole. He would use a site for a limited period of time then shut it down. As soon as he did, another would immediately go live.’
‘What’s that “onion” thing at the end of the URL?’
‘That’s the TOR extension. It’s how he hosts his websites.’
‘TOR?’
‘The Onion Router. It’s free software that enables anonymous communication. TOR directs internet traffic through thousands of relays, which makes it difficult to trace the user’s location. He hosted all his Black Swan Challenge chatrooms on the TOR Network.’
Poe didn’t pretend to understand what Bradshaw was saying but he silently cursed the dark and deep web – the 96 per cent of the web that wasn’t discoverable with standard search engines such as Google. Living at Herdwick Croft, he had every sympathy for anyone wanting to protect their privacy, but as far as he could tell, the dark web was just a marketplace for weapons, drugs, hitmen and indecent images of children. And now serial killers by proxy had started using it. As if their job wasn’t hard enough already.
‘You said difficult to trace, not impossible?’ Nightingale said.
‘I can normally trace the user’s IP address using TOR entry and exit points but in this case all we ended up with was this.’
Bradshaw reached down and retrieved a paper evidence bag. One of the brown ones with a clear window. It contained a flat piece of electrical equipment.
‘This is a single-board computer,’ she said. ‘It is basically a computer where all the components it needs to be functional have been built into a single circuit board. It has microprocessors, storage and memory. Single-board computers are normally embedded into larger devices like ATM machines, cash registers and medical equipment, but anyone can buy one. They are not expensive. The model in the evidence bag can be bought online for under thirty pounds.’
Bradshaw changed the image on the monitor again. The exterior of a scruffy-looking guesthouse appeared on the screen. It looked like the type that specialised in the transient and hard-to-house population. It would be skimming money from their housing benefit and would have police officers there every other week.
‘This is on the outskirts of Carlisle. I traced this single-board computer to a bedroom on the top floor. It had been plugged in, connected to their free wi-fi network then hidden under the floorboards. It was recovered not an hour earlier. The guesthouse owner had no idea it was there.’
Nightingale had already been briefed on this part but she asked the question for the benefit of those who hadn’t.
‘And this is as far as you can trace?’
‘It is. He managed it remotely for a short period of time then moved on to the next one he’d hidden. After he’d finished with this he remotely factory reset it, so we are struggling to recover any digital evidence. I have traced five computers in total. I understand detectives and CSI teams are recovering the remaining four as we speak.’
He’d been clever and chosen guesthouses on the outskirts of town as CCTV didn’t cover them and, unlike the bigger hotels, their wi-fi networks weren’t protected by security systems such as guest portals, firewalls or logging systems. Bradshaw said that they could have been placed there at any time and, as long as they remained plugged into a power source, could remain there indefinitely. Nightingale had a new line of enquiry but Poe didn’t think the man they were now hunting would be careless enough to leave actionable evidence at any of the lo
cations.
‘I suppose it’s possible he still has single-board computers he hasn’t brought online yet?’ the chief constable said.
Bradshaw nodded. ‘And we have no way of knowing how many. He could have been planning this for years and they can be anywhere in the world. The five we located were in Carlisle but the sixth could be in Mumbai.’
Nightingale stood to address the room.
‘Thank you, Miss Bradshaw, and thank you, Sergeant Poe. Are there any questions before we move on to tasking?’
There weren’t.
Poe stayed behind to talk to Nightingale. To his surprise, Flynn joined them. If she had managed to rest, the effect was negligible: she still looked tired and swollen. She was wearing trainers so big it looked as though she’d stolen them from a clown.
‘Boss? What you doing here?’ Poe checked his watch. It was coming up to 10 p.m.
‘Tilly’s briefed me on what’s going on.’ She turned to Nightingale and said, ‘Ma’am, I hope you don’t mind but this is potentially a national public safety issue and I need to get involved. It’s contained in Cumbria for now but it might not stay that way.’
‘I could do with the support to be honest, DI Flynn,’ Nightingale replied. ‘What do you need from me?’
‘I’ve arranged for Poe to meet someone in Public Health for Cumbria first thing tomorrow. Apparently he’s the council’s lead on Blue Whale. I’m happy if you want to send someone with him.’
‘I will, thanks.’
Flynn turned back to Poe. ‘Before I forget, someone called …’ – she reached into her pocket and read a note written on North Lakes Hotel stationery – ‘Melody Lee rang for you.’
‘Unusual name,’ he said.
‘You not paid your tab at Rouge, Poe?’ Nightingale asked.
He laughed. Rouge was Carlisle’s only pole-dancing club. ‘She leave a message?’
‘Just a mobile number and a request that you ring her ASAP.’ She passed the information across.
He glanced at it. It was a strange number. Thirteen digits instead of eleven, it also began with 001 instead of 07. It wasn’t a UK mobile, that much was clear.