Invasion of Privacy: A Deep Web Thriller #1 (Deep Web Thriller Series)

by Ian Sutherland

  Initially, she had felt guilty. But when she went to visit her father he was in much higher spirits than when he was stuck at home with her. There were lots of people around and, although her Dad could hardly speak and was wheelchair-bound, he seemed to respond to the environment positively. He’d even taken to playing chess again.

  And for Sarah, returning to work had been fantastic. She worked hard; she had to. But it was more than that. She enjoyed the challenge of the job, the amiable competitiveness around the room, the banter that went with it, the highs and the lows. The first time she had rung the winner’s bell in the centre of the office to announce she had made a sale had been glorious. The looks on her colleagues’ faces showed either admiration or envy, depending on how they were doing. And she’d managed to ring it four times since, but not at all in the last two weeks. And now her picture was slowly being relegated towards the bottom of the month’s sales leader board. If she were behind target and in the bottom five by the end of the month, her boss, Joe Ashley, would immediately fire her, along with the other four. It was a cutthroat environment, but for those who succeeded, there was good money to be made. And the buzz of it all was addictive.

  She had even started to go out after work with some of her colleagues, usually exploring the haunts of Maidenhead, where their office was based, but on payday straying further afield to the more salubrious party towns of Windsor or Reading. She hadn’t had any form of social life for two years and valued it greatly. She took it easy, not able to afford much, but it was enough to make her feel human again. Nothing romantic had happened yet, but she thought that one of the top performing sales guys was starting to take an interest. The odd look across the floor. Always seeming to time grabbing coffee from the machine whenever she did. The jovial chatter at the water cooler. If only she could hold onto her job long enough, maybe something romantic would happen.

  Joe Ashley walked past her cubicle on the way back to his own. It was enough to spur her on. She needed to make this job work. More importantly, her Dad needed Sunnyside. Neither of them could return to that other life.

  Sarah picked up the phone, took a breath and dialled the number of her next prospect.

  * * *

  Brody sat on edge in the passenger seat, his left hand gripping the door handle and his foot repeatedly stamping an imaginary brake in the footwell. Jenny flashed her lights and beeped her horn at cars that hogged the outside lane of the North Circular, undertaking them if they didn’t move out of the way and ignoring the fifty miles per hour speed limit strongly indicated by the numerous signs and speed cameras. What made it worse for Brody was that she dutifully followed her satnav, clearly driving in unknown territory.

  He looked at the length of time that the satnav calculated for their journey to the Saxton house in Bushey. Forty-five more minutes, which was ironic because the satnav had predicted fifty-five minutes at the beginning of their journey, well over half an hour ago. At this rate, it would take at least two hours.

  Jenny swerved passed an articulated lorry. Brody closed his eyes.

  After they had reached Green Lanes, the road narrowed to two lanes. Jenny was forced to slow down and Brody began to relax. Another ten minutes later, a mile from the junction with the A1, the traffic came to a standstill.

  “Next time, Brody . . .” she began to say. It was clearly something that she had been mulling over for the last few miles. “Look, I’ll be blunt. I know you’re trying to help and everything but I can’t have you, a civilian, winding up the witnesses and screwing up my investigation.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, knowing full well she was referring to his initial conversation with Dawson, the Flexbase CEO.

  “The way you confronted David Dawson earlier. There was no need for that.”

  “He was trying to pull the wool over your eyes. There’s no way that call centre was for real.”

  “Maybe so. But it had nothing to do with why we were there, so there was no need to rile him up over it.”

  “But if we just accept all that crap he came out with, then he’d think he could get away with telling you any old crap. By my thinking, at least this way he was more honest when it got to the real conversation.”

  “Who’s the police officer here, Brody?” Jenny made a melodramatic show of looking around. It did nothing to calm Brody’s nerves as her passenger. “Ah, it’s me.”

  “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” He felt compelled to stand his ground, even though it was unimportant in the scheme of things. As a detective inspector Jenny was clearly used to things being done her way. He reminded himself that he needed to keep on her good side so that he could gain access to the Saxton home. A little concession might go a long way. “But I’ll try to keep my gob shut next time, okay?”

  She looked over at him briefly to judge his demeanour. He gave her his best smile.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  The traffic began moving slowly. Jenny pulled off again.

  He decided to change the subject. “What about Stone and Peggler? Do you think they were deliberately evasive?”

  “I’m not sure. Stone should have volunteered the information about the fire exits before now. That’s critical information to the investigation.”

  “And Peggler should access the database directly to see if the IP addresses are stored. All that talk about violating his software license was rubbish. I reckon he just doesn’t know how to construct a SQL query and didn’t want to be embarrassed.”

  “Well, we’ll find out about the IP addresses later today, either way. I’m sure they’re both just being protective about their company. Like Dawson.”

  “Yeah. It reminds me why I hate corporate organisations. Senior executives like those three make all their decisions based on which action best serves their career or protects their job. Completely self-serving.”

  Jenny’s phone rang. She pressed a button on her steering wheel and answered via the hands-free.

  “Hi guv, it’s O’Reilly here.”

  “Hi Harry. Is everything ok with your daughter?”

  “Yeah, all grand thanks. It was some kind of mix-up. When I got to the school, no one was expecting me! There’s no bullying. No issues with my daughter, at all. Thank God.”

  “Well, that’s good to hear.”

  Brody smiled to himself. No suspicions. He’d gotten away with it.

  After he’d texted Jenny Price yesterday requesting their meeting, he’d gone one step further. He’d been unable to help himself really. He had just wanted to gather as much information as possible about her and the police investigation; get on the inside track before meeting her in person. So he’d used a caller ID spoofing service freely available on the deep web to hack into her mobile phone’s voicemail. By spoofing Jenny’s own mobile number, the voicemail service was tricked into believing that the call had come from the mobile phone itself and because, like ninety-nine per cent of people, Jenny also hadn’t set up a pin to secure access to her voicemail, he was able to listen to her voicemails as if he was her.

  Brody knew it was illegal, especially after all the public furore following the demise of the News of the World newspaper a few years before prompted by its journalists getting caught hacking into a missing teenager’s mobile phone voicemail. But, as far as Brody was concerned, he wasn’t doing anything harmful — not like those desperate journalists.

  She’d had a few voicemails. But the one that had caught his attention was from a DS O’Reilly confirming that he would meet her at the Flexbase office in Docklands the following morning. Brody had quickly tracked down O’Reilly, and discovered that he was a Met Police computer specialist. And so he’d improvised, judging that if O’Reilly didn’t show up Jenny might feel more inclined to accept Brody’s offer of help with the case. And it had worked; she’d allowed him to tag along to the Flexbase meeting but now they were on their way to the Saxton house, his planned objective.

  A bit more digging into O’Reilly’s background and he
had enough information to ensure O’Reilly bailed this morning at the last minute. Pretending to be from his daughter’s school, Brody had phoned O’Reilly with a vague story about bullying involving his daughter and an urgent need for him to come to the school. It had been simple and effective, and no one had been harmed. A perfect social engineering hack.

  “So I just wanted to say sorry for letting you down this morning. Do you want me to head over to Docklands now?”

  “No, it’s okay. I handled it on my own.” She glanced at Brody, making sure he didn’t say a thing.

  “You handled it yourself?” Brody could hear the incredulity in O’Reilly’s Irish voice.

  “Yes. If the IP addresses are stored in the booking system database, we’ll have them later today when the IT guy talks to the vendor.”

  Jenny looked at Brody again, this time for confirmation that she’d been accurate in her statement. He nodded encouragingly. She smiled.

  “Ah, well that’s grand.” And then, as an afterthought, “Who’d have thought, eh?”

  “Excuse me, DS O’Reilly. I am a member of the modern world, you know. I’ve even got a Facebook account.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend —”

  “Anyway, can you head to the station? And when you get there, I’d like you to look into a website called www.SecretlyWatchingYou.com.”

  “Eh?”

  “I’ve received information that it might have a bearing on the Audri Sahlberg murder in some way.” She repeated the site address for him and told him to focus on a location within the site called Au Pair Affair.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will when you see it.”

  She ended the call.

  Brody asked her, “Do you have a Facebook account?”

  “Yes, my nephew set it up for me years ago.” She pulled a sheepish expression. “But I’ve never logged back in and I’ve no idea what the password is.”

  They laughed together.

  Ten minutes later they had joined the M1 and were heading north-west at speed towards Watford. Leveraging the reference to her nephew, Brody had engaged her in conversation about him. She had talked animatedly, opening up a little at first and then more freely as he showed interest. The frosty air of authority that she exuded as a police detective quickly disappeared. She was proud of Damien, her nephew, and his mother April, her sister, who had raised him on her own when his father had taken off a few months after Damien’s birth. Evidently, Damien was an avid online gamer, but when Brody had unconsciously let a tut slip through his lips at the mention of Xbox being Damien’s gaming platform of choice, Jenny had rounded on him.

  “But you’re a computer geek! You’re obliged to like gaming.”

  “Actually, I’m not that much into gaming. But even if I was, I happen to know that there’s a hierarchy of gaming platforms. And at the top is the traditional personal computer. How can an Xbox controller compete against a keyboard and mouse?”

  “But PC games are mostly massive multiplayer online role playing games. Bor-ing!”

  “Damien tell you this, did he?” Brody was intrigued by the zealousness Jenny was showing for the subject. He was sure there was more to this passion than just her nephew.

  “Well, I suppose.”

  A silence formed in the car. A few minutes later, Jenny exited the motorway.

  Brody recalled the phone call she had taken at the Flexbase office and asked her about it.

  “Derek Saxton was released from custody earlier.”

  “I thought you said he orchestrated the whole thing?”

  She gripped the steering wheel hard, her knuckles going white. “Well, it looks like we were wrong.”

  “How come? I thought you had evidence.”

  “Circumstantial at best. Turns out he has an alibi for the time of the murder. And the DNA found on both victims was from someone else altogether.”

  “That’s not so good then.”

  “It’s not. Which is why, Brody, I’m suddenly a lot more interested in your webcam theory than I was earlier. It’s our only real lead.”

  “And so this is why we’re going directly to the Saxtons’ house?”

  “You got it. Derek Saxton may not be the killer, but there’s definitely something dodgy about those webcams. And I mean to find out what it is.”

  * * *

  Kim’s phone vibrated. She glanced down and saw on the screen that the message was from Patrick. Sometimes, his good-natured attentiveness was too much. She wanted to be left alone. She’d told him so earlier, but he was so persistent.

  Despite herself, she swiped the message and read what he had to say.

  It said, Knock, knock :-)

  She jumped out of bed and looked out the window onto the street. Damn, his car was parked outside. He was here.

  She opened the window and called, “Two minutes, Patrick,” closing it immediately.

  She tied her thick towelling dressing gown tight, ran into the bathroom and examined her reflection in the mirror. She was shocked to see how red and blotchy her eyes were from all the crying. She splashed water over her face, dried it and painted on some mascara and lipstick. It would have to do. What did he expect anyway? Her best friend had been murdered.

  A minute later, she opened the front door and let him in.

  “I had to check you were all right, Kimmy. I just had to. I’ve been worried sick.”

  “I’m fine.” But she wasn’t, and there was a catch in her voice.

  He pulled her into his arms. She resisted briefly and then allowed herself to be hugged. It felt good. He kissed her on the top of the head. She resisted the urge to cry again.

  “There, there.”

  A few minutes later, resigned to having company and feeling guilty for being so ungrateful, she asked him to make them both some tea. She felt the need to keep herself busy. Kim recalled that her flatmates were returning from Greece later on today and would probably take over the washing machine for the next few days. She went upstairs and filled her laundry basket with every item of clothing strewn across her floor. Back in the kitchen, she began loading the machine.

  Patrick made idle chitchat as the tea brewed, talking about his university lecturers being unable to keep up with the fast pace of IT; about how he wasn’t looking forward to returning to Imperial College after his placement with the television company’s IT department; about how the recent Star Trek sequel had lost its way from Gene Roddenberry’s humanist philosophies (who Gene Roddenberry was, Kim hadn’t the faintest idea); about perhaps going for lunch somewhere nearby.

  Kim had zoned out and was staring into space. She sensed that he was waiting for her to say something.

  “Sorry?” she said, and resumed loading the washing machine.

  “Lunch. I thought it might be good for you to get out of here for a bit.” He waved his hands around. “There’s this nice Thai café in Blackheath that does a fantastic lunch menu.”

  “I can’t, Patrick.” She checked the pockets of her dirty jeans for tissues.

  “Come on Kimmy, it will do you good. Trust me. A bit of fresh air. It’s even stopped raining.”

  Kim pulled something out of the pocket.

  “What’s that?” asked Patrick.

  She looked at what was in her hand. It was the strange component from the wall light she had broken by accident last night. She had stuffed it into her pocket when the fuse box had tripped and forgotten all about it until now.

  “I’m not sure.” She explained about accidentally breaking the wall light and the odd device, although made up an excuse about tripping over rather than telling him the truth.

  “Can I see it?”

  Kim handed it over to him. He turned it over in his hands, studying it.

  “I’m no electrician,” he mused, “but isn’t this the transformer that makes the light dimmable?”

  “But there’s no dimmer switch in Anna’s room.”

  “Yeah, but if one was fitted it would work w
ith the wall light.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realise you had to have special lights for dimming.”

  “Yeah, I think that’s all it is.”

  Patrick pressed the pedal on the rubbish bin and threw the device into it.

  “Now, what about that Thai lunch?”

  * * *

  Jenny parked her car by the corner green opposite the Saxton house, exactly where Brody had been parked the morning before, although facing away from the house. Brody looked in the passenger wing-mirror. The towering Saxton household filled it completely, both sets of double-gates securely shut.

  The journey had taken just under two hours, over double the satnav’s original prediction back in Docklands.

  As she opened the car door, Brody said, “Hold on a second, DI Price. I’ve got an idea.”

  She sat back in her seat and waited patiently as Brody fumbled in his satchel and withdrew his tablet PC.

  “Why don’t we take a peek at what’s going on before going in?”

  “Because the words ‘police officer’ and ‘breaking the law’ should never go in the same sentence, that’s why.”

  “Which laws?”

  “You don’t get it, do you? That site of yours is probably breaking hundreds of privacy laws and you’re perpetuating it.”

  “But it’s in the public domain! How is browsing a public website breaking the law?” He continued to click through to the website.

  Jenny folded her arms.

  Brody persevered, “And it might be interesting. You might learn something about Derek’s guilt.”

  “Or innocence,” she countered. “And anyway, I’m not sure if anything I see on there could be used as evidence. Whenever we mount any covert surveillance operation we have to get all sorts of authorisations and permissions beforehand.”

  “But this isn’t surveillance. It’s a website displaying feeds from webcams that the Saxtons are completely aware of being mounted throughout their home.”

  Brody clicked through to the Au Pair Affair location. He could see movement on the kitchen-cam. Before Jenny could say anything else, he clicked on it, turning up the volume.