James Carol - The Quiet Man

‘He got into Isabella’s laptop.’

Anderton answered on the fourth ring with a sleepy, ‘This better be good, Winter. It’s the middle of the goddamn night.’

‘I’ve had a breakthrough.’

There was a rustle of covers and a gentle grunt. It was easy to imagine her sitting suddenly bolt upright in bed, alert and completely awake. ‘Okay, I’m listening.’

‘This is one of those things that’s best done in person.’

A sigh. ‘Fine. I can be at the Shangri La in twenty minutes. I just need to throw some clothes on.’

‘You don’t need to go anywhere. I’m standing outside your apartment block.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously.’

‘Do you have any idea how creepy this is?’

From where Winter was standing in the middle of the street he had a good view of Anderton’s apartment block. One of the windows on the second floor suddenly lit up. A second later the drapes parted and a face appeared. He gave Anderton a little toodle-oo wave. She didn’t wave back.

Winter hung up and hurried over to the entrance. The door was buzzing when he got there. He went inside and took the stairs two at a time. Anderton was waiting in the doorway of her apartment. She’d thrown on a baggy Canucks T-shirt and some jeans. Her hair was pulled back into a quick ponytail. The look suited her. It seemed to smooth off some of her sharper edges. She headed back inside without a word. The implication was clear. Follow me . Winter walked into the narrow hallway and pushed the door closed behind him. Anderton was already at the other end of the hall. She disappeared through a door on the right. The hallway was short, so it didn’t take long to catch up.

The living room was as neat and tidy as her SUV, which was no great surprise. Anderton lived to impose order on a world that was fast turning to shit. All the books were lined up neatly on the bookshelf, the remote controls were in a pile next to the DVD player, and the cushions were plumped and arranged on the furniture like a magazine photoshoot was about to take place.

‘Take a seat,’ she said.

‘I’m not sure I want to. I don’t want to mess anything up.’

‘Very funny. So how did you know where I live?’

‘Sobek told me.’

‘So, what? You’re BFFs now?’

Winter smiled. ‘I wouldn’t go that far. Let’s just say that we’ve put our differences aside and found a place where mutual co-operation, although tenuous, is obtainable.’

Anderton let loose with a small chuckle. ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much the same place that I’ve got to. Okay, start talking. What’s got you so excited?’

‘The killer has been watching Kirchner. He planted a Remote Access Trojan on his laptop and is using that to hack into his webcam.’

Anderton took a moment to process this. If she was excited by the news, it didn’t show. She was chasing the implications inside her head, seeing where they might lead. Her expression was pensive and thoughtful, her gaze fixed on one of the wall pictures, a print of a poppy on a large canvas.

‘And how exactly did you reach this conclusion? Or to put it another way, how did you get access to Kirchner’s laptop?’

‘I broke into his apartment and found him passed out drunk. Given the state he was in, I figured that he wouldn’t be needing his laptop for the foreseeable future, so I stole it. Sobek had one of his people take a look at it and they found the RAT.’

Anderton shook her head. She was trying to look serious but the hint of a smile was tugging at the corners of her mouth. ‘I’m going to be honest with you, Winter. Right now, I’m not sure whether you should be praised for your initiative or arrested.’ She fell silent again. ‘What about Sobek and David Hammond? Have their computers been infiltrated?’

‘Sobek’s haven’t, but not through want of trying.’

‘Because he’s so paranoid about security?’

‘Exactly. Isabella’s laptop had been, but that would have happened before the paranoia kicked in. As for Hammond, I don’t know. I’m considering letting Jefferies run with that one.’

‘That’s very generous of you.’

Winter responded with a shrug.

‘Winter?’

‘Okay, okay. Jefferies suspects that I stole the laptop. I’m figuring it wouldn’t do any harm to throw him a bone.’

‘You do know that stealing is a crime?’

‘And you’ve never broken the rules, Anderton?’

‘Maybe once or twice,’ she admitted. ‘But only when the end justified the means.’

‘And in this case the end justifies the means.’

‘Are we thinking that the killer is some sort of computer genius?’

Winter shook his head. ‘He would need to be comfortable with computers, but he wouldn’t necessarily need to be an expert. The malware is readily available online. The people who download it are mainly teenage boys, and men who want to spy on their wives and girlfriends. These programs are simple enough for a kid to use, which means that our guy isn’t going to have too much trouble using it.’

‘Okay, now that we have a direct connection with the killer, how do we use that to our advantage?’ She went quiet, considering the question. ‘I need coffee. What about you?’

‘Always.’

Anderton got up and headed for the hall. Her office door was open so Winter was able to get a good look as they passed it. If you compared the size of the room against the footprint of the apartment, then this had to be the main bedroom, which meant that she was using the spare one for sleeping in. Her map of the city covered more or less the same area as the map in his suite. She’d marked off the target area with a red circle. Red crosses for the murder sites, and a brand-new cross where Myra Hooper had died. The photographs were arranged in three distinct groups, one for each of the first three victims. Winter had seen most of these before. Some of them were on the wall of his suite. All of them were in Sobek’s office. There were no pictures of Myra Hooper. It was too early for Anderton to have got hold of those yet.

The kitchen was as spotless as the living room. Anderton filled the kettle and put it on to boil. She didn’t say anything, just used the time to chase her thoughts. She finished pouring and handed Winter a mug. He sugared it and took a sip.

‘The killer’s at his most vulnerable when he accesses the webcam,’ she said. ‘There must be some way of working backwards to find his computer. If we find that then we can work out where he is.’

‘Sobek’s guy doesn’t think that would work, but it’s worth getting a second opinion. When you speak to Jefferies ask him to get his computer people to look into that.’

‘We could use the webcam to contact the killer directly,’ Anderton suggested. ‘But what do we say to him?’

‘Before we answer that we need to work out what’s motivating him. If he’s hacking into the webcams before the murders then the reason is fairly obvious. He’s gathering intel on his victims. The more information he’s got, the smoother things are going to go. But why would he want to watch the husbands afterwards? I’m figuring that he must be interested in their reactions. That’s his payback.’

Anderton made no response to that. Winter gave her another few seconds, but she still had nothing to add. He took another sip of coffee, then shut his eyes and imagined the killer sitting in a darkened room.

*

Everything is quiet and still and I’m all alone. Except I’m not alone because I have Eric Kirchner for company. He’s on my computer screen. I watch him pour out a large glass of neat vodka, watch him take a long swig. His face screws up, but he doesn’t stop drinking. He keeps going until his glass is empty. He’s a shadow of the person he once was. And I’m the reason for that. This empty shell is my creation.