by Chris Thomas
Fowler grabbed at the laptop and began typing into the browser as the room watched in quiet anticipation. This would have been the first time quite a few of the regular officers had even heard of the deep web, let alone seen it. As the blocky, retro style browser turned over, Harris began talking again.
‘Our sources have indicated that this “Brotherhood” use a chat room called “Enter The Dark” to advertise the show. So if you’ll just bear with us for a moment we might have something.’
The room began chatting amongst itself as Fowler and Harris hunched over the laptop.
‘There,’ shouted Harris, pointing at the screen, at which point the room fell silent and attention switched back to the board. At the top of the list of various chats entitled ‘Miscellaneous’ sat a thread entitled TRATD. Fowler clicked in to find a link; seemingly random numbers and letters. Underneath were various responses from users indicating that they had already clicked on the link. ‘Let’s see where this takes us.’
Fowler clicked on the link. ‘It’s not doing anything. There’s no hyperlink attached to it.’
‘Smart move, means there’s no back trace. You’ll have to copy and paste it,’ replied Harris, as Fowler began typing into a new browser window.
‘Is that it?’ asked an officer, as the non-descript white screen, with an input box and statement Entry 1BX, flashed up on the board.
‘What does—’ started an officer, before being cut off by around ten other people in the room all shouting ‘Bitcoin,’ in unison. ‘Sorry,’ replied the officer, ‘this isn’t really my realm, all this nerdy stuff. I’m more of a beat bobby.’
‘And you’re here because?’ asked Brooks.
‘I was transferred here to help with the Parker case, since it was me who found the tag. I don’t really know why I’m here either,’ he responded, to stifled chuckles within the room.
‘That’s enough,’ said Smith, standing up to address the room. ‘OK, everyone, thank you for your time. I think we’ll call it a day for now. My team and I will carry on with this Red Room investigation, but I want everyone to be on stand-by in case it throws up anything urgent.’
As the mumbling, chattering officers stood to leave, Brooks went and joined Fowler and Harris by the laptop.
‘So, chaps, this is it then, I assume. Shit or bust.’
‘Well yes,’ replied Harris. ‘But let’s not lose sight of what we’re dealing with here. If our assumptions are correct, this page will give us entry to view the live killing of a real person. This is slightly more than just happy slapping or a bullying video posted to Facebook. I hope you’re all ready for this, it could be disturbing.’
‘Sir, I think we’re going to need to plunder the petty cash.’ Smith had joined their little huddle and was typing something into his phone at the same time.
‘Fine, do what you need to do. But look, I’d rather keep this on the down low just for the time being. You saw most of the people in this room just now. Apart from the ones who weren’t really sure why they had even been dragged in, a lot of them just thought we were dealing with some sort of elaborate hoax. Do what you’ve got to do. Keep as many records as you can, screenshots and so on. Whatever happens, we need to be in that show when it goes out.’
As they left the room, Smith pressed send on his message.
Getting closer. They’ve found the site.
BACK IN THE OFFICE, Harris sat at his desk with a cup of coffee. He picked up the drinks coaster from next to his keyboard and spun it around between his finger and thumb. It felt like ages since he had spent any proper time with his daughter.
‘Go home, Pete,’ said Fowler, as she placed her hand on his shoulder. ‘You look like shit, smell like shit, but even so, Olivia still needs you to be her dad every once in a while.’
‘I promised I would take her to Legoland this weekend,’ he replied, staring into the hypnotic blur of the coaster as it spun in his hand.
‘Well, that was a schoolboy error,’ she chuckled, perching on the edge of his desk.
‘I know. I’m probably going to have to cancel if the shit hits the fan with this investigation.’
‘No, I mean it’s the weekend. Legoland will be absolutely heaving. There’s not an awful lot more that we can do here now, especially if his lordship wants us to keep this under wraps for the time being. Why don’t you get an early one?’
Grace walked away, placing a friendly hand on top of his before she went. He appreciated the support and knew that, really, he should be listening to her.
‘Fowler, can we sort this bitcoin payment out?’ Harris shouted across the office.
‘Already on it,’ came the reply. Harris put the coaster down and walked over to his colleague’s desk. ‘I’ve gone to the link to deposit the bitcoin. I’ve authorised the transfer. I’m just waiting for the transaction to be completed.’
After a few more minutes of waiting, the confirmation message eventually appeared on the screen.
FAILED
‘How has it failed?’ asked Harris.
‘No idea, let me try again,’ replied Fowler. He input all the transaction details, the wallet I.D., the transfer key, double checking each digit as he went. Ten minutes later, the same message appeared. Failed.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Fowler, randomly clicking around the screen. ‘The details in the transaction screen are correct, we both saw that. There’s more than enough credit in the wallet; Christ, it’s only one single coin. I don’t get it.’
‘Could they be blocking us?’
‘That would be practically impossible. The transactions are authorised anonymously by users around the world called miners. There’s no way that they can backtrack through a transaction before it’s even taken place, and there’s absolutely no way of telling who’s going to mine a particular transfer. Even the miners don’t see who it’s come from or where it’s going to, they just see numbers.’
‘So what does that leave?’
‘It’s possible to put levels of security on the bitcoin account to prevent payments to certain destinations. A bit like blocking certain incoming addresses on your emails.’
‘But that would mean …’
‘Correct. It’s someone here blocking us from making the transfer.’
29
Amanda stared into the mirror. As she carefully applied the eyeliner onto her left eye, a teary streak of black ran down the other cheek. The puffiness in her lips had lessened and the scabs at the corner of her mouth had healed well. But it still took a lot of eyeliner, foundation, and mascara to cover the bruising that surrounded her eye. The other parents at preschool already gave her looks, looks that told her they were better than she was. She was always conveniently missed off of round robin emails detailing class nights out, school updates, coffee mornings. And if Mo ever received an invitation to a birthday party it was out of obligation to invite the whole class, rather than the parents actually wanting him there. The looks, the stares, she had put them all down to Saeed’s reputation; they all believed they knew his history.
The mistake she made had been confiding in someone who she thought was her friend, but all that she’d achieved was to provide this person with a nugget of prized gossip. Armed with this knowledge, the ‘friend’ could now worm her way into the playground ‘it-crowd’ at Amanda’s expense. But when turning up to the school playground for drop-off with a face like a boxer who had just fought fifteen rounds and lost horribly, when that doesn’t elicit any more reaction than any other normal day, that was when it started to hurt deep inside. Every time she looked in the mirror she cried for her boys, trying to cover up the truth about their father, wishing she could find a way out.
A mug sat on the window sill. She picked it up and took a large gulp, grimacing as she struggled to swallow the now room temperature liquid.
‘Mummy,’ came the shout from outside the bathroom. ‘Mummy, Shan’s spilt his cup of milk all over the floor.’
Amanda hastily touched up the smud
ged make-up. She sniffed, wiping her nose on the back of her hand.
‘I’m coming, darling.’ It was time to run the daily gauntlet of the playground.
ANOTHER MORNING COME AND GONE, and all that Amanda had to look forward to now was an afternoon locked away in her house with her boys, waiting for Saeed to walk back in through the door. He hadn’t come home last night, which wasn’t unusual, but usually he would at least text a couple of words.
There had been more stares than there generally were today, the not-so-subtle discussions from huddles of women all laughing at each other’s jokes and patting each other on the arms. Amanda was the last to find out why, as the teacher gave her a white envelope when she handed Mo over at home time.
As she sat down at the kitchen table and opened the envelope, her boys already sat in front of the television, she poured herself another glass of white wine from the fridge, her second of the day. Or maybe the third. The letter was from Mo’s teacher and, in a blunt and to the point couple of paragraphs, confirmed Amanda’s worst fears: that Mo was anything like his father.
She caught her curved reflection in the side of the wine glass, and even with the faintly green tint, she could see the black lines running down both cheeks. Nowadays, she sometimes cried without even realising it, but not this time. She read the letter, about how mothers had been complaining of Mo punching and biting their darling little ones, how they were forced to keep Mo isolated for periods of the day to ‘chill out’, and how they claimed to have raised the issue with her a number of times at pickup. They may have done; she was usually in such a rush to leave there as quickly as possible that she had probably blanked it from her mind. Her sobbing became louder and she took bigger and bigger mouthfuls of wine with each sentence she read.
She had always made it a priority to shelter the boys from the corrosive environment that they were forced to live in. And seeing reports of her little boy being violent at such a tender age, before he could even read, made her hate herself even more; as did anything that reminded her that Mo and Shan were Saeed’s, and, even worse, that they might turn into him. This was it, time to call it a day.
Screwing the letter up, she swallowed down the last of the glass, coughing as the harshness of the alcohol caught the back of her throat.
‘Mo,’ she shouted, ‘run up to your room and grab as many cuddly toys as you can put in this bag.’
She handed him a small rucksack as he ran past, not even attempting to hide his discontent at having to leave his favourite television show. Grabbing Shan from the lounge, she followed him upstairs and into their bedroom. She grabbed at clothes, shoes, filled a washbag with essentials, and stuffed it all into one big holdall.
Racing back down the stairs, she took coats off the hooks in the hallway and placed Shan on the bottom step.
‘Can you put his shoes on please, darling?’ she said, tossing a pair of canvas trainers to Mo.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Mo.
‘Out,’ she replied.
‘Are we going to Grandad’s?’
‘Possibly. Will you just put your coat and shoes on, please?’
Amanda opened the door, picked up the holdall, and ushered the two boys outside. She patted her trousers, then her coat.
‘Shit,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Mo sit here, hold onto Shan, make sure he doesn’t walk off. I need to find my phone.’
She placed the bag down on the path, walked back into the house, checking the hall cabinet, then in the kitchen.
‘Come on, where the hell are you?’ she muttered.
A message alert echoed from the lounge. She lifted one cushion and then another from the sofa. Eventually, she found it under the coffee table, still with Mo’s favourite game open. Closing it down, she walked out, checking the message as she went. Spam again, telling her she could claim thousands of pounds for an accident she’d never had.
As she walked out into the hallway and turned towards the front door, eyes still down on her phone, she felt a hand on her shoulder, blocking the way.
‘Going somewhere?’
She inhaled violently as she looked up to see Saeed standing in front of her, with the holdall in his other hand.
‘Sae,’ she exclaimed, quickly trying to regain some composure as her heart raced. ‘Er, no, not all. We’re just taking some old clothes to the charity shop.’
‘Really? Interesting,’ replied Saeed, calmly. ‘Kids, inside. I’d quite like to see what clothes you’re getting rid of. Let’s open the bag, and we can see what you’ve decided is no longer good enough for you. Shall we? We’ll do that, shall we?’
He closed the door behind him as the boys ran in to the lounge.
‘Give it here,’ shouted Amanda, trying to grab the bag from him as he held her off with one arm.
‘No, don’t be silly. Come on, let’s see,’ he said, as he started to open the holdall, before holding it upside down and emptying its contents all over the floor. ‘So, you think charity shops want a washbag full of toothbrushes and toothpaste, do you? Or your skanky nightie?’
He walked over the pile towards her, trampling it deliberately as he tried to stop her running off into the kitchen.
‘Get off me. We’ve had enough. You can’t keep us here like this,’ she shouted, as she ran around the opposite side of the kitchen table, making sure not to lose sight of him. Slowly, he walked into the room, like a predator stalking an injured prey.
‘You really think you can just walk out of here? Just like that? You really are a stupid waste of space, aren’t you?’
‘No, I’m not. You’re the useless one. You’re a bully and you know what bullies are? Cowards. They’re cowards and you are the worst.’
Saeed laughed, almost in disbelief at what he was hearing. He walked over to the table and saw the empty wine bottle. As he picked it up, he turned it over and looked in the top as nothing came out.
‘So, this is what you’ve lowered yourself to?’
‘It’s the only way I can deal with living with such an arsehole.’
‘So leave then. Go and run to Daddy, find yourself another man. But you won’t though, will you?’ he said, as he rolled the bottle across the table towards her. ‘Because you’re damaged goods. You’re sullied. As if anyone would lower themselves to take you—’
Before he could finish the sentence, Amanda picked up the wine bottle. As years of pent up anger and frustration boiled over, she hurled the bottle as hard as she could straight at Saeed’s head.
As Saeed ducked out of the way, it felt as though someone had punched a hole through her chest and ripped out her heart. She heard the ‘Mummy’ first and then her eyes focused on her son stood at the doorway as the bottle struck him on the top of the head.
‘MO!’ she shouted, but it was too late. She dropped to her knees, holding onto the table for support as her whole world came crumbling down. Saeed quickly got to his feet and ran to the doorway. Mo lay prostrate on the floor, out cold, with blood gushing from his head.
Amanda began hyperventilating, and the words she wanted to shout stuck in her throat.
‘Get … get … away from him, you bastard. This is all your fault.’
Saeed turned around and smirked at her. He shook his head as he scooped Mo up in his arms before heading to the lounge and collecting Shan. Amanda tried to stand, but her legs felt like jelly and she could only watch helplessly as Saeed walked out of the house with her two boys.
‘HOW DOES THAT FEEL?’ asked the doctor, as he snipped the twine after the last stitch.
‘It hurts,’ replied Mo.
Saeed let out a little giggle and ruffled his hand through Mo’s hair. ‘It will do, mate, that was quite a bump you got there. You should really be more careful. Some of those books on the bookcase are really heavy.’
‘Well, Mister Anwar, it’ll take a couple of weeks for the swelling on his head to go down. Luckily, he seems to have avoided any serious concussion, but just keep an eye on him. If he seems unwell, or th
e bleeding starts again, bring him back to A and E and we’ll fix him up again,’ said the doctor, before turning his attention back to Mo. ‘And as for you, young man, no more climbing up the bookcase. You were lucky it was attached to the wall.’
He handed Mo a lollipop and left. After a few moments of silence, they heard a familiar shout down the corridor.
‘Mo Anwar, is he here?’ came the desperate shout. ‘I’m his mother, I need to see him.’
Saeed pressed his finger against his lips and whispered, ‘Ssh’.
But the silence was broken by the curtain being wrenched across, almost right off the runner.
‘Mo, Mo, Mo,’ she screamed, as she ran towards him, barging Saeed out of the way and stopping short of giving Mo a massive hug only after catching sight of the wound she’d caused. Her arms out wide, she stopped abruptly, not wanting to cause him any more pain. Gently, she caressed his cheeks as tears rolled down her own.
‘You did that,’ whispered Saeed, as he leaned in close to her.
She swallowed hard. ‘What did you tell them?’
‘I told them precisely what happened,’ he replied, calmly.
At that moment, the doctor returned. ‘Is everything alright in here? I heard the shouting at the front desk. Are you Mrs Anwar?’
‘He’s lying,’ she pleaded, stuttering and pointing her finger at Saeed. ‘This is his fault. I didn’t mean to hit Mo, the bottle...’
‘The bottle?’ asked the doctor, confused. ‘But I thought you said it was a book. Right, excuse me a moment. I need to get someone else in here.’
Saeed grinned and stroked his beard as the doctor turned to leave the cubicle. Realising what she had just done, Amanda turned to Saeed, her face red with anger.
‘What did you tell them, you bastard?’
‘I was trying to protect you,’ he replied, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I tried to tell them that it was an accident. You were the one who went shooting your mouth off.’
‘You bastard,’ she shouted, her eyes bloodshot and filled with tears. She pulled back her fist and, just as the doctor walked back into the cubicle, punched Saeed with all her might, sending him sprawling backwards onto the floor after bouncing off a chair.