Elena listened, wide-eyed, as my mother read. I glanced sideways and watched her expression of rapt attention. After five minutes, Cathy appeared in the doorway.
Elena patted the mattress on the opposite side. “Come on, Cathy, it’s the magic tree.”
We squashed up until all three of us were sitting abreast with Elena sandwiched in the middle.
My mother waited until we had stopped fidgeting. “Just like the three children in the book.”
“I’m obviously Joe,” I said.
“I’ll be Beth,” Elena announced.
“Who does that make me?” Cathy asked.
“Frannie,” Elena and I replied in chorus.
Cathy shook her head. “I'm not sure if that’s good or bad. Let’s hear it then.”
My mother resumed the story. Ten minutes later, the chapter ended.
“But I want to know what happens next,” Elena said.
“You’ll have to be patient and wait until tomorrow night.”
Cathy lowered her feet to the carpet. “Or read it yourself.”
Elena considered her sister’s suggestion for a moment before replying. “No, it’s too hard for me. Can I look at the pictures though?”
My mother plucked her from the bed. “Nice try, but it’s time to go to sleep now, young lady. Maybe tomorrow. Give your brother a kiss.”
I stood on the mattress and offered my cheek. Elena’s lips gently touched my skin. I rubbed vigorously at the spot she had kissed. “Ugh.”
Elena squealed with laughter.
“Don’t forget your sister.”
Cathy repeated the act, reducing Elena to a fit of giggles.
“Come on, you little monster,” my mother said, fondly. “That’s enough messing about. Let’s go and brush your teeth.” She carried Elena to the door, pausing to allow for a final goodnight wave.
That was the last time my mother read aloud to us. It was also the last time I saw my baby sister alive.
Chapter 5
I replaced the phone in my pocket and looked down at the notes I had made during the conversation with my brother-in-law. If I was going to pursue this any further, I would need to download the Tor browser. But did I want to discover where the link led? It wouldn’t bother me too much if the site sold drugs. I considered myself fairly liberal minded. Provided it didn’t adversely affect anybody else, I had little interest in what people got up to in the privacy of their own homes.
But what if it was child pornography? There was no question in my mind I would report the matter to the police immediately. I considered anything involving the exploitation of vulnerable children as morally indefensible. As a teacher, I had witnessed first-hand the devastating impact of sexual abuse on a victim. Thankfully, it had only happened once during my teaching career, but it was a traumatic experience for all concerned.
The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I should find out what I had uncovered before deciding how to proceed. For all I knew, the page might be perfectly innocent. The first step was to do some reading. I set about learning everything I could about the dark web. Many of the details went beyond my limited technical experience, but the gist of it was as Jamie had explained. I soon discovered that Tor is an abbreviation of The Onion Router, the different layers of protection analogous to the skin of an onion. The extension on the link now made sense.
I spent plenty of time researching the legality of using the dark web. Whilst not against the law in itself, the tools provided access to a network of sites, many of which involved the sale of illegal goods. One page advised that Internet Service Providers monitored usage of the Tor browser, which might, in turn, invite attention from their support team.
That decided it for me. Despite having no lessons for six weeks, I needed the Internet to access my staff email account and to prepare for the following term. I didn’t want to risk losing such a vital resource. The school provided me with a laptop. It was even more underpowered than my desktop machine, but it was just about capable of running a browser. I would find a place with free Wi-Fi and connect to the dark web from there.
◆◆◆
The Café Corner occupied a spot on a pedestrianised road on the outskirts of the Basingstoke main shopping centre. It offered reasonably priced drinks together with free Internet access. As I pushed through the door, the first thing to strike me was the contradictory image of the place. The wall-mounted television screens, currently displaying a twenty-four-hour news channel, belonged in a sports bar that advertised live football matches. Other aspects of the decor landed somewhere between wine bar and homely tea room, the contradiction summed up by the gurgling coffee machine at one end of the counter and the beer taps at the other.
Clutching the laptop bag under my arm, I ordered a medium-sized Americano and carried the white mug to a table in the corner. The location ensured there would be no unwanted observers. After all, I had no idea where the link would lead. The nearby mains socket provided another advantage. Without an external supply, I would be lucky if the battery lasted over ten minutes.
I inserted the plug in the wall and pressed the power button. The speaker emitted a strangulated beep as the agonisingly slow boot process started. While I waited, I scanned the other customers. At four-thirty on a Monday afternoon, the place was quiet.
Two tables away towards the front window, an exhausted-looking woman cradled a drink between her hands. Several overflowing bags of shopping lay at her feet. Meanwhile, her three-year-old child played with a sugar sachet until it popped open and deposited the contents over the tiled floor. She snatched the empty wrapper from the child’s fingers without saying a word and moved the container holding the rest out of reach. Before the infant could complain, she rummaged in her bag and shoved a cuddly toy between the tiny hands.
Ten feet away on my right, a man in his early twenties hunched over his phone. Sensing my attention, he glanced up briefly then refocused on the handset. At the adjacent table, an elderly couple leaned towards each other, their heads lowered in conversation.
After what seemed an age but was probably only a few minutes, a short sequence of notes announced the laptop’s readiness. I hurriedly muted the sound, typed in the password then opened the wireless connections. Cafe Corner Public headed the list with a signal strength of four concentric rings. I transferred the Wi-Fi security code printed on my receipt and clicked to connect.
Seconds later, I had initiated a browser search and was perusing the results. The first hit pointed to the torproject.org website. I remembered Jamie’s advice to use the official site. This looked like the one. I navigated through the options until I came to a page with a large purple button labelled, Download Tor Browser. After a moment’s hesitation, I tapped the touchpad.
At fifty megabytes, the file wasn’t particularly big. It still took over five minutes to complete the process. No sooner had it finished than I clicked the Run option. After selecting the language as English, the installation progressed without issue. Within moments, I was staring at a window welcoming me to the Tor browser. I removed the scrap of paper from my wallet and placed it on the table in front of me. My half-full cup of lukewarm coffee sat forgotten as I unfolded the note.
I carefully transcribed the text to the address bar. My pulse raced as I debated whether to press the enter key. I drew in a deep breath and held it. Did I really want to do this?
I exhaled and stabbed my finger down onto the keyboard. I’m not sure what I expected, but the untitled white dialogue box requesting a username and password came as a surprise. My world shrank to a bubble around the laptop. I tapped out the characters and clicked the OK button. At first, nothing happened.
After a brief delay, a predominantly monochrome form using a grey palette filled the display. A menu bar occupied the upper area of the screen. It offered two options: Current Jobs and Your Jobs. The blue underlined text revealed I was looking at the former. A rectangle of black lines took up the rest of the page. It was empty apart
from a button containing the word Newest at top centre. I stared at the blank box in confusion. What did it all mean? I clicked the button. The text inside the shape updated to Oldest, but everything else remained unchanged.
I dragged the cursor to the Your Jobs menu item and tapped the touchpad. The page followed the same layout as the first. This time, however, the central part of the screen contained several lines of text. My eyes darted over the rows of data.
STATUS: AWAITING CONFIRMATION
LOCATION: RG27
CONTRACT AGREED: 24th JULY 2020
DEADLINE FOR COMPLETION: 29th JULY 2020
AGREED FEE: £7250
FULL DETAILS HAVE BEEN SENT TO YOUR SECURE INBOX.
It may seem obvious after the event, but at the time I had no inkling to what the contract referred. From the limited information available, it was clear the entry related to a commercial agreement. The deadline was two days in the future. My first thought was that it had something to do with the purchase of a property. It had been many years since I had bought my house with the money left by my father in his will, but I remembered having lengthy discussions with my solicitors about the exchange of contracts and completion dates.
The location was obviously the first part of a postcode and matched the area where I had found the note. Could this be a new system for the secure transfer of funds? It struck me as strange that there was no company logo on the site, but perhaps this was a prototype user interface. The reference to jobs also seemed peculiar.
I was so engrossed in my thoughts I failed to notice the member of staff hovering by the table. She was in her early twenties with long, mousy-coloured hair and a stud through the side of her nose. Even in her flat shoes, she was taller than average, maybe five foot eight or nine. She had a slim build, and I couldn’t help noticing that the blue and white striped uniform hugged the contours of her body.
“Hi, Mr Parrott. How are you?” She smiled revealing a slight gap between her front teeth.
I immediately lowered the laptop lid, but I guessed she had already seen the page over my shoulder. “Oh, hello, um ...”
“You don’t recognise me, do you, sir? I’m Molly, Molly Gunther.”
Now it came back to me. She was a former pupil. I had last taught her over seven years earlier. I vaguely remembered her as an unexceptional student, keen to please and hard-working but possessing no real affinity for the subject.
“Of course I do, Molly. It’s good to see you.”
“Doing some work for school, sir?”
“Something like that. And call me Alex. You’re not my pupil anymore.”
“Right ... Alex. I just wondered if you wanted a refill. We’re not supposed to do this, but because you were one of my favourite teachers, it’s on the house.”
“That’s very kind of you. Another Americano would be great. Do you work here full time?”
“Yeah. I’m going travelling with my boyfriend in a month or two, so I need to earn some money. Although don’t tell the manager. I haven’t told him I’m leaving yet.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“My boyfriend said he’d pay for everything, but I don’t want to go running to him like a child every time I want to buy something.”
Unsure how to respond, I replied with a noncommittal, “Okay.”
She smiled broadly. “Well, I’ll get your coffee right away.” She strolled back to the counter and set to work on the machine.
I reopened the lid of the laptop and studied the screen once more. Another idea occurred to me; perhaps it was a site for people searching for a tradesman to undertake home improvements. I remembered my sister describing a website she had discovered where individuals tendered for work, and the lowest bid won the job—a Dutch auction. But if that was the case, why hide the page away on the dark web? Could it be an attempt to avoid tax?
My relief at discovering the site was apparently neither a haven for paedophiles nor a drugs marketplace was tempered by the realisation I had no real idea what I had stumbled across.
The feeling would last until I watched the news that evening.
Chapter 6
The drive home was uneventful, which was probably just as well given that my thoughts were elsewhere. I had two main theories, but neither of them fitted the scant amount of information I had gleaned from the website. I was no expert on the subject, but the page didn’t appear to be a commercial site.
Part of me felt disappointed that I had failed to discover anything interesting. Maybe if I revisited when there were some active jobs, I would get a better idea what it was all about. I debated with myself whether to share what I had found with my brother-in-law, Jamie. After all, I had already asked him about the dark web aspect, and his experience of business websites was far wider than mine.
I turned into my road and spotted the figure of Mrs Owens. She ran the local Neighbourhood Watch scheme, but I suspected it was all a front for keeping an eye on the activities of the other residents. If an unfamiliar vehicle parked anywhere on our quiet, residential street, she could be relied on to record the number plate in the little notebook she kept in her pocket. As usual, she trailed behind her tiny dog as it sniffed at the foliage beside the verge. The animal provided the excuse she needed to patrol the local vicinity.
I waved as I passed by, giving her a wide berth. She stared in my direction but failed to return the gesture. She had apparently not yet forgiven me for the faux pas committed by my nieces a few weeks earlier. They had been playing in my garden. Seeing my neighbour walk past the front gate, Zoe, the younger of the two, had asked in a loud voice, “What make is that lady’s rat dog?”
Out of the mouth of babes. Even now, the memory brought a smile to my face. As my sister was fond of saying, the girls were all fact and no tact.
I glanced at the dashboard clock as I swung into my short, paved drive: five thirty. I didn’t feel much like cooking. That’s one benefit of being single; I could choose when and what I wanted to eat. A quick omelette would keep me going for the rest of the day.
I let myself in through the front door and made my way into the kitchen. There, I turned on the hob to its hottest setting and grabbed a couple of eggs and a slice of bread from the cupboard.
As I cooked, my mind turned back to the website. Perhaps it was time to forget the whole thing. Part of me still felt guilty at snooping into this other person’s business. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like an invasion of privacy. How would I feel if somebody poked into my affairs? I had used my concerns about criminal activity as an excuse and allowed my curiosity to get the better of me. I decided there and then I would take it no further.
A loud clack came from the toaster. Seconds later, I carried my meal of omelette on toast into the lounge. I turned on the television as a suited male presenter announced that the programme would transfer to the local area news.
The picture switched to a middle-aged woman sitting behind a desk. She smiled into the camera. “Welcome to the news in the south.”
Her smile disappeared, replaced by a sombre expression. “Police are tonight investigating a double murder in the village of Dalton, close to the town of Basingstoke.”
The fork stopped halfway to my mouth. I lifted the tray off my lap and deposited it on the coffee table, all thoughts of food forgotten. My fingers scrabbled for the remote control. I increased the volume without taking my eyes off the screen. A map of the south of England expanded to fill the display. The red dot at the centre showed the village where I lived.
“A police spokesman said a member of the public discovered the victims, a man and a woman, late this afternoon. Both had suffered multiple injuries. Their identities are being withheld until relatives have been informed. More now from our reporter on the scene, John Samson.”
The view switched to a man standing in front of two police cars. He held a furry, cylindrical microphone in front of his chest. A large house loomed in the background. I immediately recognised the location
; it was the lane I knew as Millionaire’s Row, less than a hundred yards from where I had found the note.
The reporter spoke in a gravelly voice. “Yes, Moira. Police were called at four-thirty this afternoon when a cleaner discovered the bodies inside their property at this quiet, rural spot. We have little information about the victims’ identities, although we understand that the dead man was a local businessman. Police are searching the premises and the immediate surrounding area. They do not currently have any suspects. I interviewed Chief Superintendent, Mike Chalmers, earlier today.”
The picture showed a balding man in a dark blue uniform with a microphone held towards his mouth.
A voice came from off-screen. “What can you tell us about this case, Chief Superintendent?”
“This was a vicious attack that took place in the victims’ own home. We are particularly interested in speaking to anybody who may have witnessed anything unusual or suspicious in the vicinity of Dalton during the last twenty-four hours. All calls will be treated in the strictest confidence. I’ll be issuing a further statement at a press conference tomorrow morning. Thank you.” The policeman turned away from the interviewer.
The shot returned to the reporter. “We’ll keep you informed of any updates as we receive them. Now, back to you, Moira, in the studio.”
The woman glanced down at her notes then raised her eyes once more to the camera. “If you have any information relating to this case, no matter how insignificant, please call the helpline number displayed at the bottom of the screen.”
A series of white digits beginning with 0800 overlaid the picture.
“In other news ...”
I stabbed the rewind button on the remote control and watched the segment a second time. I paused the playback when it reached the telephone number. Pushing myself upright, I staggered into the kitchen, my head spinning. I snatched up a pen and a pad of paper I kept in a letter rack by the central heating boiler and transcribed the digits.
Assassin's Web Page 3