‘How many times have I ever wanted to talk to you about something? You know that after half an hour of talking to you I come down with an unbearable headache and start getting the urge to kill you. We have a case...’
‘No, no, no... Don’t get me involved again. I’m in the final year of university. I have to pass everything; I have to do an end of course project; I have to do internships... I can’t be getting distracted with your affairs. Every time you get me involved in one of your cases, I have to leave my whole life to one side for months, and in the end I always end up in hospital. Besides, my mother would kill me if she ever found out I’m working with you. I’m sorry, but it’s impossible.’
‘Shut up a moment.’ Carlos rubbed his temples with his fingers. ‘I can’t believe you’re already giving me a headache. I’ve only been with you for two minutes. Look, listen to me. This time would be different. You’d be a hired collaborator for the Ertzaintza, with a salary, social security, extra salary payments... Wouldn’t you like to earn enough money to buy yourself a car? In spite of having a license, you’re still a poor metro user.’
‘There’s nothing bad at all about using the metro. It’s more environmentally friendly,’ replied Gus, feeling hurt.
‘Yes, of course. That’s definitely the reason why you do it,’ Carlos shot him a sarcastic smile. ‘I don’t think you’d be able to convince that little blonde girl to board the metro. She has the look of someone who’s never set foot on public transport in her life.’
‘It doesn’t matter to me what you say. I’m not going to put myself in mortal danger again.’
‘The times when you’ve been on the verge of dying have been your own fault, because of your bloody obsession with sticking your nose in where nobody asked you to. All we need is IT advice. You won’t have to go within kilometres of any suspect.’
‘And what do I do about university and internships and all of that?’
‘How about if the Ertzaintza speaks with the university about having your work hours count as a paid internship? I’m sure it can be arranged.’
Gus stopped and stared at the ceiling, pretending to think it over. The truth was that it was an incredible offer, and he saw no reason to refuse. He was going to get money to buy a car; his internship was going to be the most envied one of the entire university; he was going to become a hero in the eyes of his classmates and lecturers (and heroes were not easily failed) and, furthermore, he liked working with Natalia and Carlos. Nevertheless, he tried to conceal his enthusiasm:
‘I don’t know, I don’t know... Would I have to put up with your crappy music on journeys or will I be able to choose it myself?’
‘You already know that’s not a topic that’s up for debate. The music in my car, I put on myself. Are you coming to headquarters or not?’
‘Would you let me drive?’
‘I already told you I would never let you touch my car again.’
‘Sure, but technically this isn’t the same car you were talking about...’
‘Of course, because the car I was talking about was completely written off thanks to you.’ Carlos let out a snort of despair. ‘Let’s give the nonsense a rest. Are you coming or not?’
‘Yes. You’re such a bore. But I warn you that I’m going to demand that you be more friendly towards me as part of the deal.’
‘You’ve got another thing coming, lad.’
‘Yeah, I already know that’s impossible. You’re rough by nature.’ Gus could not contain his laugher in the face of another snort from Carlos. ‘Okay, come on, let’s go to the car and you can start telling me the details of this new case along the way.’
PART TWO
CHAPTER ONE
Natalia was waiting for them in the room they had reserved for their investigation. When they entered, she proceeded to proudly show them all of the equipment: the computers, the whiteboards for noting down their hypotheses, the enormous map of Biscay with different coloured pushpins...
‘The blue pins indicate the victims’ residences,’ she explained to them. ‘The red ones mark the places where their bodies were found. As there start to be more victims...’
‘You have no reason for there to be,’ Carlos cut her off.
‘Or maybe I do,’ Natalia seemed bothered by the interruption. ‘I would also prefer us to catch him now and for there not to be any more deaths, but we have to be prepared. As I was saying, in the case of there being more victims, we will continue putting pins on the map. There are studies on criminal behaviour that indicate that, although murderers try to commit their crimes in places far away from their residences, and in a way that could appear to be random, in reality they keep to an order.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean. If I were to go and kill someone, I would always choose places that have nothing to do with me, and are as far away as possible from my place,’ intervened Gus.
‘That is what they attempt to do, but, without them realising it, there is a logic in the places they have chosen.’ Natalia took a few seconds to put her thoughts in order and explain. ‘Imagine that you’re a serial killer and that you want to choose a place for your next crime. You hop in your car and set about travelling across the province until you feel safe. Let’s imagine that this ‘safety distance’ for you is around 20km from your home.’ Natalia took a black pushpin and put it on the map. ‘After a few days, you decide to act again. You take the car and you go in a different direction until you have travelled the distance that makes you feel safe.’ Natalia put in a new pin. ‘You go along repeating that ritual again and again, always travelling about 20km from your residence.’ Natalia went along putting in more and more pins. ‘What do we have in the end?’
‘A circle,’ replied Gus.
‘Exactly. And in the centre of this circle would be the home of our killer. Do you understand it now?’
‘Very nice and educational,’ interrupted Carlos, ‘but if you think we’re going to wait until we have eight or ten victims to make the little circle, you’ve got another thing coming. We will catch him considerably sooner.’
‘That seems like a lovely goal, but, just in case, let me fill in my map.’
‘Fantastic, but I hope you’re going to do a little more to solve this case than just stay here waiting to put in more pins.’
‘Of course I’m going to do more things. To start with, I’m going to try and draft a list of possible suspects from amongst the epileptic patients.’
‘Epileptic? Where do you get that the killer is epileptic?’ asked Gus.
‘Our killer drugs his victims with a medication called phenobarbital, which is used for the treatment of epilepsy,’ explained Natalia.
‘That’s wonderful. It’s a rare illness. We’ll catch him right away,’ said Gus, feeling enthused.
‘That’s what we thought, but it isn’t like that,’ intervened Carlos. ‘I already told Natalia that there are more than fifteen thousand patients in the Basque Country. It’s impossible to investigate them all.’
‘I know, but I’ve been informing myself about the distribution of that type of medication. It’s a psychoactive...’
‘Psycho what?’ asked Carlos.
‘Psychoactive. It means that it modifies the mental or emotional functions of the person who consumes it.’ Natalia laughed at the confused faces of Carlos and Gus. ‘There’s no need for either of you to learn any of this. The important thing is that it’s a medication categorised as a specially monitored drug, which means you need a special prescription to buy it at the pharmacy, and you have to prove your identity with your ID card and allow the pharmacist to note it down on the prescription, as the distribution must be logged in a special book and the receipt must be kept at the pharmacy for two years.’
‘Okay, so we have a record then of how they’ve sold this medication to our fifteen thousand epileptics,’ interrupted Carlos. ‘What use is that to us?’
‘Every person only receives the necessary prescription to control their illness. No more, no le
ss,’ explained Natalia. ‘If our patient is using large quantities of pills to drug his victims, he will have had to ask for more prescriptions than usual, claiming that he’s lost a box or that they’ve been damaged.’
‘Couldn’t he be taking less medication than he needs in order to save pills for the crimes?’ ventured Gus.
‘He could be, but it would be very risky. His epileptic attacks could increase in severity and frequency. I think he must have gone to the doctor and obtained more prescriptions. I am going to speak with Aguirre so that he can try and get me a list of those ‘scatter-brained’ patients who’ve needed to buy more. If we’re in luck, there won’t be many. Then I’ll just have to reduce the list down to those for Carlos to question.’
‘That thing about reducing the list, I don’t like it. The last time you did that, you left Charon out,’ said Gus, not daring to look Natalia in the face. ‘No offence, I hope.’
‘Don’t worry. It was a great oversight, but it could have happened to anyone. And, besides, in this case we have far more leads about our killer,’ Natalia sat down in front of one of the computers, unfroze it, and began playing a video. ‘These images belong to the security camera of the hotel in which our murderer met up with Carmen Ortega, the second victim. There you have our man: 5’11”, hefty... Judging by the way he walks, we reckon that he’s between thirty and forty five years old. Not bad, eh?’
‘And do you ever see his face?’ asked Gus, feeling excited.
‘No, the image quality is appalling and, besides, the guy takes great care to never look directly at the camera,’ replied Carlos, ‘but those images are useful to us for checking against the possible suspects we find.’
‘Well, I’ve already set forth my plan of action,’ interrupted Natalia, addressing Carlos. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Well, very likely far more useful things than waiting to put pins in a map and making infinite lists.’ Carlos winked at Natalia, but it did not prevent her from letting out a snort of indignation. ‘I am going to investigate the murdered women’s environments. As you will both already know, the majority of murders are committed by people who were known by the victim. The cases in which the assailant is unknown to them are rare...’
‘Unless it’s a serial killer,’ Natalia cut him off.
‘Again with the same thing. Do you want to let me explain?’ Natalia contained a little laugh and nodded. ‘Okay, well as I don’t think we’re dealing with a serial killer, I’m going to search for possible mutually known people to both victims and question their families, friends and work colleagues. I will also try to reconstruct their final days of life to find out who they were seen with, whether they had any arguments with anyone... Does that sound good to the young lady, or is she going to continue interfering in my work?’
‘It sounds stupendous to me, but one thing doesn’t rule out the other,’ replied Natalia, sardonically. ‘Maybe amongst the group of people they knew, there is a serial killer.’
‘You just carry on teasing me,’ Carlos threatened.
‘Well, don’t kill each other,’ intervened Gus. ‘Is there anyone you suspect already?’
‘I don’t at all like the husband of the first victim,’ Carlos carefully looked through his papers and placed a photo of a man on the table.
‘Bloody hell, talk about muscles,’ said Gus, surprised. ‘And he has the face of a nasty piece of work. Could he be a match for the guy on the recordings?’
‘Yes, the height tallies and he’s wearing baggy clothes, which means we can’t know whether all those muscles are underneath,’ Carlos took the photo and had a closer look at it. ‘I don’t know, maybe I’m being prejudiced, but it doesn’t fit for me that a guy with a thuggish face like that would know that his wife was cheating on him everyday and still bring her flowers.’
Natalia got up from the chair, went over to Carlos, and asked him to hand her the photo. After contemplating it for a few seconds, she shook her head:
‘Do you know what those muscles are due to?’
‘He’s professor of bodybuilding in a gym.’
‘You ought to find out whether he participates in competitions.’
‘What for?’
‘The people who compete sometimes use steroids, and one of their side effects is an increase in aggression, which would bolster your theory that he mustn’t be as kind and understanding as he wants to make us believe,’ explained Natalia. ‘Maybe he’s always had some hidden disorder which makes him hate women. The steroids, along with his wife’s infidelities, caused his self-control to snap and he killed her. From that point onwards, he has broken free and begun killing more women.’
‘I’ll remind you again that we only have two victims...’
‘And I’ll insist again that the sooner we accept that these two crimes, with such elaborate rituals as those, have been carried out by the same individual, and that they point towards a disturbed personality, the sooner we’ll be on the road to avoiding new victims.’
‘Fine, okay...’ Carlos gave up. ‘Will you leave me in peace if I promise to take your theory into account?’
‘Of course,’ replied Natalia, feeling satisfied.
‘Okay, you’ve both now said what you’re going to do, but I imagine that you wouldn’t have hired me as an adviser just to watch you two fight,’ intervened Gus. ‘What is it I’m supposed to be doing? Wait until you have a suspect, to hack and infiltrate his computer?’
‘No, nothing that exciting,’ Natalia pointed to two laptop computers situated on a desk. ‘Those are the victims’ computers. We need you to check them.’
‘Check them for what? What are you looking for?’
‘We’ve found an overlap in both women’s diaries. It’s a name: Azkar,’ explained Carlos.
‘And what’s that? Some company? Do you want me to hack a company’s security system and try to extract all their information?’ Gus’ s face lit up with a wide smile. ‘Well, that’s going to be complicated and is going to need hours and hours of work and special programs, because I imagine you’ll want everything to be kept secret, and for the people from the company not to realise that the Ertzaintza is going into their systems, but it can be done, so give me all the information you have and I’ll get started on it...’
‘Slow down, that’s not it,’ Carlos cut him off. ‘We suspect that Azkar could be a nickname. Did you see that? I remembered the strange English word.’
‘I only repeated it to you about a hundred thousand times. Enough for you not to forget... Then what is it you want me to look for?’
‘Well, we want you to go into their computers and search for whether they maintained contact with an Azkar on Facebook, Twitter, contact pages, instant messaging programs...’ explained Natalia.
‘No, no, no... Not another Charon, no. I don’t plan on spending the coming months reading love chats again. Don’t you think I’ve already suffered enough? Because I think so; I’ve already put up with enough sickeningly sweet conversations to fill three lifetimes.’
‘This murderer won’t be the same. The victims are women between thirty five and forty.’ Natalia placed a hand on Gus’s forearm in order to reassure him and make him listen. ‘From what we know, they were intelligent, professional women with a great social life. These women are not seduced by him repeating over and over again “I love you so much” and “I’ve missed you so much”.’
‘Maybe you could even learn something for your date with the little blonde girl,’ joked Carlos.
‘Seriously, Carlos. Sometimes you’re like a child,’ said Gus, angry.
‘What little blonde girl?” Natalia, taking an interest.
‘That girl from his class he’s liked since first year. They’re meeting up this Saturday for a cup of coffee together,’ replied Carlos, teasingly.
‘You hadn’t said anything to me. How exciting!’ Natalia tried to hug Gus, but the latter dodged her.
‘Stop, both of you. You’re like a couple of old matchmakers. W
e’re only meeting up so that she can lend me her notes,’ explained Gus, annoyed. ‘And, besides, we’re not talking about that. We’re supposed to be working. A bit of seriousness, please.’
Gus opened up the first laptop and turned it on, whilst Carlos and Natalia were still emitting amused little chuckles behind him. He tried to ignore them and waited for Windows to start up, but found himself facing a screen asking for a password.
‘What about this?’
‘Well, that’s the first thing you have to work on,’ Carlos told him. ‘It seems our victims were prudent women, and both computers are password protected. Do you think you’ll be able to get in?’
‘Do you doubt it? You’re talking to the best.’
‘We know. That’s why we’ve hired you.’ Natalia gave him a couple of pats of encouragement on the shoulder. ‘How are you going to get in?’
‘I’ll start by using social engineering...’
‘Here we go already with the weird stuff,’ Carlos interrupted him. ‘And what is that?’
‘Let’s see, how to put it,’ Gus messed up his hair whilst staring up at the ceiling. ‘At the time of extracting information from an IT system, one can search for weaknesses in the software or hardware in the system itself, or the system of its users, which are always the weakest link.’
‘I’m still not understanding a bloody word of this.’
‘As I imagined,’ said Gus, sarcastically. ‘I’ll explain it more simply for you. If we want to find the password to get into a computer, we can use some programs called “brute force attack”, which go along trying password after password until they find the correct one. Mobile phones or bank cards tend to have a maximum of three attempts before blocking you, but on computers there’s no such limit, so we can try all combinations necessary before coming across the right one.’
‘And are you going to use one of those programs?’
‘No, those programs have the problem of being very slow. We don’t know the number of characters the passwords have, nor whether they’re composed of letters, numbers, or a combination of both. Can you imagine the amount of different possibilities that could exist?’
The White Corpses Page 7