Five minutes later, Brody reached the front door of his flat. His thoughts during the walk from the Underground station had slowly become darker, matching the downcast weather. His inability to make any serious progress on hacking SWY was becoming seriously frustrating. He’d publicly thrown down the gauntlet earlier today with his poker-style ‘all-in’ challenge that he would pwn SWY within forty-eight hours. He’d typed the challenge onto the CrackerHack forum message boards via his mobile phone while standing in Saxton’s kitchen, just as it was starting to dawn on Mrs Saxton that more than three webcams had been fitted in her home.
At that moment, he’d been absolutely convinced that he was about to uncover the back door into SWY; unearthing the route the source webcam feeds took to get to the site. If he’d realised at the time that their route was somehow completely masked, he would never have been so bold. His hopes had been raised again when Jenny had invited him to visit a second SWY location at the students’ house. But all he’d actually proved was that it was a mirror configuration of the Saxton webcam setup. The backdoor route into SWY still eluded him.
It made no sense at all. And now everything was at stake and he was running out of time.
Brody pushed the key into the lock on his front door and, just as he was about to turn it, suddenly recalled his promise to Leroy earlier. Damn, he was supposed to be giving Leroy and Danny free rein on the flat tonight, so that they could celebrate their anniversary. But it was wet and cold out here and he needed access to his equipment. He had work to do. He glanced over his shoulder and saw from the bright lights across the road that Bruno’s coffee house was still open. Okay, he’d given them the hour or two that Bruno’s remained open. Then he’d have no choice but to disturb them. After all, he was hardly going to spend the night in the cramped confines of his Smart car, parked outside his own flat just to give Leroy and Danny some privacy.
Despite the lateness of the evening, the coffee shop still had a few customers. Perhaps the warm, dry environment had been an unplanned refuge from the earlier showers. A smiling Stefan trotted over to him. Brody didn’t know whether to be impressed or saddened that Stefan was still working, this late into the night.
“Ah, Mr Brody, Mr Brody. Is raining dogs and cats, no?”
“Yes Stefan, it’s wet out there.”
Brody’s favourite seat by the window was free and, as usual, Stefan attempted to predict Brody’s order. But Brody couldn’t remember coming in so late and so this was uncharted territory for them both. Apologetically, Brody corrected Stefan’s normally correct guess of a late-evening single espresso with an out-of-character request for herbal tea. He left Stefan to choose the flavour.
As Brody opened his laptop case, he felt a waft of cool air from the front door as two or three customers left. As the door was about to seal shut it opened again, sending another chilly draught his way. As someone trudged in, leaving wet footprints trailing behind, he wondered if he should sacrifice his seat by the window with its optimal Wi-Fi reception and move into the warmth. He was fairly sure he could still pick up his private Wi-Fi signal further back in the coffee house.
Stefan returned, placing a steaming sepia-coloured beverage on the table.
“Is Liquorice tea, Mr Brody. You like?”
Brody had no idea. “I’m sure it’ll be lovely, thanks Stefan.”
“Is good for making feel better.”
“That’s just what I need.” Brody lifted the cup to his lips, compelled by Stefan’s hovering presence to sample the liquid. He sipped a little and then loudly slurped lots of air over the hot liquid to avoid scalding his tongue. “Jesus, that’s . . .” He had been about to swear but caught himself in time. “ . . . That’s very nice, Stefan.” And with the temperature having dropped to a palatable level, he realised he rather liked the mellow aniseed aftertaste.
Satisfied, Stefan left him to it.
Brody had work to do. He didn’t believe what Dwight Chambers, the CTO of HomeWebCam, had told him over the phone at Kim Chang’s house earlier; that there was no trace of traffic between HomeWebCam and SecretlyWatchingYou. Brody figured Chambers was either covering up his company’s failings from preventing the leak of data from his website or that Chambers was somehow involved in SWY. He had to find out, one way or another. And the only logical step was to break into HomeWebCam and track the feeds from there.
Brody logged on to his tablet PC and connected to his private, securely encrypted Wi-Fi network.
* * *
“Which property?” asked Walter Pike, stroking his chin. “I can’t remember every place in my portfolio.”
They were in Interview Room 4 in Holborn Station. Pike sat on the other side of the metal desk from Jenny and Da Silva. Jenny knew he was playing for time, trying to figure out their line of questioning. She and Da Silva had just finished going through the interview preliminaries, pointing out his right to a solicitor, which he resolutely declined. Da Silva thanked him for coming down to the station at short notice, not that Jenny or DC Jones had given him any choice when they had met him on the drive of his imposing family home, just as he was returning home from work. When Jenny explained they needed to discuss some issues related to his tenants he had immediately offered to come to Holborn rather than invite the two policewomen into his home. He claimed that he didn’t want to bother his wife with his work.
“Troughton Road in Charlton,” Jenny stated lightly, holding his eye, steadfastly maintaining a friendly manner.
She knew that Pike was well into his sixties, but the only giveaway was the lines leading away from his eyes. His thick head of hair was artfully spiked in the style of a twenty-something. And even though it was silvery, the colour looked as if it was a deliberate fashion choice rather than a result of ageing. Under a brown suit, he wore a white t-shirt. Jenny was reminded of Don Johnson in the 1980s show, Miami Vice, but the signature shoulder pads were missing. Not that Pike needed them: he obviously spent plenty of time at the gym.
“Okay, I know it. Yeah, it’s one of mine. So what’s got you lot out of bed then? Bins left out on the street? Neighbours complaining because there’s nowhere left to park? Whatever’s going on you’ll need to take it up with the tenants. I’m only the landlord.”
“Who are the current tenants, Mr Pike?”
“Just a bunch of students. Massive profits in students, you know.” He balanced his chair onto its rear legs, leaning back dangerously. “You take a Victorian two up, two down, stick in a few partition walls, convert the dining room into another bedroom, and voilà, you’ve got six bedrooms. Stick an advert in the local Uni and suddenly you’ve got six new tenants. Everyone thinks students are hard up, but you add up the rent for six rooms in what was previously just a three-bedroom house and suddenly you’ve got a lucrative income. From students, no less.”
“Female students, I notice.”
“Yeah, well, simple business decision. Much less damage from bints.”
That was a term that Jenny hadn’t heard in a very long time. Pike may have modernised his image, but his attitudes were clearly stuck in the 1970s. She tried not to let her distaste show.
“Tell me about any extras you’ve had installed in the house.”
“Extras?” Pike remained balanced on the rear legs. “What are you on about, girl?”
“DI Price, Mr Pike,” corrected Da Silva. “You do not address a police officer as girl.”
Jenny bristled with indignation, noting how Da Silva rose to her defence.
“No offence.”
“The house that you let to these six students . . . Are they fully aware of everything inside?”
“I’m not with you . . .” He stopped himself and then, with a broad condescending smile, “ . . . DI Price.”
“Let me ask it another way. Is there anything in the house that the tenants should be aware of but are not?”
Pike remained balanced back on his legs. His silence lasted a beat too long before he said, “No.”
Jenny cha
nged tack and, in a petty bout of revenge, asked sweetly, “Are you a silver surfer, Mr Pike?” She’d heard the term on a radio phone-in show all about mature Internet users, never expecting to employ the phrase herself.
Da Silva turned in his head in surprise at her uncharitably-phrased question. Pike squinted his nose, trying to work out what she meant.
“Do you surf the Internet, Mr Pike? After all, not everyone from your generation is au fait with computers.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. She wasn’t sure whether it was because he’d taken offence or because he saw where she was going with her questioning.
“Yes, I browse the Internet, girl.”
She ignored his jibe. “And what do you use it for? Let’s see, now. Do you read online magazines? Do you perhaps do Internet banking? Or maybe you even shop online? Is that it, Mr Pike? Or could it be that you watch porn?” She turned to Da Silva and, speaking as if Pike wasn’t in the room, said, “You know, I think this could all be porn-related. That’s probably where someone like him started with the Internet. Like a kid in a sweetie shop. Not like the old days when you had to buy a magazine in the newsagents from the top shelf. Now it’s always on tap, with full motion video, no censorship or anything. But no, that wasn’t enough for our dear Mr Pike was it?” She turned back to him and repeated, “Was it?”
His chair thumped back onto all four legs. “I think I want a lawyer after all.”
An hour after Pike’s lawyer had arrived, Jenny and Da Silva brought the interview to a close.
He had capitulated under the weight of evidence, but only in regard to the webcams and the computer they had in evidence with his fingerprints all over it, both physical and digital. He’d had the webcams installed two years ago. This was the second batch of female students from Trinity Laban that he’d secretly spied on while they went about their day-to-day lives at the house in Charlton. Under pressure, he also admitted to having installed webcams in four other rental locations around the country, two in other parts of London, one in Leicester and the last in Southampton. All rented out to groups of female students. But there were only four locations, a mere drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds on SWY. He claimed not to know anything about SecretlyWatchingYou; all of his activities had been contained to his personal account on the HomeWebCam site, which gave him access to the webcams in the four locations.
On the surface, his situation was a complete mirror of Derek Saxton’s: just another voyeur getting off on secretly watching young women. But there were two main differences. Saxton had installed webcams in the home in which he personally lived, whereas Pike had clearly broken numerous privacy laws. Jenny wasn’t specifically certain which laws had been broken and had tasked Karim with researching them. It didn’t stop her arresting him though.
The second difference was that Pike was linked to Flexbase. He claimed that he only used their remote office service to provide a legitimate business address for his mail and a professional receptionist service for his business phone line, nothing more. He claimed never to have booked a meeting room in any Flexbase office. They would check.
“Look, I’ve been upfront about the webcams. What more is there? I don’t understand what’s got you lot all riled up. Surely, they’re not that big a deal.”
Jenny raised her eyebrows, not buying it, but he held her gaze, confusion etched all over his face.
“Murder,” she stated.
“Murder?” Incredulity infused his tone. “Fuck off!” And then, after turning to his lawyer, frowning and pointing his thumb towards Jenny and Da Silva, as if to say, “can you believe this?” Pike finally realised Jenny was serious. “Who?”
“One of your tenants.”
“In Broughton Road?”
She nodded.
“Which one?”
“Why don’t you tell us?”
“Well, it’s one of two. Either Kim or Anna. God, I hope it’s not Kim.”
“Why not the other three?”
“They’re on holiday, obviously.” He looked at Jenny as if she was stupid and added some clarification, “Abroad.”
He obviously watched them a lot. Far more than she had anticipated. “Why not Kim?”
“She’s gorgeous.” As if that’s all the explanation necessary.
“Okay. Why Anna?”
His lawyer put a hand on his arm, but he shrugged it off. “Anna’s a right tart. She might look like a good shag, but that’s where it stops. She —”
“Mr Pike,” interrupted his solicitor, firmly. “I advise you not to say anymore. You are under caution.”
“I’m trying to help, for fuck’s sake. It’s not as if I murdered them . . .” Pike’s voice trailed off as he looked from Jenny to Da Silva to his solicitor, while it slowly dawned on him that’s exactly what they all thought.
His face turned ashen. Finally, he looked his age.
CHAPTER 15
Towards the rear of Bruno’s coffee shop, Crooner42 observed the man he knew online as Fingal. Or ‘Brody’, as he seemed to go by in the real world. Crooner42 wondered about that. There was usually some linkage between an online handle and its owner’s real-world name. Although considering his own circumstances, he immediately discarded the thought. Crooner42 had nothing to do with his own name. It was a nickname he’d earned as a teenager after singing ‘It Had to Be You’ in a passable impersonation of Frank Sinatra during a school concert. The addition of ‘42’ in his online moniker was to make it unique. And even then, the number had meaning because it was the answer to the ultimate question, at least as far as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, one of his favourite books as a teenager, was concerned.
Once Crooner42 had deduced that Fingal and Brody were one and the same, he had bolted from his flat in Docklands and gunned it towards Charlton, throwing his car around the darkening London streets. He felt like a bullet powering through a rifle as he accelerated through the southbound Blackwall Tunnel, appreciating the sound of the vehicle’s exhaust note rebounding loudly off the tunnel walls, and burst out onto the three-lane A102, braking hard for each speed trap before accelerating again. He exited onto the Woolwich Road but slowed to a crawl as the rush hour traffic clogged the single-lane main road. Even so, he arrived at Troughton Road in under twenty minutes, just in time to spot Fingal and the policewoman getting into a silver Audi A3 outside the student house. Cheekily, he flashed his headlights to let them out and followed behind. After a couple of minutes, they pulled up outside Charlton Station and Brody exited the car. Crooner42 looked around and nabbed an empty space, even though it was clearly signposted that parking required display of a valid resident permit. He just hoped his car wasn’t towed away when he returned later.
On foot, he followed Fingal, who had plugged earphones in and seemed oblivious to all around him, down onto the platform. Crooner42 kept him in sight but maintained enough distance to avoid being spotted during the overground train ride into London Cannon Street, the short distance to Bank Underground Station, the Northern Line to Angel and finally, a walk along Upper Street. Fingal had stopped outside an apartment block and placed his key in the external front door lock and then paused, looking round. Crooner42, who was in the doorway on the other side of the road, thought Fingal had somehow clocked him. But instead, he seemed to have become aware of the coffee shop opposite and had decided upon a nightcap.
A few minutes later, Crooner42 had slunk into the coffee shop, straight past Fingal who was ensconced by the front windows with his head in his computer. Taking a seat at the rear, he ordered an Americano from the foreign-sounding waiter, who just about held back a tut at the choice, and sank back in the leather sofa, staring at his nemesis.
When Crooner42 had originally concocted his plan to discredit Fingal using SWY, he had never thought it would work out this well. In its best outcome, his plan did little more than dent Fingal’s reputation on CrackerHack and every other deep web hacker forum. By failing so publicly to crack SWY, Fingal would be proven fallible. He
would no longer be a god walking amongst mortals. His elite status would be tarnished forevermore. And at the same time, Crooner42 would be elevated to the higher echelons. And there was nothing more important to a hacker than reputation.
But now, here was Fingal in the flesh and in the palm of Crooner42’s hands. It had never occurred to Crooner42 that Fingal would track down the real-world webcam locations. He had assumed that Fingal would do what every other hacker would do — what Crooner42 himself would probably have done — and throw everything he had at an online frontal assault. Begrudgingly, he was impressed with Fingal’s initiative in seeking a back door route into SWY via the source of the webcam feeds.
It had also never occurred to Crooner42 that both he and Fingal were located in the same country, let alone the same city. It was almost impossible to tell from the chat rooms where anybody was from, other than by deduction from word-spellings, idioms and turns of phrase. But this was difficult to do; so many hackers were from China or Eastern Europe where English was a second language. And those with English as their mother tongue often disguised themselves behind geek-speak and the chatroom etiquette of acronyms and abbreviations. So was it a coincidence that Fingal was also British? A bit, he supposed. But it wasn’t that unlikely. After all, the UK was consistently one of the top ten hacking countries in the world. And anyway, it was to Crooner42’s fortune that they were both from the same country, for it had enabled Fingal to attempt his back door plan, which had led to this very moment, where both hackers were physically in the same place at the same time.
Crooner42 realised he had nearly everything he needed to wreak absolute destruction on Fingal. He had his real-world name: Brody. It wouldn’t take long to get a surname. Or was Brody the surname? Ah well, he’d know soon enough. He had his address: Upper Street. It wouldn’t take a minute to check the building number from where Fingal had paused, his key in the lock.
Yes, this would be retribution on a biblical scale, way beyond a mere dent in Fingal’s hacker status.
Invasion of Privacy: A Deep Web Thriller #1 (Deep Web Thriller Series) Page 34