James Carol - The Quiet Man

‘That’s good to hear.’

‘Now here’s an interesting thing, and maybe it’s something you can help with. Kirchner is claiming that someone broke into his apartment and stole his laptop. He’s pretty pissed, and understandably so. I don’t suppose you know anything about this?’

‘Maybe he misplaced it.’

‘Or how about this? Maybe someone broke into his apartment and stole it.’

‘What else was taken?’

‘Nothing else was taken.’

‘Mmm,’ said Winter. ‘Someone goes to the trouble of breaking into his apartment but all they take is the computer. Doesn’t that strike you as strange?’

‘That depends on their motivation.’

‘You know, when I was interviewing Kirchner, it occurred to me that he might have a drink problem. Maybe that’s what’s going on here. Maybe he got drunk and misplaced it.’

‘We’ve been all through his apartment and couldn’t find it. As you know, it’s not that big. There really aren’t that many places where he could have misplaced it.’

‘Looks like you’ve got a mystery on your hands.’

‘It certainly looks that way.’

‘Did you hear back from the lab about superglue being used on that tree?’

‘We did. It’s bad news, I’m afraid. No trace of superglue or any other solvents was found. And it gets worse. We matched the shoe print to the owner of the house opposite Myra Hooper’s. He was able to fill us in on what happened. Someone had stapled a lost cat poster to the tree. When he pulled it down, a chunk of bark came with it.’

‘Don’t you just hate it when an idea doesn’t pan out?’

‘We’ve got a first-rate IT department. They’d love to take a look at Kirchner’s laptop.’

‘And what would they be hoping to find?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Nothing springs to mind.’

‘You know, they’d be really pissed if they discovered that an amateur had been poking around in it and that evidence had been destroyed.’

‘I could understand that.’

‘So if I came over there I wouldn’t find the laptop.’

‘No, you wouldn’t. And I can state that categorically.’

‘Okay, let’s say that hypothetically the computer did somehow come into your possession, and let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that you found something on there. If that was to happen I would expect you to let me know exactly what was found.’

‘Hypothetically speaking, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. No problem whatsoever.’

‘Call me.’

‘Missing you already.’

Winter was dreaming of Marilyn when his cell rang. She was emerging slowly from a giant cake, singing ‘Happy Birthday, Mr President’ in a breathy whisper. The sequins of her dress were glinting in the bright stage lights. People were laughing and cheering. It was impossible to tell if they were laughing at her or with her. That was the tragedy of Marilyn. It could have gone either way.

The phone rang again and a rush of adrenaline burst through his body. His eyes sprang open. It was dark outside, which meant that it was still the middle of the night. Nobody called at this hour with good news, not unless they were in a different time zone and had got the math wrong. He grabbed his cell from the coffee table and connected the call. According to the screen it was twenty-three minutes after two. Whoever it was, they were calling from a phone that his cell didn’t recognise. For a brief second he wondered if the killer had somehow got hold of his number. Weirder things had been known to happen.

‘Who is this?’

‘Sobek. You said to call when my guy had looked at Kirchner’s laptop. Well, he’s looked at it.’

‘And?’

‘He found a rat.’

‘I take it we’re talking in acronyms here. You mean a Remote Access Trojan, right?

‘That’s correct. The killer is able to access the webcam whenever the computer is switched on. It’s set up so the camera light is disabled. Kirchner wouldn’t have known he was being watched.’

‘Is there any way to trace the RAT back to the killer?’

‘Let me ask.’

‘Your computer guy’s still there?’

‘He is.’

‘Put him on.’

There was a quick muffled conversation, then a new voice came on the line.

‘How can I help?’

The voice sounded too bright and efficient for this time of the day. Winter was picturing a guy wearing the most expensive suit he could afford, a mid-level white-collar worker with aspirations. A realtor or an accountant or maybe an office manager. What he wasn’t picturing was your standard-issue computer geek.

‘I want to know if it’s possible to trace where the RAT came from.’

‘Not really. This guy’s hidden his tracks well. He’s routed and rerouted through multiple servers. Given enough time and computer power you might be able to find him, but it wouldn’t be easy.’

‘He must have known Kirchner’s IP address.’

‘He targeted Kirchner’s laptop specifically, so, yes, that’s my conclusion.’

‘How difficult would it be to get hold of that?’

‘Assuming that Kirchner is as negligent with his security as ninety-nine point nine per cent of the population then it wouldn’t be too difficult.’

‘How would you do it?’

The line went quiet. ‘Do we know where he lives?’

‘We do.’

‘In that case I’d go in through his Wi-Fi router. I’d park as close to where he lives as I could, then I’d compare signal strengths so I could make an educated guess as to which router was his. Once I’d done that I’d launch a brute force attack to break the password.’

‘How long would this take?’

‘It could take a while. Am I worried about being seen?’

‘Yes.’

‘In that case, I’d lock my laptop in the trunk, leave the car parked at the kerb and come back later. You don’t need to be sitting in the car while the program’s running.’

‘What about Sobek’s computers? Any RATs on them?’

‘No, his computers are clean. There was evidence that someone had tried to infiltrate his systems. Fortunately, he belongs to the point one per cent who take security seriously.’

‘When did this happen? Kirchner’s RAT, I mean.’

‘Three months after his wife was murdered.’

‘Was any attempt made to infiltrate his computer before the murder?’

‘No. Only afterwards.’

Winter went quiet while he thought things through. The victims had not been chosen at random, they’d been targeted, which meant that the killer needed to carry out surveillance. Two facts came into play here. Fact number one: this guy took a hands-off approach. In hindsight, sneaking around outside Myra Hooper’s house, planting cameras, just wasn’t his style. Fact number two: the killer had accessed the webcam on Kirchner’s laptop and that established a behaviour. If he was using webcams to watch the victims post-offence, then it made sense that this was how he’d be watching them pre -offence.

‘Are you still there?’ the computer guy asked.

‘I’m still here. Can you put Sobek back on?’

The line went quiet and there was a muffled conversation that was the complete reverse of the last one. The computer guy would be holding his hand over the mouthpiece and telling Sobek that he was wanted.

‘What?’ Sobek asked.

‘Did Isabella own a laptop?’

‘Of course she did.’

‘And do you still have it?’ Before Sobek could answer, Winter added, ‘Dumb question. Of course you do. Get your computer guy to take a look at it. I want to know if the killer managed to get a RAT in there. Call me as soon as you’ve got anything.’

Winter hung up and tapped the phone against his leg. The tune going around inside his head was annoying, and of his own invention. It seemed to blend everything that was bad about pop and dance music. The tempo was 120 beats per minute and the tune was annoyingly repetitive. It could have been a hit. Sobek called back six minutes later.