Smith

by stewartgiles

  TWENTY THREE

  HACKERS

  “Where’s this place again?” Bridge asked DC Palmer as he turned the ignition.

  “Hull Road,” Palmer replied, “Number seven, I was there the day the girl was found dead. Damn shame, she was definitely the prettiest of the lot of them living there.”

  “You’re still single aren’t you?” Bridge asked.

  “For now, yes,” Bridge said, “but I have my eye on someone.”

  “Number seven you said. This is the place here.”

  Bridge stopped the car outside the house.

  “Before we go in, “Bridge began, “this is the plan. You just flutter your eyelids at the women in there; get them in conversation about something while I try and hack into this Susan Jenkins’ computer.”

  “Isn’t that a bit on the illegal side?” Palmer asked.

  “Just a bit,” Bridge replied, “but I’m bloody good, nobody will even know I’ve been there.”

  He knocked on the door.

  Jane Brown answered almost immediately.

  “Good Day Miss,” Palmer smiled his famous winning Smile. “Police,” he said, “may we come in? We need to ask you a few more questions.”

  The smile did not work; Jane Brown eyed both Palmer and Bridge with suspicion.

  “We’ve already answered a million questions,” she said. “We just want to try to forget about the whole thing.”

  “I know Miss,” Bridge said, “I understand this is extremely hard but we think we may be on to something and it won’t take long.”

  “You’d better come in then.” Jane Brown conceded.

  “DC Bridge here would like to have a look at Susan Jenkins’ room if that’s ok,” Palmer said.

  “Susan?” Jane Brown looked confused, “do you think she had something to do with this?”

  “Not at all,” Bridge said, “I just need to check a few things on her computer, there may be some information on there that can help. Would you mind showing us her room?”

  “It’s upstairs. The only room on the right hand side, her name’s on the door. It’ll be locked but I’ll get you a spare key.”

  Susan Jenkins’ room was immaculate. The bed was made in military fashion. Bridge was almost tempted to bounce a coin on it. There was a small bookshelf against one of the walls; the books were arranged in alphabetical order. Most of the volumes were medical but there was a whole row at the bottom of the shelf dedicated to what looked like the complete works of Jack Kerouac.

  “Odd collection of books,” Bridge noted. “What is Susan studying?” he asked, “medicine by the look of it.”

  “Pharmacy,” Jane Brown corrected him, “she has that kind of brain, no common sense though and even worse taste in men.”

  “You can leave us to it,” Palmer smiled again. This time Jane Brown responded with a shy grin.

  “Ok,” she said, “let me know when you’re finished so I can lock her room again.”

  Bridge sat on the desk and turned the computer on.

  “So far so good,” he said, “no password needed.”

  He tapped away on a few keys.

  “I’m just going through her browsing history. Here we go Wilson’s travel. Late deal for two weeks in Tenerife. Total six hundred and ninety pounds. Payment method, electric funds transfer. An e mail was sent to confirm booking and provide banking details. Let’s check her e mails.”

  Bridge opened up the e mail program

  “Here it is,” he said, “and here’s one from the bank verifying the internet banking transaction, Halifax, same bank as me. This part is going to be a bit harder.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Palmer asked, “My ten year old sister knows more about computers than me.”

  “I’m going to try and get into her internet banking account,” Bridge said, “very serious fraud.”

  He opened up the Halifax web site and was prompted to enter the user name and password. He thought of his own user name for the same site

  “Susan Jenkins,” he said, “SJenkins01.”

  He typed it in.

  “Now for the password.”

  “What’s her password?” Palmer asked.

  “Let me think.” Bridge looked around the room. His eyes fell on the book shelf against the wall.

  “Worth a try,” he said. Palmer looked at him in bewilderment.

  Bridge typed in ‘Kerouac’ and was about to press the Enter key when he realised the password had to be at least eight characters long. He added a ‘1’ to the end, took a deep breath and pressed Enter. He closed his eyes. After what seemed like an eternity he opened them again and looked at the computer screen. At the top of the screen it read, ‘you are logged in as Susan Jenkins’.

  “I’m in!” he exclaimed, “I’m bloody well in.”

  Bridge quickly selected the ‘accounts’ icon and clicked on ‘transaction history’

  “There’s the payment to the travel agent,” he said, “and here, on the 23rd of December, there’s a sum of one thousand five hundred pounds paid into her account. Have you got your notebook there?” he asked Palmer.

  “Of course,” Palmer replied.

  “Write this down. Reference number MW001.”

  He clicked on the ‘detailed transaction’ icon and read out the account number where the money had come from. They heard a noise from downstairs, Jane Brown was coming up the stairs. Bridge quickly logged off, closed the internet banking window and opened up the e mail program. An e mail immediately came through informing Susan Jenkins that she had logged on to her internet banking. Bridge deleted it, opened the deleted items page and deleted it again, this time permanently. He stood up from the desk just as Jane Brown entered the room.

  “Thank you Miss,” he said, “we’re just about done here.”

  “Did you find anything useful?” she asked.

  “Not really, mostly junk e mails and spam.”