by BRM Stewart
Grosvenor yawned. ‘Yeah. I have a family weekend, and anyhow, there’s no rush. McGregor won’t be going anywhere.’
Stuart coughed softly to remind them he was there.
‘You carry on with your stuff, Max. No need for you to travel. Mark will let you know what he finds out and you can follow it up from here. You can liaise back and forth.’
They all understood that, while the cybercrime was really Stuart’s expertise, Grosvenor had much more experience of working out in the field, interviewing suspects, getting them to talk and tell what they knew – even though they didn’t want to talk at all.
‘OK,’ Jackson said, ‘we’ll get folks here to arrange the travel.’ He took a deep breath. ‘We’ll see how close this gets us to the answers, and maybe the bigger international guys. Good job, guys. So far.’
Grosvenor tossed his empty coffee cup over to the trashcan. It missed.
Chapter 26
Kirkwall and onwards
I was into my third week in the hotel, slowly becoming institutionalised and feeling ever more alone. Nicola had never returned,
I spent some days exploring: Sanday with its incredible beaches, the anomalous mountainous Hoy, and around what I had learned to call Mainland – walking and thinking, gazing in wonder at the remains of coastal defences from the wars.
Late one evening I got back to the hotel, and collected my key.
‘Did you ever catch up with Mr McAllister?’ the lady on reception asked me. I stared back at her blankly. She smiled. ‘He was in the bar, looking for you. No?’
I shook my head. ‘I didn’t see him.’
I stood frozen for a moment, wanting to ask her what he looked like: not Romanian, or she’d had surely commented. Not police – again, she’d have said. So who was he? And why had he hung around and then simply gone?
I found out when I got up to my room. I had no idea how he’d done it, but he’d got into my room and searched it. He’d been careful, but I could tell that the stuff in my drawers had been moved. He’d attempted to get into my laptop, but the password had defeated him.
I sat on the edge of the bed. They’d found me. If they were the police then why hadn’t they moved to arrest me? If they were gangsters then why hadn’t they hung around to beat me senseless in the car park?
So who were they then? What did they want?
I spent an hour sitting there, my mind freewheeling, racing. It was over. I was, to all intents and purposes, caught. At some point they’d come again and take me back to Glasgow to face whatever it was I had to face. Maybe escape as a minor accessory to Ken Talbot’s criminal world, maybe get the rap as a key figure in it. How much would they nail the cybercrime on me? Would I face murder charges in two countries?
And then I stood up, shaking away the torpor, the despair. No, it wasn’t bloody over. I wasn’t going to let it end like this, not without a last push. I was hungry after my walk, so I went down for dinner, washed down with a few pints of Scapa Special, and then back to my room and onto the Internet. Then I started packing.
I checked out after a very early breakfast, paying for a few extra days in lieu of notice, and then drove round to the hire car garage. I settled my bill there, and they phoned me a taxi and wished me a safe journey and hoped they’d see me again. I said I hoped so as well. The taxi came and took me the short journey to the airport. As we curved down towards it, I could see the runway and then the sea, clear blue, glinting in the morning sunshine.
‘Going to be a bonny day,’ the driver said in the accent I had become so familiar with – at first it had been incomprehensible, like Norwegian.
I agreed.
I checked in, and then grabbed a coffee and sat on the comfy chairs looking out through the big window at the apron and runway and the water beyond, with half an eye on the TV, and both ears listening for heavy footsteps behind me. On my laptop, I booked a hotel in Aberdeen for two nights, paying in advance.
One of the tiny 8-seater planes with the Highland Park logo departed to Westray, to be followed by that little hop over to Papa Westray, the shortest scheduled flight in the world. After it buzzed away into the sky and disappeared, the larger Flybe came in, parked and emptied, and our departure was announced.
Security was strict, and then I was in the little departure lounge, and boarding – the flight was full – and away, through the clouds into a clear blue sky.
I relaxed, but knew this was an illusion. The police would easily be able to check the flights and ferries, and find I had gone to Aberdeen. I planned to try to confuse them there. But for the next hour or so I was safe. I accepted my free coffee, drank it, then closed my eyes and slept for the rest of the trip.
At Aberdeen airport, I took a taxi into the city, to the Union Square shopping complex which contained the big Victorian railway station. All the time, I expected to hear a cough behind me and a hand on my shoulder. But I hoped they might be waiting at the hotel I had booked, but had no intention of staying in.
I walked into the railway station, and bought my ticket for Edinburgh, first class, cash. As the train hurtled down the rugged east coast of Scotland, the day turned back to rain, I enjoyed the free snacks and the endless coffee, and I slept some more. But all the time I knew it was pointless: they’d found me before, and they could do it again. I was done and I knew it. I actually just wanted to go home, to that empty flat in Glasgow.
In Edinburgh, I went down to a hotel in Grassmarket – they had a room. I booked it for three nights, and gave them my credit card.
I drank and ate, and drank again in the hotel, and went to bed quite early. I couldn’t sleep for the unfamiliar city noises, and for the fear that at any moment someone would walk through my hotel room door and either arrest me or kill me.
But I’d done what I could today to get clear, and in due course I’d move on again, and just keep running, for as long as I could.
*
It was my third night in Edinburgh. The city was cold, and made me feel lonely as I walked around. I gazed in disbelief at the on-going tramworks cutting through Haymarket and along Princes Street. There were still traces of the Festival – fly posters everywhere, baffled tourists stumbling around, the hotels still very busy and expensive.
I liked being alone in the pubs on and around the Royal Mile and down on Rose Street, but I usually left when they get really busy with drunks, because by then other lonely people would want to talk to me. I didn’t want to talk to anyone; I couldn’t make friends, couldn’t talk about my life. I craved female company, but all the girls out in the pubs were far too young – like Sam, back in the day: short skirts, high shoes, and squawking, drunken laughter and shouts, hen parties everywhere. Once I heard a loud foreign voice at my shoulder at the bar, and I jumped; false alarm.
I ended up back on Grassmarket, in one of the pubs across from the hotel. I had a last beer there, feeling safe somehow in that crowd. Then I went back over to the hotel, and had a gin and tonic in the bar – the barman knew me now, and it was just a nod to get my drink poured and brought over to my table, just like in the hotel in Ploesti.
Tonight another resident came into the bar from upstairs, and I heard a gravelly American accent as he ordered a ‘double Scotch with water’ – I recognised the accent from the movies and TV: New York. He talked to the barman briefly, asking about the best places to drink in town, and the barman gave him some tips.
I looked up. The man was somewhere around sixty, with a mass of white hair and a big white beard. He was wearing jeans and a thick, loud lumberjack shirt.
‘Much obliged, son,’ he said to the barman, and I watched him come over – walking with a stiff right leg like he had an old injury – and sit at the table next to mine, unfolding a newspaper with a flourish, giving me a slight nod. ‘Hi there.’
‘Hi,’ I replied.
I settled back in my seat, looking around the rest of the open plan bar area. Every time someone came in from outside, taking off their coats and jackets immediately as they hit t
he warmth, I looked hard, trying to guess whether it was someone after me. I was tuned in to East European accents, and was scanning for a young pretty blonde, with a mixture of desire and fear.
A good night’s sleep, check out in the morning, go somewhere else. I contemplated the last of my gin, saw the barman raise his eyebrows. I thought for a second, then shook my head. Where would I go tomorrow? Back to Spain? God, I needed somewhere warm.
I finished my drink and stood up, gathering my coat, heading for the lift. I heard the voice – ‘Night – thanks for the suggestions’ – and the white-haired American was in the lift with me, asking for the same floor.
‘Cold,’ I said, because you have to say something in a lift.
‘I’m from New York,’ he said, ‘so I’m kinda used to it. Not this early though.’
He let me get out of the lift first, and I heard him behind me as I went down the corridor: I looked round as I walked, and saw him pulling his keycard from his pocket, juggling his newspaper. The corridor was empty – too late for many, too early for some. I reached the door of my room and opened it.
I heard two swift footsteps coming towards me, too quickly for me to react, and then I was suddenly and firmly pushed inside my room, and the door closed behind me. I staggered and turned, wondering what had just happened, and saw the American lock the door and stand motionless at it, listening.
‘Anyone following you around?’ he asked. ‘Anyone looking for you?’
I shook my head, confused by the question, baffled, wondering what to do. I stood holding my keycard, then leaned past him to put it in its slot. The lights in the room came on, and the TV. I grabbed the remote and turned it off.
‘Take a seat, son,’ he growled pointing his newspaper at the comfortable chair squeezed in beside the bed. I went over and sat on it; he sat on the upright chair at the room’s desk.
I looked at him, and he stared calmly back at me.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘remiss of me.’ He groped in his back pocket, pulled out a slim wallet, and flipped it open to show me his ID. ‘I’m Mark Grosvenor. FBI,’ he added unnecessarily, because I can see that clearly on his ID. He put the wallet away. ‘I’d like a talk with you, Martin, and I have a proposal. I’ll give you time to think about the proposal, but I’ll tell you right now: it’s your only choice, son – your only way out. So don’t go running off in the morning. We need to talk details when you’re sober. OK so far?’
He stopped, and the silence fell.
Finally, I shook my head. ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’ The FBI? How the fuck did the FBI fit into any of this?
He leaned back, crossing his legs. He was shorter than me, and clearly a bit overweight and with a limp – probably a gunshot wound, I now thought – but I didn’t feel like trying to get past him and out of the door. He knew who I was, but I didn’t know what he knew about me. It was probably a mistake – I maybe had the same name as a New York crime lord.
I didn’t know what he was talking about with this ‘way out’, and ‘I’ve no other options’.
‘Sorry, son, I’ll start at the beginning.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Mind if I use the bathroom?’
I didn’t move as he went into the toilet and unleashed a waterfall, then flushed, washed and emerged.
‘That’s better.’ He eased himself back down onto the chair. ‘I can see you’re a mite unsure, so I’ll just run through some of the main details of the past fifteen years or so, and you make minor corrections where necessary – maybe fill in a couple of gaps. But that’ll get us past the ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ crap, OK? We both know what’s going on here.’
Silence again. I felt some response was appropriate, so I nodded, but I didn’t say anything.
‘Anyhow, you work for a computer company in Glasgow, B&D Software Solutions. There is another company called Bytes & Digits – love to find the asshole that made that one up – which is pretty much legit, and performs a useful service. But B&D is bad. We know how it’s set up to syphon off customers’ credit cards, bank accounts, passwords. So far so good: that brings in cash, and mostly the banks and insurance companies take the hit, and most folks think they deserve it – causing the recession and all. But the people out there are major criminals and terrorists, everywhere including Portugal to Romania, and you’re funding them. You’ve opened up dozens of computers that can be hijacked, used for everything from spam emails to denial of service attacks against legitimate companies or governments. How am I doing so far, son? Pretty much there?’
I gave a shiver and closed my eyes briefly. The fucking FBI knew all about me. Well done Martin: the Portuguese police, the Romanian police, the Scottish police, Romanian gangsters, Glasgow gangsters… bad enough. But the fucking FBI! I felt myself shaking slightly, and I folded my arms, tight. I had no doubt whatsoever that he knew absolutely everything. I knew the stories of young hackers being extradited to the States, given huge prison sentences. Oh fuck.
‘OK, I’ll take that as a yes. At the back of it is a gangster called Ken Talbot. He originally used it all as a way of laundering money – one of many businesses he had: typical Glasgow stuff – scrapyards, taxi firms, ice cream vans, laundrettes, money lending, drugs, rented property, prostitution, blah blah blah; cash goes in and out, and ends up in legitimate investments: you’ve got quite a portfolio yourself. But somewhere along the line B&D became less of a front for that and became a cash cow in its own right.’
He reached for a bottle of still water in my mini-bar – I shook my head when he offered me one, I was cold enough. He twisted it open and drank half of it in one go.
‘So, what else? Ah yes, Portugal - and the dead guy.’
I swallowed.
‘In case you’re wondering, that’s how we got involved. The Portuguese police managed to get some information off the guy’s laptop, and it led to a couple of US citizens who had had their credit card details stolen. So the Portuguese asked for our help, it fitted with our workstream, so we went to work: and we got more stuff off the laptop. This led to some pretty big international criminals, so we got really interested.’
He finished the bottle of water, and set it down on the desk unit. I still felt cold but beginning to sweat now; I stuck my hands deep in my pockets, where they continued trembling. My heart was thudding, slowly and strongly, in my chest. My breathing was difficult.
‘We cooperated with the Portuguese police, and started digging. We went through everything we could make sense of from that poor dead guy’s laptop, and we went through all the people that were nearby in Portugal at the time, looking for any connections we could find. It was a lot of work.’
He gave a yawn, and scratched at his thick beard. ‘And then what happened… oh yes, Romania, and the three dead people there.’
The thudding of my heart was now more pronounced – I wondered whether he could hear it – and I felt slightly dizzy.
‘The Romanian police were helpful too – really encouraging, all this international cooperation, don’t you think? Anyway, the dead people had links to a guy known as Gheorghe Angelescu, who is very well known to us – I assume you met him.’
I tried to frown like I had no idea what he was saying, but none of the muscles on my face would work.
‘Which was interesting. And you just happened to have been in the two places at the two times. Big coincidence, don’t you think?’ He reached into the minibar for another small bottle of water, and started drinking it.
‘I…’ I tried to say, but he raised his eyebrows, and then my tongue stopped functioning.
‘So we did some exploring, found out about Ken Talbot and Sandy Lomond, and spoke to the Scottish cops – Detective Sergeant Amanda Pitt. She told us they were getting ready to pull down Talbot’s whole operation.’
A mobile phone started ringing somewhere in the room, slightly muffled. We looked at each other, until I realised it was mine, the one I’d bought in Orkney and never used. I pulled it shakil
y from my trouser pocket, fully expecting someone from the CIA to be on the line.
‘Hello?’
‘Martin?’
I didn’t recognise the female voice, so I gave a cautious: ‘Yes?’
‘It’s Nicola.’
Nicola? ‘Yes?’ My brain cells stirred. Why was that name familiar?
‘From Orkney – Kirkwall – the hotel.’
Oh shit. Nicola. ‘Oh hi.’ I tried to moisten my mouth. ‘How are you?’ She’d kept my number, the one that the receptionist had given her.
Grosvenor sat drinking his water, watching me, face impassive.
‘I’m fine, Martin. Sorry I haven’t been in touch, it’s just… well, it’s been complicated. I’m in Kirkwall again, in the hotel. I – er – wondered if you fancied a drink in the bar.’
She’d kept my number, but bloody awful timing using it now. ‘I’m afraid I can’t – I’m actually in Edinburgh right now.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah – it’s to do with that stuff with business I told you about, remember? It’s got even more complicated. Well, it turns out the FBI have been after me.’
She gave a laugh. ‘It’s good to hear your voice again, Martin.’
‘And yours. Listen, I’m being interrogated by this FBI guy right now, so could I phone you tomorrow?’
She laughed again. ‘Of course. I’m back home on Friday – if you’re still in Edinburgh… It would be good to talk to you.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Things have moved on in my life.’
And in mine, I thought. ‘It’s a date,’ I said. ‘I need to go. Bye just now.’
‘Bye, Martin. See you soon.’
I switched off the phone and put it away in my pocket. Grosvenor continued looking at me, no expression on his face. I had no idea whether he knew about Nicola or not. Suddenly I wasn’t just scared, though, I wanted a way out: I wanted to see Nicola again, to see where it took us. I took a deep breath, and felt some of the clouds of uncertainty lift away from me.
‘So,’ Grosvenor eventually said. ‘Summing up, I have enough on you to link you to international cyber criminals, who are operating against US citizens – et cetera et cetera. And I could throw in terrorism charges too: these guys regularly try to bring down major US websites, so that counts as terrorism too.’