Fallen Angel (7 page)

She was preoccupied. Talking to Sammy, somehow, had been like talking to Daniel himself. The kidnapper could so easily have taken either boy. And Woods was right: the little boy had given them practically nothing. But when all you have is straws, she thought to herself, you have no choice but to clutch at them.

‘I mean,' added Woods, ‘you're looking for something suspicious but don't know what. It's bad enough looking for a needle in a haystack. You're looking for a piece of hay in a haystack.'

Collins snapped out of the thoughts she had been losing herself in. ‘What's your point, Tony? That it's too
difficult? Shall I drop you back at Daniel's house so you can tell the parents that, while we'd like to find out who killed their son, we're not going to because it's a bit difficult? The last time I checked, this job wasn't supposed to be a piece of piss.'

They drove in silence for a few seconds. ‘Sorry, guv,' Woods said at last. ‘I'm just frustrated. I want to catch a break on this thing. I feel like whoever is behind it, they're really fucking around with us, playing a game. The emails and the whole money-drop business. I just want to catch the sick bastard.'

Collins nodded. ‘I guess the strain is getting to both of us.' She picked up her phone and started to punch in a few numbers.

DC Natalie Cooper was at her desk at the incident room in Peckham, working her way through computer files of registered sex offenders living close to the church where Daniel's body had been found, when her direct line started to ring.

‘I need you to check some CCTV,' Collins explained breathlessly, ‘for any suspicious activity around the Eliots' home and the parade of shops on Crown Street.'

‘But I'm running HOLMES. And anyway Higgins gave Drabble's team the CCTV job.'

‘Then you'll have to ask nicely. We're not covering the same ground anyway. They're focusing on the church and the money-drop site. I want to go back to before the abduction.'

‘What am I looking for?' asked Cooper.

‘A white van.'

There was a pause. ‘This is some kind of joke, right?'

‘No joke. One of Daniel's friends was out with him an hour or so before he went missing. He saw a white van in an alleyway next to the parade of shops with a dog tied to it. I want to know where it went.'

Collins could hear Cooper scribbling down the information. ‘It might take me a bit of time. Do you have any idea how much footage that will involve? You're probably talking thousands of hours. It could even –'

‘Yeah, yeah. I've already had this conversation with Woods. Just do it. We'll be back in an hour or so and can help you out then, but in the meantime just get on with it.'

Collins ended the call and turned back to Woods. ‘Did you get anything new out of Sammy's parents?'

Woods shook his head. ‘Nothing we didn't already know, apart from a few more horror stories about Daniel's father. What's your gut feeling about him?'

‘Not sure at the moment. A violent man, yes, but why would he mutilate his own son so horrifically? Whoever killed Daniel did it in a controlled manner, not in a drunken rage. And anyway his voice doesn't match the one on the video.'

‘So are we looking for someone else?'

‘Yes.'

It was late afternoon by the time Woods and Collins got back to the incident room. Natalie Cooper was painstakingly going through a pile of CCTV tapes that had accumulated on her desk.

‘Anything?' Collins asked her without any pleasantries.

‘Not on these,' Cooper replied briskly. ‘DI Drabble got a bit shirty with me. I managed to get a few tapes, but she wasn't going to let go of the rest. Said she was going to call Higgins. I told her you'd sort it out when you got here.'

‘Thanks.'

‘That's why you're the boss, boss.'

DI Yvonne Drabble, thirty-one and stocky with dark hair and darker eyes, was the type of police woman who had made her way up the ranks by being even more of a lad than the men who surrounded her. Collins had run into her a few times at training courses and seminars over the years, but they had never actually worked together. When they had tried to engage in conversation it had all fizzled out to nothing once the two women realized that they had absolutely nothing in common, including their approach to police work.

Collins had only just reached Drabble's desk when the woman looked up, sneered and folded her arms. ‘What the hell do you think you're playing at?' she hissed. ‘The
whole reason Higgins put us into different teams was to make sure no one trod on anyone else's toes. My team were assigned to CCTV duty, but then I get back here and find your little DC sticking her nose into our work.'

‘It's not like that,' Collins replied. ‘We're following up a different set of leads, something that might have occurred just prior to the actual kidnapping.'

‘And you didn't have the courtesy to ask me yourself?'

‘We're on the same side, you know.'

‘Don't give me that bollocks. We may be looking for the same guy, but we all want to be the one to find him first. Anyone who says different is just talking crap.' Drabble leaned back in her chair. ‘I'll let you have the tapes but only because my guys are busy going through the CCTV for every one of the stops the kidnapper sent us to during the money-drop.'

It suddenly occurred to Collins that she knew little about where the money-drop had been due to take place.

‘Where did it end up?'

‘Didn't bother to read the briefing papers, huh? He started off at Embankment underground station and then gave our man about ten minutes to get to Holborn, then another ten minutes to King's Cross. From there it was a run down to London Bridge and then an overland train to Peckham. The whole thing ended up at a tower block on the Blenheim Estate.

‘We figure he must have been near each stop, watching. We're going through the footage to see if anyone is at more than one of the locations during the same time as our man. It's the best lead we have.'

But Collins was no longer listening. She was staring
into space, her mind going over something Drabble had just said.

‘You okay?' asked Drabble. ‘You look like you've seen a ghost.'

Collins swallowed hard before she spoke. ‘Did you say the Blenheim Estate?'

‘Yeah, our guy ended up there. He was told to drop the money into the lift in one of the tower blocks and press the button for the top floor. He did that and then the team moved in and cordoned off the area. No one could get in or out. When they were satisfied they had the whole place locked down, they moved in and that's when they found it.'

‘Found what?'

‘The money. It was still there. The kidnapper never collected it. Guess the team must have spooked him or something.'

‘Do you think the kidnapper lives on the estate?'

‘Not unless he's stupid, but they're doing house-to-house anyway.'

‘Who else knows the estate was where they ended up for the drop?'

Drabble shook her head slightly. ‘No one apart from SCD7 and those working on the case; it's one of the holdbacks.'

It was common practice in all major criminal investigations to hold back certain pieces of information as a way of sorting out the crank callers from those with genuine information or knowledge of the crime.

Yvonne Drabble blinked hard several times and looked at Collins strangely. ‘Something you want to tell me?'

‘It's just that … I used to know the place pretty well.'

‘Doesn't surprise me. I hear it's a bit of a dump.'

Collins leaned over the desk and stared directly at Drabble. ‘Listen to me, you piece of shit: I get results and I don't need to climb the same greasy pole as you. So carry on acting like a fucking man in a skirt, you fucking He-Bitch.' Drabble was taken aback by the onslaught and noticeably embarrassed by the fact that those close to her had overheard.

Just then the sound of a small, slightly high-pitched cough came from behind Collins. ‘Excuse me,' said Khan, looking from one woman to the other and finally fixing his gaze on Yvonne Drabble. ‘Excuse me, sir.'

Drabble's eyes widened ominously. ‘Are you trying to be funny?'

Khan's mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. It was obvious to Collins at least that he had no idea what he was supposed to have done wrong. DI Drabble finally lost patience and stormed off.

‘What did I do?' said Khan at last.

‘Didn't they teach you anything when you joined?' said Collins with a smirk. ‘It's “sir” for the men, “ma'am” for the women. Everyone likes “guv” too. You're Khan, aren't you?'

She held out her hand, and he took it gratefully. His handshake was surprisingly firm. ‘I'm DI Collins. How are you finding it?'

Khan shrugged his shoulders. ‘It's okay, I guess. Equipment's not exactly state of the art. And the stuff I do, well, you know, I could do so much more if only they let me bend the rules slightly. It's like working with one hand tied behind my back.'

‘I know the feeling,' said Collins. ‘I have the same problem myself. Tell you what.' She leaned forward so she could speak softly in his ear. ‘Next time it becomes an issue for you, just come and see me.'

Khan's young face broke into a broad smile, and Collins could see that one of his incisors was missing. ‘Cool. Thanks. That's what I came over for. I need a bit of advice about something I'm working on.'

Collins and Khan headed for the corner of the room where his computer was situated. As they walked, Collins looked around to see that many of those in the incident room were now staring at Drabble as she returned to the room. ‘And how are the people, how are they treating you?'

Khan glanced over to where Drabble was settling down at her desk. He shrugged. ‘It's okay. Kinda weird being surrounded by coppers all day long. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells, you know? And I have to make sure none of my friends see me coming in or out of here. I'd get lynched.'

‘I didn't think people like you, computer nerds, I mean, had friends.'

Khan knew she was only winding him up and was happy to play the game. ‘Cyber friends are still friends, though I suppose most of them don't know what I actually look like.'

They reached his computer and sat down. Khan pulled the keyboard towards him and began to type quickly.

‘What have you got?' Collins asked him.

Khan didn't turn to look at her; indeed he didn't stop typing, his fingers lightly flying over the keyboard with unstudied skill. ‘Dead-drop,' he said cryptically.

‘What you talking about?'

Khan stopped typing and swung round on his chair to look at her. ‘A virtual dead-drop. It's how the 9/11 terrorists communicated with each other without being traced. You get yourself a webmail account – this geezer used Hotmail – and then save any message as a draft. What he did then was give the parents the user name and password to access the account for themselves.'

‘What's the point of that?'

Khan shrugged. ‘There's no electronic trail. The email doesn't actually travel anywhere once it's in the Hotmail draft server. Only thing is, he'll have had to upload the email somehow, and that means connecting to his Internet account.'

‘Can you trace where he uploaded?'

‘It's difficult. Hotmail don't keep a record of people accessing to leave draft emails, only actual mail that comes in or out. I'll have to work round it, but, even if I do that, chances are he used several layers of encryption.'

‘What's the alternative?'

‘I could put a worm on to his account. A kind of virus,' Khan said nonchalantly. ‘It's what hackers use when they want to drain information from someone's computer – credit card numbers, bank details, that sort of thing. You can also use it to steal someone's ISP address. When this guy logs in, which he'll have to do even just to leave a draft email, the sleeper will wake up and attach the worm without him even knowing about it. But that only works if he logs on again.'

‘Sounds good,' said Collins. ‘So what's the problem, then?'

‘Well, there are two problems.'

‘What's the first one?'

‘It's kinda illegal.'

‘How illegal?'

‘I've got to hack into Hotmail to place the worm. I could get into serious trouble.'

Collins nodded. ‘Surely they would give us permission if they knew what we were trying to do. What's the next problem?'

‘The machine they've given me simply isn't capable of creating that kind of worm.'

‘Could you bring your own equipment here?'

‘Yes, but I don't think the boss will want me to plug my stuff into the police network. He'd see it as giving a bank robber the key to the vault.'

Collins focused on the screen and brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. ‘What about outside the building – if you did this from, say, an Internet cafe´?'

It was Khan's turn to nod. ‘That would work. Better still, I can do it from home and log into my computer from here.'

‘Then let's do that. You go home and set up this worm, and in the meantime I'll get someone to contact Hotmail and tell them what we are doing. If they object, we'll get a warrant.'

‘But I'll still get into trouble for using illegal software …'

Collins leaned forward and moved her head down so that it was level with Khan's. ‘Then let's just keep it between you and me. And if you get anything, bring it to me first.'

‘No problem, ma'am.' Khan flashed a toothy smile.

She reached for a scrap of paper on his desk and began to scribble something down. ‘Here's my mobile number, so you can get hold of me any time. How long to get this all in place?'

Khan looked sarcastically at his watch, then grinned. ‘Oh, about ten minutes.'

Collins smiled back. ‘Then what are you waiting for?'

Khan grabbed his bag and began to collect his things as Collins returned to her desk and began to send a text message to the last person in the world she wanted to see:
WILL MEET U TONIGHT. USUAL PLACE. 7
.