Philip Kerr - A Philosophical Investigation

The sound of automatic gunfire is not at all distinctive, at least in a West London suburb. There, people are so unused to hearing the sound that it would almost always be attributed to a late or early fireworks party, no matter what the time of year, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred the sound would indeed turn out to be just that. But on this occasion, Jake, Stanley, Challis, Gilmour, and the TFS commander knew better. Instinctively they ducked and two of them, Challis and the commander, even reached for their weapons.

‘What the hell’s happening, Sergeant?’ the commander yelled into his headset.

There was another, more protracted burst of gunfire and then silence again: traffic still moving in the distance, the Nicamvision still blaring, the dog barking more furiously than ever, and the wind in the trees. After a minute or two there were shouts from somewhere in the target’s garden and the TFS commander, fingers pressed against his earpiece like some affected pop singer, stood up.

‘All over,’ he said breezily. ‘The man in the house has been arrested.’

‘Thank God for that,’ said Gilmour.

‘What about the gunman in the porch?’ asked Jake.

‘He opened fire and was shot,’ explained the commander.

‘Dead?’ enquired Gilmour.

The commander frowned uncomfortably. ‘In cases involving terrorists, a termination is the usual policy, sir. Unless there are instructions to the contrary.’ He glanced awkwardly at Challis as if seeking confirmation that no such instruction had been given.

‘And who ordered this operation?’

The commander’s frown grew more profound as now he sensed that something was not quite right. He pointed at Challis. ‘Him, sir. I mean, Detective Chief Superintendent Challis, sir.’ He touched the earpiece again and turned round. Two members of his squad were frogmarching a handcuffed man towards them.

Gilmour stepped squarely in front of Challis as if he meant to kiss both his cheeks like a French general. But the congratulations he offered were bent double with sarcasm.

‘Well done, Challis, well done,’ he said grimly. ‘You’ll get a medal for this. I’ll see that you do. And I’ll be the one who pins it on your chest. With a fucking bayonet. If I’m not mistaken they’ve just managed to shoot one of our own people. An armed guard from Special Branch.’

Challis’s jaw slackened. ‘What? Well we didn’t know, sir. I mean, who’s he supposed to be guarding?’

‘Him,’ said Gilmour.

The two arresting TFS officers presented their charge, a fat, blowing, angry-looking figure with blood pouring from his nose and mouth, the result of a blow from the butt of a machine pistol. His fair hair was dishevelled and his shirt was torn, but there was no mistaking the corpulent figure of the Shadow Home Secretary, Tony Bedford, MP.

‘You will understand that I couldn’t prove this. Not exactly anyway. Some of it’s nothing more than informed guesswork by Sergeant Chung and myself. And it will take a while to include all of this within the context of the official report—’

A day or so later, with Challis suspended pending an inquiry, the explanation for what had happened was supplied to Gilmour, Jake and Stanley by Inspector Cormack of the Computer Crime Unit, in Gilmour’s office at the Yard.

‘Just get on with it, Cormack,’ Gilmour growled. ‘And try to keep it simple.’

‘Well, sir, it’s like this,’ explained Cormack. ‘Wittgenstein must have hacked onto the police computer at Kidlington, possibly with the intention of leaving a message for the Chief Inspector here. But while he’s there he decides to have a look around the system and discovers Sergeant Chung’s random name and number program. He has an idea. He creates a police record in the name of the man he is planning to kill: a VMN-negative codenamed Socrates, real name John Martin Baberton — the body that was found in Mr Bedford’s garden. He gives Baberton the kind of background that is just perfect for us: an ideal suspect, and one that we might not be able to resist. And because he has a sense of humour he adds in one or two details, such as Mr Bedford’s home address and Mr Bedford’s picture.’

‘That’s some sense of humour, all right,’ said Gilmour. ‘But where did he get Bedford’s address and picture? That’s what I want to know.’

Cormack winced. ‘It would seem from our own files, sir.’

‘What?’

‘Well you see sir, ECIS has a one-man, one-record database. It would seem that Mr Bedford has a small record. For civil disobedience during the protest marches against punitive coma a few years ago. He was arrested for obstructing a policeman in the execution of his duty.’ Cormack shrugged apologetically. ‘All Wittgenstein had to do was instruct our computer to copy some of Mr Bedford’s details onto a file in the name of John Martin Baberton, sir. The dead man.’

‘He’s not the only one,’ Gilmour said darkly.

‘I’m sorry, sir?’

‘Nothing. Then what did he do?’

‘Well, after he killed his victim, and left him at the foot of Mr Bedford’s garden — at least we assume that he did that first — Wittgenstein then had to activate Baberton’s name as a VMN on the Lombroso Program. To do that he must simply have added Baberton’s name and telephone number near the top of Chung’s random program. If anyone had checked they would have seen that the address he used matched only the address on the Lombroso file and not the fake record held on the police computer which provided Mr Bedford’s address, and said that the one on the Lombroso file was out of date. And of course, there was no manual file for a John Martin Baberton: another discrepancy. Also if Baberton had had a criminal record at the time of his being screened by the Lombroso people it would have been revealed on his identity card.’

Gilmour nodded solemnly. ‘Why do you say that Wittgenstein must have hacked onto our computer with the intention of leaving a message for the Chief Inspector?’

‘Well, in view of what happened, sir,’ said Cormack. When Gilmour did not reply, he added: ‘I heard that he left a disc, for Chief Inspector Jakowicz, in the dead man’s mouth.’

‘Who told you that, Inspector?’

‘Detective Sergeant Chung, sir.’

‘He had no business to do so. Things are quite bad enough with the press as it is. If they discover that the killer has made contact with us we’ll never hear the end of it. So keep your mouth shut. Understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘One more question and then you can go, Cormack. On the basis of what you have surmised about this unfortunate breach in our own data security, are you satisfied that the operation which ensued was precipitate?’

Cormack nodded. ‘Wholly precipitate, sir.’

Gilmour smiled ghoulishly. ‘Thank you, Inspector. That will be all.’

After Cormack had gone, they sat in silence for a few moments. Then Detective Inspector Stanley asked the APC what was going to happen to Challis. Gilmour drew one eloquent finger across his throat and shook his head.

‘I’ve no choice,’ he explained. ‘There will have to be a formal inquiry of course, but in view of what Cormack has just told me, it’s a foregone conclusion. Too bad. He was a good copper.’

Jake nodded, although she didn’t agree with Gilmour’s estimation of Challis’s detective skills.

‘This disc,’ said Gilmour. ‘Have you brought it?’

‘I’ve had a copy made, sir,’ said Jake. ‘The original is still with the lab. They’re subjecting it to every test that’s known to science: fingerprints, voiceprint, accent analysis, background noise, atmospheric adhesion. There’s nothing so far. We’ve traced the disc itself to one of a batch of Sony blank discs sold to an electrical retailer on the Tottenham Court Road. The owner sells ten boxes of the same brand every week.’