Assassin's Web

by Richard T. Burke

  “I decided to go for a walk around lunchtime today. The route goes up through those fields behind the village. The footpath comes out on Mill Lane.”

  Jamie went quiet. The frown deepened. He placed his glass on the table. When he spoke again, his voice was deadly serious. “Isn’t that the place where the murders took place this afternoon?”

  I sipped from my pint. “Exactly.”

  “Christ, you aren’t involved with that, are you?”

  “I’m not sure. While I was walking, I found this note. The website address we discussed earlier was written on it.”

  Jamie shook his head. “You came across a piece of paper containing details of a page on the dark web, and you brought it home to give it a try?”

  “I didn’t know what it was.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “It was lying on the ground about a hundred yards from where the murders happened.”

  Jamie reached out for his beer, took a large swig and drained half the glass. As he put down his drink, I noticed a slight tremble in his hand. My gaze moved past his fingers and settled on three empty tumblers on the lower shelf of the coffee table. Perhaps he had picked up more than one bad habit in my sister’s absence. He looked me straight in the eye. “And you think it has something to do with the killings?”

  “After our conversation, I visited an Internet café and downloaded the Tor browser. Then I typed in the address on the note.”

  “And?”

  “It took me to a login screen. I put in the username and password, and it displayed a website with two options: current jobs and your jobs. The current jobs page was empty, but the other one contained a single entry.”

  “Seriously, what were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t,” I replied.

  “What did it say?”

  “It had the first part of a postcode, a fee and a completion date. The status was set to awaiting confirmation.”

  Jamie’s fingers twitched nervously where they rested on his legs. “You aren’t saying ...?”

  My eyes locked onto my brother-in-law. “I think it might have been a contract to kill those people.”

  He folded his arms. “Really?”

  “The amount was around seven thousand pounds, the postcode matches the murder location, and I found the note close to the house where they discovered the bodies. The killer may have dropped it.”

  “Did you take a screenshot?”

  “No, it didn’t occur to me. If I’d been at home, I would have printed the page, but I was at the Internet café on my laptop.” I pointed to the case at my feet.

  “Have you still got the link?”

  “Yeah, it’s here.” I pulled the paper from my pocket and handed it over.

  “Neat handwriting. When you discovered there had been a murder, did you try it again?”

  “I tried both on my home PC and on the laptop. Neither of them would connect to the site. I even revisited the Internet café, but that didn’t work either. That’s why I called you. Is there anything I could be doing wrong?”

  Jamie stood. “Let’s have a go on my computer. I’ve got a Linux setup with Tor already installed.”

  I followed my brother-in-law out of the room. “You don’t think they can trace the connection back to me, do you?”

  He paused at the doorway and looked over his shoulder. “It’s unlikely. If you let me have a look at your machine, I’ll have a quick poke around and make sure there’s nothing there that shouldn’t be. Fetch another two beers, and I’ll get started. They’re in the fridge in the utility room.”

  I handed him the laptop case.

  “What’s the password?” he asked.

  “Elena with a capital E, nineteen ninety-five,” I replied. I didn’t need to explain the significance. He already knew most of our family history from my sister.

  While he headed along the hallway, I entered the kitchen. As I pushed through the white, wooden door, the squalor that greeted me exceeded what I had witnessed in the lounge. Dirty plates filled the sink, spilling out onto the draining board. Empty ready meal packages lay strewn across the work surfaces. Rubbish prevented the lid of the over-full, silver, cylindrical bin from closing, no doubt adding to the sickly-sweet smell of decomposition assaulting my nostrils.

  I wrinkled my nose as I passed through another doorway. I flicked on the light switch to reveal a small room containing a washing machine, tumble dryer and double-height fridge-freezer. When I opened the upper fridge door, the contents confirmed some of my suspicions; the interior contained between fifteen and twenty cans of beer and half a dozen bottles of coke. I assumed the soft drinks were for the girls.

  Remembering I was driving, I grabbed one of each and retraced my steps, holding my breath as I did so. I discovered Jamie sitting in his study. Desks butted up to three of the four walls in a U shape. I identified at least three different computers. Technical manuals and computer magazines lay strewn across every available surface.

  He glanced up at my arrival. “Thanks. I left my glass in the other room. Could you get it for me please?”

  The laptop was open. Unusually, the screen already displayed the desktop icons. Then I remembered that Molly had powered up the machine. She must have closed the lid without performing the shutdown sequence.

  I deposited the bottle and the can of coke on the nearest desk and headed back to the lounge. When I returned a few seconds later, Jamie’s fingers were flying across the keyboard of his computer.

  “I’ve started a malware search on your machine,” he said, nodding towards the laptop. “It may take a while.” A USB stick protruded from the side. “While that’s going on, let’s give this site a try,” he muttered. The by now familiar Tor browser occupied the large monitor in front of him.

  With great care, he transposed the letters into the address bar and tapped the enter key. The wait cursor began its circular dance. Ten seconds later, the Unable to Connect message appeared on the screen.

  In the same way I had done less than an hour earlier, he checked he had entered the data correctly. Satisfied that he had made no errors, he hit the back button and typed Test in the search box. A long list of results filled the display.

  Jamie turned to face me. “It looks as if they’ve taken down the site.”

  We both sat for a moment lost in thought.

  Finally, I broke the silence. “Is there any way to retrieve the page I saw?”

  “No. It’s not like Google or whatever where you can browse your search history.”

  “Do you think I should tell the police?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure it would do much good, but it’s up to you. You do realise that technically you were breaking the law?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jamie turned away from the screen and studied my face. “The Computer Misuse Act has been around for a while. It’s what they use to prosecute hackers, although most hacks result from lazy or incompetent administrators not keeping their security up to date. I always strongly advise my clients to apply patches as soon as they come out.

  “From what little I know, the police aren’t normally that bothered unless somebody uses the information for financial gain. That said, I wouldn’t admit to logging into a site with another person’s credentials.”

  “So, if it was you, you’d keep it to yourself?”

  “As I said, that's your decision, but I’d certainly advise you not to mention the dark web part. We’ve demonstrated the page is down, so I’m not sure what they could do even if you told them. Did you see anything while you were out walking that might help the police?”

  “No, but it doesn’t feel right to keep it to myself. Won’t they want to eliminate me from their enquiries?”

  Jamie shrugged. “I suppose.”

  Opening my wallet, I retrieved the scrap of paper on which I had written the number for the hotline earlier that day. “I’ve made up my mind. There’s no time like the present. I’m going to phone them right n
ow.”

  I pulled the mobile from my shirt pocket and typed in the PIN to unlock the screen. Halfway through entering the digits, I noticed the lack of a signal. It was a while since I had last visited the house, and I had forgotten about the poor network coverage.

  “Damn. I’m not getting any bars.”

  “Reception is rubbish here, particularly with Vodafone. Do you want to use the landline?” Jamie asked.

  I hesitated for a second. I could always make the call when I got home, but now I had come to a decision, I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

  “Okay,” I replied. “If you don’t mind.”

  “There’s a phone in the lounge. I just have a few things to sort out for work. I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

  Jamie remained seated, tapping away at the keyboard while I headed along the hall.

  The handset sat on top of a cabinet containing a music centre. I stabbed out the digits, pacing backwards and forwards over the carpet as I did so. After a single ringing tone, an automated female voice answered.

  “Thank you for calling the police incident hotline. We are currently experiencing an unusually high level of calls, and all our lines are busy at the moment. Please be aware your call is important to us. Press one to leave a message, and an operator will return your call as soon as possible. Alternatively, hold the line to speak to a member of our staff.”

  I hated leaving messages. I always seemed to stumble over my words when speaking to a machine. After five seconds, an orchestral arrangement of Lionel Richie’s All Night Long started to play. As the song reached the chorus, the music stopped, and the computerised voice interrupted. “We apologise for the delay in answering. Your call is important to us. You are number twenty-seven in the queue. Press one to leave a message, and an operator will return your call. Alternatively, hold the line to speak to a member of our staff.”

  After a short pause, the orchestra resumed from where it had left off. Thirty seconds of musical torment passed before another interruption. My position in the queue remained the same. The irony of the song title was not lost on me.

  Jamie came into the room holding the laptop case.

  I removed the handset from my ear. “There are twenty-something callers before me.”

  “Can’t you leave a message?”

  “I think I might do that.”

  The next time the music stopped, I had risen to the dizzy heights of twenty-six. Aware that I was encroaching on my brother-in-law’s hospitality, I lowered the phone from my face and tapped the screen.

  “Thank you for contacting the police incident hotline. Please leave your full name, a contact telephone number, and a brief summary of the information you wish to provide. An operator will call you back when one becomes available.”

  I stammered my name and home telephone number. For a moment, my mind turned blank. I hadn’t thought through what I would say. “I was out walking this afternoon near the site of the murder—um ... Mill Lane that is. The time must have been around one o’clock. I ... ah ... don’t remember seeing anything suspicious. I’m not at my own house at the moment. It’ll take me about half an hour to get back. Um ... ‘bye.”

  I stabbed the disconnect button.

  “Very eloquent,” Jamie said, a wry grin on his face. “And no mention of the note.”

  “No, I think you were right. I’ll keep that bit to myself.”

  “I guess that means you won’t be staying for another drink.”

  “Thanks for your help, but I need to go.”

  “No problem. I’m happy to be of assistance. Let me know what happens.”

  “Of course.” I grabbed my coat from the bannister and held out my hand. Instead of accepting my grip, Jamie dragged me into an awkward, one-armed hug.

  “Look after yourself,” he said, patting me on the back.

  “You too,” I replied. “Take care.”

  He stepped away and handed over the laptop. “It’s clean by the way. The search didn’t pick up anything nasty.”

  Chapter 9

  I left Jamie’s house to discover the rain had miraculously stopped. The journey passed quickly with the damp conditions keeping other drivers off the roads. The beer and coke sat heavily in my stomach as my mind churned over the situation. I arrived home without coming to a conclusion. The dashboard clock read 9:35.

  As I slowed and indicated right for my house, the headlights picked out a figure approaching along the verge. A lead stretched from the person’s hand towards the hedge where a tiny bedraggled creature squatted as it did its business. The hood obscured the woman’s face, but it wasn’t difficult to identify her: Mrs Owens and her delightful rat dog. She lowered her head and squinted at me through the windscreen. The fact that somebody had committed a serious crime in the vicinity would have provided her with all the encouragement she needed to patrol the neighbourhood with renewed vigour.

  She confirmed my suspicions by following the car as I reversed onto the drive. I turned off the engine and hauled myself out of the driver’s seat. She marched forward, dragging her pet behind her. A gust of wind brought down a flurry of water droplets on our heads from the tree in the neighbour’s garden.

  “Did you hear about the murders?” she asked even before I closed the car door.

  “Yes, I watched the news this evening.”

  “What a terrible business. I don’t suppose you saw anything suspicious.”

  “No, but if I had done, I’d be sure to tell the police.” I didn’t want to encourage her by revealing I had been walking near the crime scene that afternoon.

  “My friend has been to the house. She said all the rooms were huge and very expensively furnished.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m going to recommend that we set up regular patrols at the next neighbourhood watch meeting, at least until they’ve caught the person responsible. I’ve brought the next one forward to tomorrow at midday at my place.”

  The prospect of attending one of her gatherings filled me with dread. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got something on.”

  “But I thought—”

  I backed toward my front door. “It’s a bit wet out here, so I’m going inside.”

  “Okay, well if you change your mind, you know where I live.”

  “’Bye, then.” Before she could add anything else, I slipped the key in the lock and let myself in. I hurried through to the small study where I pressed the power button on the computer’s front panel. While I waited for the machine to boot, I went into the lounge and grabbed the phone handset. The absence of a flashing red light on the base unit told me nobody had left a message.

  As soon as I logged in, I started up a browser window. The first term I entered in the search box was Computer Misuse Act. It was as Jamie described. Parliament originally introduced the legislation in 1990 and made it illegal to gain unauthorised access to a computer. What if the site I had visited was entirely innocent? If I told the police about viewing the page, would I be leaving myself open to prosecution?

  The logical part of my brain said not, but the stakes were high. If I gained a criminal record, I would lose my job. That was a price I wasn’t willing to pay. I justified my decision by telling myself that the small amount of information I had seen on the web page would make no difference to the investigation. All I would accomplish by mentioning it when questioned was to put my livelihood at risk.

  Having confirmed my resolution to keep quiet about the note, I turned my attention to learning more about the murders. The BBC news website contained much the same information as the television. It seemed the police were still without a suspect, and they were appealing to anybody who might have seen something suspicious to come forward. The only additional material was an interview with a neighbour. The woman revealed that the victims were a couple who kept themselves to themselves. She claimed they spent a lot of time travelling abroad.

  Other sites offered little more. Most contained photographs of the leafy lane where the
crime had taken place. The local newspaper website carried a piece by a former police inspector who maintained the murders possessed all the hallmarks of organised crime. The article failed to identify the reasoning behind the statement.

  I glanced at the time in the bottom right corner of the display: 21:57. Perhaps there would be more information on the ten o’clock news. Leaving the computer switched on, I made my way into the lounge and turned on the television. I returned the telephone handset to its cradle then flopped onto the sofa. The credits for a sitcom scrolled up the screen, followed by a trailer for a new thriller series.

  After a moment’s silence, the familiar theme music played. A sombre, male newscaster summarised the headlines. The murders ranked only third after a political scandal and a terrorist attack in Egypt. A breaking story about a politician failing to declare his financial interest in a company receiving government grants occupied the first ten minutes of the programme.

  It wasn’t until a quarter of an hour later that the killings became the focus. The report was even briefer than the one I had watched earlier. After a sentence or two from the newsreader in the studio, the picture shifted to the location of the crime.

  The reporter faced the camera. The brightly lit fascia of the mansion contrasted with the blackness of the night sky behind him. He presented the basic details of the case but added nothing I didn’t already know. In the corner of the shot, a figure wearing white coveralls emerged from the front door. A brief pre-recorded interview with the Chief Superintendent followed. The section culminated in another appeal for witnesses to contact the police information line.

  Maybe the local news would contain more details. I turned down the sound as the topic shifted to the 0-0 scoreline between England and France in a meaningless, friendly football match.

  The sudden ringing of the telephone made me jump. I pressed the answer button and held the handset to my ear. “Hello.”

  “This is Sergeant Dawkins from the police incident hotline. May I speak with a Mr Alex Parrott?”

  “That’s me.”

  “And can you confirm you contacted us earlier with information about the crime committed today in Mill Lane?”