Gareth Dawson Series Box Set

by Nathan Burrows

  As she drove to the small town a few miles north of Norwich, her thoughts drifted to the future. When she had realised quite how comfortable she would be, financially speaking, when Philip’s life insurance came through it had almost given her a new lease of life. She laughed when she remembered watching a film a while ago about a middle-aged woman who had run off to Cyprus or Greece or somewhere to start a fresh life.

  “Shirley bloody Valentine!” she exclaimed when she remembered the name of the film. It was Greece, and the woman had ended up with some bronzed local bloke for a while. Annette was hardly middle-aged, but the idea of a bronzed local was very appealing. All she needed to do was to make her current problem go away and leave her to get on with her life. Her new life.

  Annette parked her car outside Roy’s of Wroxham, the large department store that technically wasn’t in Wroxham but Hoveton—the neighbouring village—and made her way through the tourists along Station Road. As she made her way through a small wooded area that bordered the river, the tourists grew fewer until she reached her destination. It was a small cut alongside the River Bure that only locals knew about—much like the fact that Roy’s was actually in Hoveton. She walked down the gravel path to the end of the cut where there was a rarely used bench.

  She ate her sandwiches in solitude, throwing the crusts into the water. It wasn’t long before there were numerous birds fighting over them, so she spent the next few moments throwing the stale bread into the river. Some of it she balled up in her hands to throw to the smaller birds on the fringes of the throng.

  When the birds had dispersed in search of more food elsewhere on the river, Annette reached into her pocket for the Nokia mobile. It was time. She breathed in deeply and composed a text to R.

  This is Annette McGuire.

  55

  Ronnie sighed and rolled over on his bed. The air-conditioning had broken the previous day and, although he had reported it to his landlord, he wasn’t hopeful that it was going to be fixed anytime soon. The temperature was only in the mid-twenties, down from the low thirties earlier that afternoon, but it was the humidity that was irritating Ronnie more than the heat. He was covered from head to toe in a thin sheen of perspiration that turned into a flood at the slightest bit of activity.

  On the other side of the room was a well-worn table kept steady by a small book under one leg. There were two phones lined up on the scarred formica top—his new main phone and a burner. The burner belonged to the bitch McGuire, and in a drawer set under the table were the other disposable phones he’d traded in his iPhone for. All being well, one of them would be set up for the new mark in Chester. Ronnie had agreed a suitable price for the man’s details with the vendor. All he needed now was the money from McGuire.

  If she paid him what he had asked, then he could pay Sukarba his blood money and still have six thousand left. The man in Chester would cost five grand to start the chase, so his bank balance would increase by a grand. He could survive on that for months in Bali. Ronnie could even move to a better apartment and still have enough to get by on. He might need to lower his standards slightly in terms of entertainment, but seeing as the local police were all over him, probably taking a break from his particular pleasure for a while wouldn’t be a bad idea.

  Ronnie had spent a couple of hours that afternoon in an Internet cafe looking for alternative places to live. He had found a discussion board on TOR that was full of suggestions for potential locations that catered for people with needs like his. Thailand was the obvious one, but the fact that it was so well known for tourists such as Ronnie also made it a target for the authorities. He had briefly looked at other locations. India was up and coming, as was The Gambia with its Smiling Coast, but the appeal wasn’t really there for him in either of those places.

  He had, Ronnie considered, three options. He could stay here, pay Sukarba, and hope for the best. He could pay the bent copper his asking price and then disappear with the rest of the money. It wouldn’t go as far if he had to move location, but he could reappear under the radar of the local authorities. Or he could just take the money and run once the bitch paid up. That was by far the riskiest option.

  Ronnie jumped slightly as one of the phones on the table vibrated. He knew it wasn’t his own phone as he’d not set that to vibrate.

  “You must be fucking psychic,” he muttered as he got to his feet. Assuming it was her that had just messaged him, that was, and not some random marketing text. As he sat down at the table, he moved the mouse to wake up his computer. Ronnie glanced at the phone and saw that it was a text message from McGuire. “Come to Daddy, you little slut.”

  Ronnie clicked on a folder on his desktop. Inside the folder were a series of images, all quite innocent, of his marks. Both previous and present. There was nothing in the photographs to arouse suspicion if anyone else looked at them, not like the others in the cloud. He found the one he’d named McGuire and double clicked on it.

  The screen changed to show the photograph of McGuire and her husband. It was, he reflected, his favourite photograph of her. The nervousness in her face, and the smugness in his. Ronnie looked at her face for a few seconds, imagining all sorts of things—none complementary or even consensual—before he picked up the Nokia phone and pressed one of the buttons.

  This is Annette McGuire.

  She was the only person who had this number. Of course it was her. Despite his disdain, Ronnie could feel himself getting excited as he re-read the message. He tapped out a reply, taking a few moments over it due to the awkward buttons on the phone.

  Have you got the money? There was no point messing about. In Ronnie’s experience, once a mark had made contact they’d already decided to pay up. The only question left was whether this one would pay the full amount. Ronnie fanned himself with a magazine while he waited for a reply. It took less than a minute.

  Yes. How do I know that when I’ve paid you, you’ll go away?

  Ronnie smiled when he thought that thousands of miles away, the slut McGuire was thinking about him. Texting him. He couldn’t help but wonder where she was, and what she was wearing. Perhaps, he thought as his smile broadened, she wasn’t wearing much at all?

  You’ll just have to trust me. I’ll deliver a hard drive with the only copies of the material as proof.

  It was, Ronnie knew, scant reassurance. There was no way she could know whether the drive had the only copies available, not in this day and age. Besides, he had no intention of sending one, anyway. You just never knew when they might come in useful.

  How do I pay?

  Ronnie entered his bank account details and double checked them to make sure they were correct. He sent the message and followed it up with another.

  Text this number when you’ve made the payment.

  He took the phone back to the bed and lay back down. Just crossing the room made him break out in a sweat, and he tried fanning himself again with the magazine, but all it did was move humid air around the room. When the phone buzzed again and he read the message on the screen, none of that mattered anymore.

  Okay. I’ll do it today.

  56

  Gareth sat back in his chair, which squealed in protest.

  “What do you mean, nothing?” he asked Dave who was sitting opposite him staring forlornly at the screen of Philip’s laptop.

  “I mean exactly that, there’s nothing on it.”

  “There must be something,” Gareth replied.

  “If there was, boss,” Dave said, “I’d have found it. That’s what you pay me so well to do.”

  Irritated at Dave’s sarcasm, Gareth retorted.

  “Well, I might move you onto a performance-related pay scale. See how you enjoy going hungry.”

  “Gareth,” Laura said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “if there’s nothing there, there’s nothing there.”

  “There should be something, though,” Gareth replied. “Something for Bill Gates over there to find. Who has an empty computer?”

  �
�There are a few bits and pieces on it,” Dave said, looking down at the screen to avoid Gareth’s eyes. “But it’s all business stuff. Invoices for scuba diving lessons, receipts for stuff he’s bought. But it’s what’s not there that’s interesting.”

  “So what’s not there?” Gareth asked.

  “There’s no browsing history for a start. He’d set his browser to delete the history and cookies when he closes it, but even then there would be traces. Unless he used an anonymous browser like The Onion Router.”

  “E-mail?”

  “No account’s been set up on the computer, so he must have used a web account.”

  “Which you can’t find?”

  “No, Gareth. I can’t.”

  “Come on Dave, I need more than that.”

  Dave looked at him, his eyes dark.

  “Tell you what, boss,” he said, flipping the laptop round so that the screen was facing Gareth, “why don’t you find it your bloody self?” He got to his feet and took a deep breath. “I’m going to Costa. Do you want anything?” Gareth was just about to ask for a latte when he realised that Dave had asked Laura, not him.

  “No, thanks,” Laura said.

  When Dave had left, Laura got to her feet and stood behind Gareth. He felt her hands on his shoulders and she started massaging her fingers into the muscle.

  “You’re so tense,” she said, “and you’re taking it out on Dave.”

  “He works for me,” Gareth replied, wincing as Laura’s fingers found a knot of muscle.

  “You keep treating him like that and he won’t for much longer.” Her arms snaked around his neck and she leaned against him. Gareth closed his eyes when he felt her breasts pressed against his back. “Now stop being all grumpy.”

  “That’s nice,” Gareth said when Laura nibbled his ear, teasing his earlobe with her teeth.

  “Are you going to say sorry to Dave?” she whispered.

  “Nope,” Gareth replied with a smile. When Laura bit his earlobe harder, he winced. “Okay, I’ll apologise. But what’s in it for me?”

  “The moral high ground, Mr Dawson,” Laura whispered. “Unless you had something else in mind?”

  “How long do you think Dave’ll be?”

  “Not long enough, even for you.”

  “That’s a low blow.” She kissed his cheek and stood up. He turned to look at her and saw two red patches on her cheeks that he was starting to recognise before she disappeared into the bathroom.

  When Dave returned a few moments later, he was carrying a cardboard tray with three coffees in it and a packet of muffins balanced on the top. He put a cup in front of Gareth and Laura, and the muffins next to them.

  “Peace offering?” Dave said.

  “Accepted,” Gareth replied, “but I need to apologise for being an arse.” He reached into his pocket for his wallet. “Tell you what, let me get these. How much were they?”

  “Er, well,” Dave said, grinning, “I put them on the company card. Seeing as you were being an arse and all.” Laura started giggling, and Gareth knew he was beaten.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, laughing at the pair of them. “Let’s get back to business. Where do we go from here?”

  “Annette didn’t have any hard drives or USB sticks, did she?” Dave asked. Gareth shook his head.

  “No, she said there weren’t. But he could have hidden them somewhere else.”

  “What would you do, Dave?” Laura turned her attention to Dave. “If you wanted to hide something on a computer so that no one else could find it?”

  “What, activity or files?”

  “Both, I guess,” Laura replied, glancing at Gareth. He looked at her reproachful expression and felt bad about getting shirty with Dave.

  “Okay,” Dave said, his voice brightening. “First off, I would put a copy of TOR onto a USB stick and run it from there.”

  “What’s TOR? Is that the onion thing?” Gareth asked.

  “It’s another network which sits on top of the internet and stitches the participating computers together into a wholly new network,” Laura replied, surprising them both.

  Gareth looked at Laura, frowning. How the hell did she know all that? She glanced at her phone before continuing. “When you use it, your traffic is layered in encryption and routed via a random relay. Have I got that right, Dave?”

  “Spot on, Miss Flynn,” Dave replied with a broad grin. “It's wrapped in another layer of encryption. That's done three times across a decentralised network of nodes called a circuit.”

  “Are you keeping up, Gareth?” Laura was also smiling, and Gareth suddenly felt completely out of his depth. Which he was. He looked again at Laura, and could see that she was trying not to laugh.

  “You just googled that in the toilet, didn’t you?” Her face wrinkled, and she started laughing.

  “Objection, Your Honour,” she said to Dave. “Counsel is badgering the witness.”

  “Sustained,” Dave replied, also laughing.

  “For God’s sake, you two. Stop ganging up on me.” He grinned at them both. “So, the onion thing on a USB stick. What next?”

  “Well,” Dave replied, “that would mean that I could use a browser safely. And if I can use a browser safely, then I can use it to access secure services in the cloud.”

  “So you could keep everything off the grid?” Gareth asked.

  “Yep, everything. I would hide it so deep no-one could ever find it.” He pointed at Philip’s computer. “Which would mean that my own computer is completely clean.”

  “So it’s a dead end?”

  “Yep. As a do-do.”

  Gareth sighed. That meant that they wouldn’t be able to trace whoever was blackmailing Philip through his laptop. He knew it had been a long shot, but he’d hoped that Dave could find something. An e-mail, perhaps, or an instant messaging conversation. The only thing they had left was the virtual copy of Annette’s computer, but he and Dave couldn’t talk about that in front of Laura.

  “Well, if we can’t find anything on his computer, then neither can the police. That can only be a good thing for Annette, right?”

  57

  Annette waved dutifully at the children on the hire boat as it made its way past her. There were two of them, both no more than six or seven, and they were wearing bulky orange life jackets. Their parents had decided against wearing theirs, so the children were using them as cushions. On the side of the boat was the name of the hire company with a large bluebird logo.

  Behind the wheel, the father was concentrating hard on his duties as captain, although the boat was only twenty feet long and the speed limit on most of the River Bure was four miles an hour to avoid any wash disturbing the fragile environment. The woman with the children raised a hand in greeting before grabbing one of the children as he or she—Annette was too far away to tell—got too close to the edge of the boat. The child shrieked with laughter, causing some nearby ducks to take flight which only caused more laughter.

  She watched as the family made their gradual way along the river, wondering where they were going. It was a day hire boat, so they wouldn’t be going far. Maybe a few miles down the river toward Norwich, moor up somewhere for a picnic lunch and a leg stretch, and then back to Wroxham. Annette would have changed places with the woman in the boat in an instant. A normal husband. A family. A day when the only thing to worry about was where to have lunch and whether there would be a toilet there for the kids.

  As she watched the boat turn the corner of the cut, Annette looked back at her phone. She still had the text message that she had sent R on the screen.

  Okay. I’ll do it today.

  Annette jiggled her thigh up and down rapidly, a habit she’d not shaken since childhood. Gareth used to take the piss out of her for it mercilessly, calling her all sorts of names. When she thought of him, she put her burner phone into her handbag and pulled out her own phone to text him.

  Any news?

  A couple of minutes later, she was rewarded with the pho
ne ringing.

  “Hey, little sis,” Gareth said as she answered. “What’re you up to?”

  “I’m in Wroxham, sitting by the river.”

  “Nice. On the cut?”

  “Where else? Did you find anything?”

  “No, not a sausage. It’s as clean as a whistle.”

  Annette’s heart dropped at the news. Gareth had seemed so sure that Dave could find something that might lead to the blackmailer.

  “What about on my computer? The copy of it that Dave took.”

  “Nothing. I mean, we’ve got the e-mail that you were sent, but Dave can’t narrow down where it’s from other than the general area.”

  “So there’s nothing that can be done?”

  “Not really, unless we go to the police.”

  “No. I’m not doing that.”

  “Laura thinks you should.”

  “I know she does, but then everything will come out, won’t it?”

  “Would that be so bad?” Gareth said. His voice was tender, and Annette knew he was trying his best to help her.

  “Yes, Gareth, it would,” she replied, more firmly than she had intended.

  “You’ve done nothing wrong, Annette.”

  “That’s not how people will see it. You know that. The minute the word gets out that Philip was a paedophile, my life will be ruined.”

  “I’ll be able to take care of any problems. I can speak to Big Joe, Tommy. They’ll get the word out to the locals that if they go near you, we’ll be in touch.”

  “I don’t want you to take care of me, Gareth,” Annette said, “and besides, people will know. I won’t be able to walk down the street without people whispering behind my back. You can’t stop that. And I work in children’s services, for God’s sake. How long do you think they’ll keep me for? The wife of a paedophile?”