“Okay, I accept the invitation,” said Gus, without giving any time for Carlos to express his opinion. “But I’m choosing; I know a place round here where they do terrific food. I was there last week with my mates, ‘because we’d gone to the Corte Inglés to buy some CDs. To be honest, we ended up not getting them from there because they were super expensive, so I told them about a place I knew where they were much cheaper, and we went there...”
Carlos sighed in desperation. It was already beginning again. He looked at Natalia out of the corner of his eye. The whopping hypocrite was smiling at Gus and nodding, as if she found what the boy was telling her interesting. He left her to the task of putting up with him, and focussed on driving.
***
The wonderful place to eat that Gus knew of turned out to be a hamburger restaurant. Natalia grimaced a little on entering, but preferred not to say anything. The two guys seemed delighted with the establishment and, if they were going to work as a team, the best thing would be to start fitting in as soon as possible. Gus managed to keep talking even whilst he was devouring his chips:
“Listen, if it’s not too much indiscretion... Can I know what I was being accused of?”
“The murder of two young girls,” replied Carlos.
“Murder? Me?” Gus was on the verge of spitting all of his food out onto the table. “But if ever laid my hands on anybody, I’d be incapable of doing any damage, unless they’re really getting up my nose, but don’t go and get me wrong. I have a bad side, like anyone does, but to go from that to killing two girls...”
“Stop, stop... We already know it wasn’t you,” Carlos cut him off. “That’s why you’re here.”
“I don’t understand.”
Natalia gave him a smile, trying to calm him down, and intervened in the conversation:
“We’ve been thinking about offering you a job but, before we can tell you anything, you have to promise us that, whether you accept it or not, what’s said at this table does not leave this table.” Gus nodded, and sat looking at her in silence, as if for the first time in his life he found himself speechless. “It is a case related to the Ertzaintza, but Carlos and I are thinking about taking it just between ourselves. And you too, if you come on board.”
Natalia made a head gesture towards Carlos, inviting him to explain it further.
“Okay, I imagine you’ll have heard talk about the murder of two minors during the last few weeks,” Gus nodded once more. “Well that’s what we’re investigating. And it’s the same thing they were accusing you of. The truth is that the killer has not left many clues. I have been questioning people, and searching for any lead I can find but, as of yet, we’ve had no results. Natalia has been the one in charge of carrying out the victims’ post mortems, in addition to helping me with the case and enlightening me with her theories,” he directed a sarcastic smile at Natalia. She preferred to say nothing; there would be time yet for settling scores when the young man was not right there in front of them. “The problem is that at the police station, they’re not very happy with the results we have thus far and, because of that, in addition to taking Natalia off the case, they decided to follow the ‘wonderful ideas’ of a certain scoundrel at the station, which resulted in your being arrested.”
“I understand so far, but I still don’t know where I fit into all this,” said Gus, perplexed.
“Natalia and I have decided to carry on with an ‘unofficial’ investigation. We believe that our ideas will yield results, but we need to carry them out without everybody poking their noses into it. Our only problem is that we need someone with your abilities.”
“What use could I be? I don’t have the slightest idea about investigating anything... I don’t even like watching detective series.”
“We think that the killer contacts his victims via the Internet, and we need somebody with as much knowledge of computers as him in order to trap him,” intervened Natalia, taking out her packet of cigarettes in order to offer him one.
Gus leaned back in the chair, and lit the cigarette as he thought:
“Well, this is all very well and good... That thing about serving the community and catching the bad guys and saving innocent victims but, what do I get out of it? Are you not even going to give me a Batman sidekick suit or anything like that?”
“We’ll pay you, of course,” offered Natalia. “You only have to say the price, but bear in mind that we’ll need absolute dedication from you until we catch him.”
“Forty Euros a day,” responded Gus after a few seconds.
“What?!” asked Carlos, aghast. “You’ll be making off with half my salary! Not on your life. It’s too much. Twenty.”
“Well, it was nice while it lasted. I’m just sorry,” Gus got up and began putting on his jacket. “I do hope that, even though I haven’t accepted, the invitation to eat is still going, because I’m skint.”
Carlos looked at Natalia with an imploring air, and she nodded:
“Thirty is our final offer,” suggested Carlos. “And bear in mind that you’re ruining us.”
“All right, since I already see that you’re both going to be stingy bosses, I hope that you’ll at least invite me to have some coffee with you,” he sat back down again and smiled at them. “We’re a team now.”
II. THE SEARCH
CHAPTER ONE
Natalia forced herself to stop pacing as she had been doing for the past ten minutes. She went up to the picture window that dominated the living room, then lit a cigarette, and took three quick drags. She tried to calm herself with slow, deep breaths whilst she watched the city. It was an hour since it had stopped raining, and now it was pretty clear. Whilst the darkness fell, the sky was progressively taking on a very dark blue colour, deep, intense... The first streetlights had turned on, and were being reflected in the estuary that crossed Bilbao like a silver ribbon. The traffic had virtually disappeared, the sounds had ceased, and the streets appeared dormant. Nevertheless, she was unable to be infected by the tranquillity that the city was radiating. Her mind continued to be dominated by a voice that was telling her again and again that she was not doing the right thing. She had to get a hold of herself, most of all at the station. The people would suspect that something serious must be going on for Natalia Egaña, Miss Perfect, the number one, to be distracted, to be making mistakes. She had to be very cautious around her colleagues and, above all, around Sergeant Aguirre. Certainly the incident of the previous day had already placed her up near the top of his blacklist: ‘the newbie with delusions of grandeur’.
She went back to repeating to herself that what she was doing would yield results; that the facts and hypotheses they would obtain together would ultimately place them on the right road for catching the killer. So then, if she was so sure of it being a good plan, why could she not stop thinking that the best thing would be to tell Carlos that she was sorry, but she was abandoning him? She should have told him no from the start; she should have been able to explain to him that she was not cut out for defying orders; that her career was the most important thing in her life. So then, what was it that had inspired her to say yes?
Initially, she had got involved in all of this because she was searching for glory, recognition... But she could not fool herself any longer; she was no longer going ahead for those reasons. Just as the situation stood, the most likely thing was that any day now she would find herself with a letter of dismissal, and a stain the size of Asia on her CV. So then, what was keeping her prisoner within this madness?
The answer thrust forth in her head: Carlos. As he had been explaining the plan to her, she had seen in his eyes a strength and a sense of eagerness that she had never perceived in anybody before. He had faith in the plan and, most importantly, he needed her. Not for her academic achievements, nor for her outstanding CV. He needed her as a person. She had seen in his eyes a hope, an urgency that bordered on despair and, as much in that initial moment as now, Natalia did not feel she could fail him.
&nb
sp; The doorbell went. She took another deep drag of her cigarette, stubbed it out in the ashtray, and ran to answer it whilst casting a glance at her watch. They were twenty minutes late. With her brow furrowed, she opened the door, to find Carlos and Gus laden down with computer components.
“Hello. You’re both late,” she said to them, standing in the lintel. “Does it really take that long to steal some computers?”
“We weren’t stealing, we were collecting evidence. Please, spare us the act, this is heavy,” Carlos came into the house with one of the monitors. “Where can I put this?”
Without waiting for a response, he left it on the floor and went back out for the rest of the boxes. Once they had got everything inside, Natalia told Gus where he could set up the computers. Gus began working, as he went along periodically asking Carlos to hand him the pieces. Natalia watched them, feeling strange. She was not used to having people in her house, to hearing other voices there. She did not find it unpleasant, in spite of the fact that in under a minute they had turned her living room into a battlefield. She left them alone and went out to the kitchen to prepare coffee for the three of them.
A few minutes later, Gus informed them that he now the whole thing ready. They sat down, one either side of him, and watched the monitors.
“How’s it going?” asked Carlos.
“Well, I’ve only just started. I’m searching to see which program the murderer could have contacted them with. There’s a myriad of chat programs. Depending which one they would be using to talk with, I’ll have to try a few different things to catch him. Can you go along doing the same thing on Vanessa’s computer?”
“Me? But I don’t even know how to turn it on...” replied Carlos, with a startled expression. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to mess the whole thing up...”
“That’s the problem with people, the kind who think that if they touch it they’ll screw it up, and they’re so afraid of computers that they never learn anything. To really wreck a computer, you need to know how to do it. Go on, move away, I’ll do it myself now.”
Gus positioned the monitors so that he could see both at the same time and began to search. Natalia was feeling excited, and she had to make an effort to not ask him what it was he was doing every second. Carlos offered her a cigarette, and the two of them smoked in a silence that felt like an eternity to her.
“Here we have it. ICQ is on both of the computers,” said Gus, making her jump.
“And is that good?” she asked, interested, coming closer in order to look at the screen.
“It’s normal. It’s a chat program like any other,” replied Gus. “So far, we haven’t found anything. I’ll warn you both that this will take time, and will very likely be boring.”
“Are you trying to get us to go?” asked Natalia, in a tone of indignation.
“No, but it’s just that you’re both looking at the screen as if the killer’s face were about to appear on it at any moment, and this thing could take days.”
“What are you doing now?” interrupted Carlos, all worked up, and not taking the least bit of notice of him.
“Fine, do what you like. I’ve already warned you,” Gus gave up. “I believe this is the chat program the killer uses to search for the girls. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help us very much because about a hundred million other people around the world also use it, so we won’t be able to arrest all of them, or tell them to be careful because there’s a very bad murderer on the loose,” Gus’s face lit up with an enormous smile. “Perfect, neither one of the two girls has it password protected. I love the users who are trusting.”
“And if they had had them protected?” asked Natalia.
“No problem, I would have been able to open them all the same, but it would have taken me a while. Okay, let’s see who these girls talked with.”
Gus opened Bianca’s contact list. A long series of names appeared on the screen:
Andromeda, Angelmist, Aroha, Becky, Charon, Chuck, Galahadran, Ghost, Jeroen, Moonchild, Noone, Phoenix, Ramón, Ray, Target.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen. One of those names belongs to our killer. Now all we need is to find out which one it is,” remarked Gus.
“Those are names?” Carlos was looking at the screen with an air of astonishment.
“They’re usernames... Nicknames you’re known by on the Internet. People can be quite innovative.”
“And what’s yours?” asked Natalia.
“Well, this one... Gus...” he replied, blushing.
“You were right; that is innovative,” Carlos shot him one of his sarcastic smiles.
“Well, the thing is I moved on from calling myself something ridiculous like Sex Machine or anything rubbish like that. And, besides, I like it,” he took another sip of his coffee whilst Carlos and Natalia finished laughing. “Let’s see Vanessa’s list.
The list that appeared before their eyes this time was even longer:
Aina, Albert, Bluesman, Bristol, CallistaZM, Charon, Crystal, Darunee, Djm, Frothug, Germangod, Jurgen, Linamaria, Lucifer, Mic, Neo, Pascal, Radek, Salvatore, Shital25M, Sileef.
“All right, now we just have to hope that our killer is stupid enough to not use a different username for each victim, or we’re going to have to read each and every one of the little messages,” Gus continued explaining.
Over the course of a few seconds, the three of them looked at the screens without uttering a single word, almost holding their breath.
“Charon! That name’s repeated on both lists,” Natalia jumped in her seat whilst she pointed excitedly at the screen.
“Okay, I think we’ve been lucky. There you have it,” Gus smiled at Carlos whilst he shook his hand.
Carlos raised his coffee cup and toasted with Natalia for that small victory. She smiled at him, feeling that she had made the right decision. She knew that this was only an initial step, but it felt like the team was working.
“Finally, some information about our killer,” said Natalia, relieved.
“Some information? What are you talking about?” asked Carlos.
“The name he uses,” she answered. “It could potentially be telling us something regarding the pathology that drives him to kill.”
“I don’t understand how you’re going to deduce any of that with just a code name,” he retorted.
“Well, the first thing you both ought to know is that it’s not called a code name, it’s called a username,” interrupted Gus.
“To hell with that. What difference does it make what it’s called?”
“It’s just that I don’t want you to pull a funny face every time I tell you both anything about IT, so the best thing is for you to go along learning the technical words bit by bit.”
“Okay, okay... We have his username, are you happy?” Gus nodded, smiling at him. “What did you mean, Natalia?”
“In Greek mythology, Charon was the ferryman who took the condemned souls to Hades, to Hell,” she explained. “It could be he sees it like this: as somebody encharged with taking those girls to their death. It could be that he sees himself as an avenger, an executioner... Many serial killers have that kind of pseudo-religious delirium.”
“Well, that’s all very interesting, but I can give you more practical facts in a moment,” interrupted Gus again, whilst he fiddled around on the computers. “In ICQ you can see the information about the people you have on your contacts list. Let’s see what it says on there. This is what we have on our guy... His name is Alex; the fields corresponding to surnames are left blank. Nor does there appear to be any address, phone number, or anything like that. I’m sorry. Here it says he’s 19 years old, he was born on the 19th of April, 1986. He lives in San Sebastián, and he loves photography, travelling, the occult sciences, and alternative music. That’s all we have, and I’m sorry to disappoint you but the thing we can be most certain about is that half of the information will be false. Nobody tells the truth on the Internet.”
“What do you mean, nobody tel
ls the truth?” asked Natalia, crestfallen.
“I’m sorry but that’s how it is. Even when people have nothing to hide, they put up false names, invent wonderful personalities in order to flirt more, they lie about their age, their sex, their marital status... That’s the beautiful thing about this whole chatting thing; that for a short while, you can be whoever you want. And if on top of that we take into account the fact that our boy actually does have a ton of things to hide like, for example, amongst his interests there’s the one about murdering innocent little girls, we can assume that he won’t have been all that sincere.”
“Maybe he didn’t think we might come to access this information and he didn’t bother to lie,” she suggested, in an attempt not to lose hope. They were running so many risks in order to be able to access this information that it did not seem fair that they might not be able to get anything useful out of it.
“Well, not to be a pain, but I don’t believe it,” apologised Gus. “He’d have to be really stupid to think that the police wouldn’t end up discovering that he contacted them through the Internet, and he didn’t have any way of being able to access the victims’ computers in order to erase the tracks he could potentially have left, so I guess that he will have been careful. In any case, you won’t lose anything by trying. And since we’re going to believe the whole thing, let’s see if the girls saved his photo... Give me a few seconds to search for it.”
Natalia held her breath whilst Gus searched for the photograph amongst the files received by the girls. It was logical to think that it would not be authentic but, after so much time chasing after an illusion, even the false photograph meant a lot to her. It was a mark that the killer had left: a lead from which they could potentially deduce something...
“Okay, here it is... the same photo on both computers.”
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