Ethereum

by N C Mander

  *

  0715, Friday, 7th July, New Scotland Yard, Embankment, London

  Sergeant Nick Walsh gulped down his third coffee of the morning, but his eyes still felt heavy. He had left home at 6.00 a.m., leaving his wife to fend for herself with their crotchety six-month-old. Nick had not slept for the best part of a week, as teeth pushed painfully on his baby’s inflamed gums. Despite her current sleep-deprived monster status, Florence had been all that the besotted father, Nick, could think about. A picture of her smiling face, framed with curly blonde hair, served as his screen saver – a reminder of the most joyful day of his twenty-eight-year life.

  Doug gave him a friendly slap on the back as he arrived in the canteen. ‘You look like you haven’t slept in a week,’ he said and pulled out a chair to sit opposite his friend and colleague.

  ‘I haven’t,’ Nick confirmed. ‘Flo’s teething, Shelley’s exhausted …’ he trailed off, realising the futility of trying to explain to his childless, bachelor friend what it was like at home.

  ‘So, are we still trawling through those bloody addresses?’

  ‘Mo’s lot have a lead on two of them. They narrowed it down somehow.’ Up to that point, with limited information with which to whittle down the search, it had been a manual process of visiting and surveilling each address in Barinak Holdings’ inventory. They had worked in order of proximity to the Brooks Road squat. They had got nothing from the first forty-one properties on their list and had already covered the areas of West Ham, East Ham and Canning Town.

  ‘Ahhhh, James Bond strikes again,’ Doug quipped. ‘We had better get going then, hadn’t we?’ Doug shoved the remainder of a ham and cheese croissant into his mouth, and chewing vigorously, he got up. Nick pulled himself to his feet wearily.

  Mo arrived in the canteen looking harassed. ‘Sorry guys,’ he said, breathlessly, ‘I was held up in a briefing.’

  The morning meeting had been a bit of a circus. Mo hadn’t been aware of the previous night’s events until he’d arrived at Thames House and Natalie had given him a whistle-stop account of everything that had happened following her and Jock’s close call with the police in Elephant & Castle. The Grid was gripped in a frenzy of activity when Mo arrived, and it took some time for Tanya, who, to Mo’s surprise, was chairing the morning’s meeting, to get through all the briefing notes.

  He was relieved to see that Doug and Nick hadn’t hit the road without him. Although he knew that the two policemen themselves were not vindictive, Mo wouldn’t have put it past Colchester to engineer things such that Mo was left twiddling his thumbs in the incident room for another day, especially after everything that had happened overnight. Since Monday’s tense meeting with Kat and Colchester, Mo’s week had been tedious. He’d been out on the surveillance operation on Tuesday and Wednesday, but the previous day had missed his ride, having been waylaid by Kat’s morning brief and spent a monotonous day at a desk in the incident room, trying to work out a better way of prioritising the property search.

  ‘Any news from your lot?’ Doug asked as the three men made their way to the car park.

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Not really,’ Nick repeated, and nudged Doug with an elbow. ‘That’s James Bond-speak for there is some news but nothing he can divulge to mere plods like us.’

  Mo laughed it off. He was a little surprised to discover that neither Nick nor Doug knew of the issues that had arisen between their institutions overnight or that a major arrest was planned for the coming afternoon. Mo marvelled at Colchester’s management style and felt grateful for Kat and Tanya’s enlightened approach, whereby, notwithstanding security clearance levels, the team, from lowly analyst upward, were kept apprised of all operational developments. ‘You never know where a good idea might come from,’ Tanya always said. ‘Just because you’ve been at your desk the longest doesn’t mean your eyes are any better.’

  That afternoon promised to be a busy one, and Mo was already anxious to learn of the outcome of Jamie’s arrest. Like the rest of F-section, he harboured doubts on whether it was the right move. He turned his focus to the first address secured from Barinak Holdings and tried to put thoughts of Jamie’s arrest out of his mind. ‘St Joseph’s Court, Carpenter’s Road,’ he instructed Doug. He put the car in gear, and as he pulled out of the car park, Mo grasped the two policemen on the shoulder and said, ‘This is it, lads. Today’s the day we find the buggers.’

  They crawled through traffic on the A11 for forty-five minutes and arrived at the first property well after 10.00 a.m.

  *

  1156, Friday 7th July, Thames House, Westminster, London

  Kat threw her phone across her desk in disgust. ‘What’s the news?’ Colin asked, not taking his eyes off his screen.

  ‘They went ahead with the arrest.’ She’d just hung up the phone on a junior officer in Colchester’s team, who had been instructed to let Kat know that Colchester would be interrogating the suspect once he’d had some lunch.

  ‘Did they go with the money laundering charge?’

  ‘Yes, thank goodness. But I doubt our true targets have fallen for that cover story.’ Kat perched on the desk next to Colin. ‘Since I’ve got a bit of time whilst Colchester enjoys his lunch, what have you got for me on Yousuf?’

  ‘I can confidently say that Yousuf is the pseudonym for Kerim Dastan. We know that Dastan had a line in forged documents, it was one of the reasons for denying his brother a visa. He definitely hasn’t left the country by traditional means under either identity, and there’s no reports on the wires of anyone matching his description arriving in Skagen which would be the most likely unofficial route out for him.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s gone far though if he’s running VIPERSNEST. Keep an eye on that bank account for activity. And start scanning CCTV around the Barinak office and the home address Gurbuz gave us. Let’s see if we can’t build a picture of his movements. Gurbuz said he’d last seen him on Thursday, a week ago.’

  Colin nodded and scribbled himself a note. ‘On it.’

  ‘Right, I’m off. Let’s see what Jamie has to say. Maybe we’ve got it all wrong, and he’ll confess it all and give us the attack location.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind being wrong if that were the case.’

  As she walked to Scotland Yard, Kat dialled Edison for the umpteenth time without success.

  *

  1245, Friday 7th July, New Scotland Yard, Westminster, London

  Kat crowded into the anteroom with Colchester and two detective constables. The one-way glass revealed their suspect, Jamie Dunn, his head was bowed, and his hands were clasped around the top of his head. He cut a dejected figure.

  ‘Has he been advised of the revised charges?’ Colchester asked.

  ‘Yes,’ replied one of the constables who’d been introduced to Kat as Jason Morley.

  ‘Did he say anything when you told him about the terrorism charges?’ Kat queried.

  ‘His eyeballs nearly fell out of his head. He said something about messed-up code.’

  ‘We had better get on with it then.’ Colchester sounded gleeful. He rubbed his hands. ‘Time we let this little shit know just how much trouble he’s in.’

  ‘Michael,’ Kat interjected, Colchester’s hand was already on the door handle, ready to enter the interview room. He looked down his nose at her, surprised to be addressed by his first name. Kat ploughed on, ‘We need information. If he has any, we really can’t afford for him to clam up.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me how to conduct this interview, young lady?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Kat pulled her shoulders back unwilling to be intimidated by the senior policeman.

  ‘Good. Let’s go, Morley.’ He pulled open the door and Kat watched through the glass as he strode into the room. Jamie looked up as he entered. His eyes were red, and his face was drained of all colour. The observers saw Colchester mouth an introduction.

  ‘Can we get some sound?’ Kat said.

  The policeman fi
ddled with the control panel, and they heard Colchester and Morley introducing themselves for the purposes of the tape. Colchester pulled back a chair noisily, sat down and leaned back, his arms crossed in a practised pose. Detective Morley took the seat next to him, placing a khaki folder on the table in front of him and sitting forward, his fingers laced together in front of him. ‘Please could the suspect confirm his name for the tape?’

  ‘Jamie Dunn,’ Jamie muttered. The detective asked him to confirm his address, and Jamie gave the address in Elephant & Castle that Edison had watched him go back to three days ago. Reminded of the events of earlier in the week, Kat wondered how only a few days had passed. She took a long draught of the coffee she’d managed to secure from the canteen.

  ‘Thank you.’ Detective Morley went on, ‘At this point, I’d like to remind you that you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?’

  Jamie nodded.

  ‘I must ask you to confirm your understanding verbally, Mr Dunn.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jamie croaked, fresh tears welling up in his eyes. To Kat, he looked younger than his twenty-four years. The interview room had diminished him from the cocky, self-assured young man Edison had described.

  ‘Jamie Dunn, you have been arrested on suspicion of financing terrorism acts and money laundering in relation to terrorism acts.’

  Jamie shook his head violently and opened his mouth, ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  From his reclined pose, Colchester fixed his eyes on Jamie. ‘I find that very hard to believe, Jamie.’ Colchester paused, leant forward and jammed a finger on the folder that lay in front of Morley. ‘In here, I have the details of every trade made at Penwill & Mallinson. Every time BitCoin left the fund. Every time Ethereum arrived in the accounts. Dates. Times. All neatly recorded on an immutable ledger. Very neat. Now, I can cross-reference those transactions with the accounts for the fund. What do you think I will find, Jamie?’

  More silence from across the table. Jamie looked, aghast, from one police officer to the other and back again.

  Colchester took a deep breath. ‘You see, Jamie, it’s possible that you had no idea why you were syphoning off the money with your fancy algorithm.’ Colchester eyed his suspect who was staring at the table, his shoulders were rounded.

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ a whisper escaped Jamie’s lips.

  He’s terrified, thought Kat. He’s been stitched up. Damn it, Edison, couldn’t you have worked out who was pulling his strings already?

  Colchester pounced. His tone softened slightly, ‘That’s what I thought. You didn’t know what the money was being used for. Is that right?’

  Silence on the other side of the table.

  ‘Someone paid you a decent wad of cash to sort all this out, and you were seduced by the money on offer. I don’t blame you there, didn’t ask any questions. Is that right?’

  More silence.

  ‘What I need to know is who asked you to do this?’

  Finally, Jamie snapped. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about! My code was a mess. Something kept on going wrong. Every time I tried to clean it up, the bottom fell out of it again. I really don’t know what you’re talking about … syphoning off funds … financing terrorists … I just don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’

  Colchester stood up suddenly, slamming his palms on the table. Everyone around the table jumped. ‘Listen,’ Colchester roared. ‘I’m not buying that. What a load of bullshit. Believe me, the charges we will bring against you will see you behind bars for the rest of your life.’

  Jamie looked disorientated. It was as though the parties in the interrogation room were having two different conversations. He looked around as if seeking someone who might listen to him.

  ‘It was just … I didn’t want anyone to know I couldn’t fix it. I pulled copies. Took it home to try to get to the bottom of what was going on. But every time I uploaded it again, there was another bug … another glitch … I can’t … I don’t see … how …’

  On the other side of the glass, Kat muttered, ‘I’m wasting my time.’

  As she left the room, she heard, over the tinny intercom, Morley clearing his throat and saying, ‘Interview paused at fifteen forty-seven.’

  A junior police constable entered the room and escorted Jamie back to a cell. Colchester swept through the anteroom without stopping. ‘Don’t think we’ll get anything more from him today,’ Kat heard him say to Morley as they retreated down the corridor.

  You’re not going to get anything more from him, full stop, she thought.

  As she left the building, she switched on her phone. It rang immediately.

  ‘Kat, it’s Colin.’ He sounded breathless and excited, ‘We’ve got a lead on Yousuf.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  1343, Friday, 7th July, Moniedubh Estate, nr. North Ballachulish, Lochaber

  The sign for the Moniedubh Estate was faded and almost totally obscured by moss, but Edison didn’t need it. He turned onto the familiar potholed drive on auto-pilot. On one side of the track, the land banked steeply upwards, but on the other, the heathered hillside sloped gently toward the main road from where he’d come. The land disappeared over a ridge a few hundred yards away, and beyond, Edison could see the water of Loch Leven, cold and grey, reflecting the menacing ash-coloured skies above. He could feel his heart beating faster.

  Edison’s hire car bounced over the uneven surface. Occasionally, he had to swerve to avoid the sheep that galloped out in front of him without warning. Having driven for about three miles, he rounded a bend and saw, some way up the road, a squat, stone-built house, topped by a chimney pot from which a spire of smoke came. Edison briefly considered reversing back around the corner and out of sight to continue his journey on foot, but the thought came to him too late as a man, dressed in heavy khaki trousers, an oilskin jacket and sturdy boots, appeared from the front door of the little house.

  Edison pulled the car up a short distance from where the man stood. He hauled himself out of the car and pulled his jacket around him against the breeze. It was cold, and the morning’s bright sunshine in Inverness had given way to a blanket of cloud as Edison had driven west. He took a deep breath. The smell of the peat fire filled his lungs, and a fierce wind whipped at his hair. The man made no move to greet Edison as he approached. Edison tried desperately to remember his name.

  ‘Mr Edison. You’re here to visit Sir Donald, I don’t doubt?’ the man said once Edison was close enough for the words to reach him without being lost to the wind.

  ‘Macarthur, yes, is he home?’ Edison replied, the gatekeeper’s name rolled off Edison’s tongue, dragged from the depths of his memory. He tried to keep his face neutral. Only for the first time considering the possibility that the man he had travelled the length of the country to visit might not be in.

  ‘Aye, doesn’t get away much these days,’ the man replied.

  ‘How are you keeping?’

  ‘It’s been awful quiet of late.’ The two men considered each other briefly. ‘You’re up from London then? He doesn’t get many visitors. Just the occasional suit comes through. Business affairs, apparently.’ A phone sounded from the depths of the gatekeeper’s cottage, and Edison’s opportunity to press for more information on Hughes’ business associates evaporated. Macarthur hurried back into the lodge, and the shrill noise stopped. He reappeared soon afterwards. ‘He says he’s been expecting you.’

  Edison felt his blood freeze in his veins as a jolt of adrenalin shot through him. He felt light-headed. How did he know he was coming?

  The gatekeeper laughed when he saw Edison’s horrified expression. ‘He’s got a mighty strong pair of binoculars, you know. You can see the house from here.’ He pointed up the road to where Edison could just make out a large familiar building. ‘But with those binoculars, he spi
es on the goings on for miles around.’

  Edison relaxed a little, but the shock was enough to remind him to be on his guard. The binoculars were a perfectly reasonable explanation, but it was quite possible that Hughes was keeping tabs on Edison’s movements.

  ‘Right, you best not keep his lordship waiting, as you well know,’ the gatekeeper insisted and ushered Edison back into his hire car.

  Edison wound down the window before pulling away, ‘Is the Drovers Inn still the best pub in the village?’

  ‘Aye,’ Macarthur eyed him warily. ‘I would avoid anywhere further up the loch, tends to be a bit touristy.’ Edison filed the information carefully away and put the car in gear. He approached the house with trepidation.

  *

  Hughes was standing, straight-backed and head held high, in the shadow of the imposing mansion. He was flanked by two large dogs – one lay at his feet whilst the other sat back on its haunches, looking as proud as his master. The enormous double doors, one of which was slightly ajar, rose behind him, framing the portrait.

  From Edison’s vantage point behind the wheel, he could see Sir Donald Hughes watching his approach. He killed the engine and opened the door, not taking his gaze from the man in front of the house. He was now approaching, the two dogs trotting obediently at his side. When the lurchers saw who it was they broke rank and threw themselves affectionately at Edison. He squatted down and fondled them.

  ‘Eddie,’ Sir Donald Hughes said, with what appeared to be genuine enthusiasm, ‘what a truly delightful surprise. If you had called ahead, I would have made sure your welcome was a little warmer, but as it is, I’ve just returned from a romp with the hounds, so you will have to forgive my appearance.’

  ‘Well, I was visiting Charlie – he’s on holiday near Inverness – and I couldn’t not drop in, Don.’ Responding to Hughes’ effusions, Edison threw on a cover act and prayed his bravado looked authentic. He had steeled himself for a cool reception, filled with suspicion. Was it possible, Edison wondered, that Hughes didn’t know that he was the whistle-blower? Surely not.