“Oi, mate.” Fiona’s voice was caustic. “You can go —”
Jenny cut in, loudly. “Mr McCarthy?”
“Oui, c’est moi.” His Essex accent masked any hint of French. He showed no shame in his poor pronunciation.
Jenny flashed her warrant card. It had the desired effect.
“Fuck me, I’m well gutted. If I’d known you were the filth, I’d have . . . ” He folded his arms across the expanse of belly. “Hah, I’d have done nothing different.” His tone turned hostile. “What do you lot want?”
“We need to ask you some questions. About two webcam installations done by your company.”
“Why, what’s happened to attract the attention of the police? A camera fallen on someone’s head or something?”
“No, it’s a bit more serious than that, Mr McCarthy. This is about the murders of two young women.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, if you did,” said Fiona, still bristling from his earlier comment, “then that might make our conversation a damn sight more interesting.”
“Is there somewhere we can talk properly?” Jenny glared at Fiona while speaking to McCarthy, emphasising what she said next: “We really need your help.”
Fiona glanced at her feet: a muted apology.
“Uh, sure,” said McCarthy; more amiable now that Jenny had played the damsel in distress card. Her experience of chauvinistic men — and she had no doubt from his sexist comments that McCarthy was a relic from an earlier age — was that it worked both ways; they could be downright rude, but they were usually the first to jump to a woman’s rescue. “Come through to my office.”
They followed McCarthy through the inner security door and into a short corridor. On one side was a massive window overlooking a room with tall benches, piled high with computer equipment. Two male employees, one with short dark hair, the other with blond hair in a ponytail, stopped working at the sight of the two police officers trailing behind their boss.
McCarthy stopped to offer some commentary. “This is our staging area. We preconfigure all our installations here before fitting them at our clients’ premises. Just leaves the creative job of running all the wiring on site.”
“Are your clients mostly residential?”
“Nah, that’s just a sideline we’ve developed in the last few years, although it’s turning out to be highly profitable. We face lots of competition for the major commercial contracts, so a nice run-rate of consumer IP webcam business is certainly helpful.”
McCarthy opened the door at the end of the corridor. They followed him through, passing a kitchenette and a storeroom.
“Businesses don’t use IP webcams then?” asked Fiona.
“Some do, especially if they’re spying on their staff. But our core business is traditional CCTV installations. From builders wanting to secure their yards to councils installing city-centre control room systems, we do the lot. The best camera systems aren’t hidden; they’re on full show. If you see a camera is watching you, you’re less likely to do anything dodgy. They’re preventative.”
He opened the door on the left and they entered a more traditional office area. Office workers, chairs, desks, phones, computers, filing cabinets and waste paper bins filled the large expanse. Windows looked out onto a staff car park, with one bright red Maserati standing proud amid its more prosaic neighbours.
“Welcome to my harem,” proclaimed McCarthy, his arms open as if surveying his life’s work.
Only then did Jenny realise that the seven or eight employees she could see were all women. In fact, they were all stunning-looking women. The two nearest looked up as they entered and threw their eyes up at McCarthy’s line, obviously having heard it many times before.
“From order taking to invoicing and collection, my beauties here manage it all like a well-lubricated machine.”
They followed him into a large glass-walled inner office, from where, Jenny surmised, McCarthy spent all day ogling his workforce. She felt nauseous at the thought of having to work for such a lech.
As they sat at the small meeting table in the corner, McCarthy offered them tea or coffee. Fiona chose tea. Jenny declined, requesting a glass of water instead. She still had a dull ache at the back of her head, no doubt dehydration caused by last night’s unexpected excesses with Brody.
McCarthy stepped out and relayed the order to the nearest employee, presumably his secretary, referring to her as Sheila.
He joined them at the table, squeezing his huge behind into the small chair. “So how can I help?”
Jenny brought him up to speed with the facts he needed to know. Two victims having being raped and killed, both lured to their deaths under false pretences. Other than the MOs of the two crimes, the only common factors were that both women came from homes that had webcam systems installed by McCarthy’s company.
“Surely that’s just a coincidence?” Jenny noted that he asked the question more out of interest than defence.
“Perhaps, but there’s another factor.” Jenny nodded to Fiona, handing her the metaphorical baton, enabling Jenny to avoid the more technological aspects of the case.
“What’s your relationship with HomeWebCam.com?” asked Fiona.
“We’re their only authorised implementation partner in the UK. Why, what’s this got to do with anything?”
“So you do the installation and as part of it you link up the onsite network video recorder PC to HomeWebCam’s remote access service?”
McCarthy was unable to hide his surprise. It was hard to tell whether it was because he was impressed with Fiona’s technical accuracy or taken aback at a woman talking technology.
“Yes. We configure them to HomeWebCam’s standard specifications, set it all up for the customer and train them how to log into the web service. And the best bit is that HomeWebCam covers the help desk support. If there’s an onsite issue they’ll call us back in. For a fee of course.”
Sheila arrived with their drinks. As she placed them on the table, it occurred to Jenny that the girl presented herself in the way a porn star might play the part of a secretary, at least at the beginning of a scene when clothes were still involved: see-through cream blouse open to the cleavage, dark coloured bra, bright red lipstick, large glasses, long dark hair tied on top, short tight skirt and bare legs, all perched on top of impossibly high heels. Jenny wondered how McCarthy recruited these women and whether or not they were willing participants in his fantasy.
Fiona continued, “Have you heard of a site called SecretlyWatchingYou.com?”
“No. Should I?”
Fiona explained how some of the feeds from HomeWebCam were somehow also appearing on SecretlyWatchingYou. As she explained, McCarthy reached over to his desk and grabbed an iPad. He slowly entered the web address, stubby fingers making multiple mistakes on the tablet’s glass surface, each one eliciting a light curse.
Fiona continued her explanations as he explored the site. She wheeled her chair around to his side and directed him to Au Pair Affair. As he studied the static images that previewed the location, he started shaking his head in disbelief. Fiona explained how the static images became live webcam footage once you were a paid-up customer. Jenny added their theory that the killer was using the site to observe his intended victims and utilise the private information he’d gleaned to lure them to the site of their murder.
He hollered through the glass window. “Sheila! Get Derek and Dave in here. Now!”
He turned to them. “This site is fucking unbelievable. Are you saying that every HomeWebCam site is on here?”
“We’re not sure yet,” said Jenny. “We know for sure that’s the Saxtons’ home. We think the other one was on there up until recently, but now that we’ve taken away the network video recorder PC you can’t see it on the site. We haven’t tracked down any other locations yet.”
“Are these feeds from all over the world or just the UK?”
“Again, we’re not sure yet.”
; “HomeWebCam must be supplying these feeds. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Whether they’re doing so knowingly is the question.”
Jenny recalled Brody making the exact same statement this morning in the coffee shop.
The two men they’d seen in the staging room earlier entered the office. The dark haired one was introduced as Derek. The blond one was Dave. McCarthy brought them up to speed and asked them if they recognised any of the locations on SecretlyWatchingYou. As Derek and Dave hunched over the iPad, fingers and thumbs driving in and out of different locations, McCarthy explained. “These two cretins do most of the installs, at least the ones in the South East of the country. They might recognise some of the locations.”
After a few minutes, they had identified three locations, in addition to the Saxtons’. McCarthy moved behind his desk and brought up details of the customers.
“I can’t believe HomeWebCam would be this dumb. I’ll phone Ken Toomey later, as soon as it’s morning in the States. He’s their CEO. He’ll make sure this gets stopped.”
“Don’t worry,” said Fiona, “He’ll be getting a visit from his local police department.”
It was one of the lines of enquiry they’d brainstormed that morning when the team had first got together. Da Silva, always keen to be the public face of what was becoming a high-profile case, had taken the action to contact San Francisco Police Department and request their support locally. Jenny suspected that Da Silva believed international exposure would be beneficial to his career. She had assigned herself and Fiona the more important lead of visiting the webcam installation company, which was starting to look like it would pay off, despite having to deal with the sleazeball who owned it.
The printer in the corner juddered to life. McCarthy reached over, grabbed the sheet of paper it produced and handed it to Fiona, explaining that it listed the addresses of the three locations identified by Derek and Dave.
“Lads,” he addressed his two male employees, “Drop everything. I want you to sit yourselves in front of a proper PC each, register and pay — on expenses of course — for full access to this SecretlyWatchingYou site and have a proper look through it. See if there are any more locations that we’ve installed. Now.”
Muttering their consent, the two men left the room.
“Thanks Mr McCarthy,” said Jenny, “that’s a good start. But there’s more.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of the other working theories we have, and the other reason for coming here, is that the common factor between the two murders is your business, not HomeWebCam. SecretlyWatchingYou might be getting its feeds through something you or one of your employees is doing.”
“That’s fucking outrageous!”
“Where were you last Friday between 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m?” Jenny asked, pointedly.
Fiona added, “And the same times on Monday evening?”
“You’re taking the piss.”
“Do we look like we’re joking?” Jenny retorted.
“Sheila,” McCarthy called to his secretary with a sudden note of confidence. She opened the door and peered in. “Where was I last Friday night? And Monday?”
Without hesitation, Sheila spoke. Her accent was pure Essex, through and through. “Awe Nicky, I can’t believe you even need to ask, my love. You was wiv me, remember? We had dinner at The Tramshed in Shoreditch on Friday. And on Monday, we saw Billy Elliot at The Palace in Victoria.”
“Thanks Sheila: that will be all.” Sheila pulled the door shut as she left them to it.
Jenny refused to allow her brain to imagine McCarthy and Sheila together. How the hell did a mid-twenties porn star-come-secretary end up with a forty-year-old lump of lard like McCarthy? And before the question had even fully formed, the answer was already there, embodied by the red Maserati parked outside.
Money.
“Anything else, ladies?” McCarthy’s hostility was back.
Jenny bit her tongue and said what needed to be said. She needed his assistance first and foremost. “Sorry, Mr McCarthy, but you must understand, we had to ask. With two unsolved murders, we can’t leave any stone unturned.” Privately, Jenny resolved to verify Sheila’s story later. Just in case it was a prearranged alibi.
McCarthy was somewhat mollified. ‘Okay, I guess. But I can’t believe that my firm, or anyone in it has anything to do with this.”
“I’m sure that’s true. But, we do need to eliminate everyone from our enquiries. I know it’s a lot to ask, but we need a full list of all your staff and all your customers.”
“But that’s —”
“Just your IP webcam customers,” clarified Fiona.
McCarthy grumbled, but didn’t argue. Despite his Victorian ideals, McCarthy seemed inclined to help. Jenny decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
They would crosscheck the employees against all known offender databases and then interview them one by one, verifying alibis. What action they took on the customer database was something she would need to discuss with Da Silva, but she had a proposal for him, one that might at least prevent another murder. For if anything was certain in Jenny’s mind, the killer was not yet done.
Just over an hour later, McCarthy escorted them back through his office complex. Fiona held a USB stick full of data.
Returning to the reception area, Fiona asked the question that was also on Jenny’s mind. “Out of interest, just how many hidden cameras are here?”
“Hah,” his enthusiasm had returned during their subsequent conversations, as the focus shifted away from him as a suspect. “How many do you think? DC Jones, you first.”
Fiona studied the room for a good thirty seconds, her fingers counting as she studied the room. “I’m going for three or four. The smoke alarm and the exit sign for sure. Then maybe the picture frame and the plant.”
“And you, DI Price?”
“I’ll add the little design holes in the reception desk to Fiona’s list.”
“Not bad. Six; all correct. The record for the most correct spots is eight.”
“So how many are there?”
“Twenty-eight.” He failed to conceal his pride. “We use the room to demonstrate to potential customers the creative ways we’re able to hide these webcams. If you want, I can pop back to my office and grab my iPad, log into HomeWebCam and shown you them all.”
“Next time, eh?” said Jenny, fully intending to delegate any follow-up activity that required spending further time in McCarthy’s smutty presence. Unless one of his female employees lodged a sexual harassment complaint against McCarthy, then she’d personally come down and arrest the dinosaur.
* * *
Leroy placed a takeaway cup of coffee in front of Brody. It was from Bruno’s, across the road.
“Blimey darling, cheer up. It may never happen, eh?”
“Told you Leroy, I’m not in the mood.”
“Not in the mood? You’re in the worst mood I’ve seen you in for ages. What’s up?”
Brody was beaten, that’s what was up. Crooner42 had wiped the floor with him. Fingal would probably never recover from this. His online persona wasn’t just going to be taken down a peg or two; Crooner42 would ensure he was completely discredited in every deep web hacking community. Fingal’s crown was going to be usurped by nothing more than a lowly script kiddie – as far as Brody knew, Crooner42 was not even a fully-fledged hacker.
And what was worse, Brody had no idea how he’d done it. SecretlyWatchingYou really was one of the most secure websites he’d ever come up against, resisting every exploit ever discovered. And that was Brody’s problem, every known exploit. Anything known could be defended against. The only way Brody could win now was to deploy an unknown exploit, a zero day, an attack known to Brody but unknown to everyone else. No site could guard against an ambush from an unknown vector. But this line of thinking was only hypothetical. Brody had trawled through every hacker forum on the Internet and the deep web, even using an online translator on some of the obscu
re Russian communities, and had not found a single zero day mentioned that might work against SWY’s configuration. He was even prepared to pay for one, that’s how low he was willing to stoop to win. Although, as the thought passed through his mind, so did the typical going rate, which was usually in the hundreds of thousands of US dollars. Brody wasn’t sure his reputation was worth that much.
So far, Brody had wasted two whole days trying to figure out how the video feeds arrived into SecretlyWatchingYou, convinced that this would expose the weakest point in the site’s defences. And while that theory still held water, he’d only found the beginning of the trail. The video feeds were accessed and controlled from HomeWebCam but the trail went cold there. He felt like a tracker dog whose quarry had jumped in a fast-flowing stream to mask its scent. Maybe he should have used the last two days to try and develop a completely new zero day? But he knew from experience how hit and miss that was. The odds on uncovering a vector that might form the basis of a zero day exploit in under two days were almost nil, unless you were plain lucky.
Crooner42 was clearly much smarter than Brody or anyone else on CrackerHack had given him credit for. And, in the eyes of the hacking community, his victory over Fingal and Matt_The_Hatter would send his kudos through the roof.
“I’m completely stumped, Leroy.”
“What, on this webcam site?”
“Yes.”
“So what’s the big deal? I thought you were just doing a favour for a mate, that’s what you said the other day.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a bit more to it than that.”
“Like what?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
Leroy sat on the armchair, making a show that he was here to stay. “Normally, I’d agree with you and then I’d change the subject to something far more interesting and important,” he beamed, “you know, like me. But as you did Danny and me a huge favour last night by giving us some privacy to celebrate our anniversary, I’m going to try and show an interest for once. So explain it to Uncle Leroy. What’s the big deal?”
Invasion of Privacy: A Deep Web Thriller #1 (Deep Web Thriller Series) Page 39