Fatal Last Words

Thirty-six

‘The computer’s arrived, Sammy,’ said Detective Inspector Becky Stallings, her London accent unaffected by her lengthening stay in Edinburgh. ‘Once Jack McGurk’s managed to hijack a monitor and a keyboard, I’ll be able to make a start. Do we need an administrator password?’

‘Not as such; not to open the operating system. The daughter said you just switch it on and you’re in. She’s wireless capable, so you should be able to access the internet through our network. Once you’ve done that, the password for her email account is “rootcanal”, all one word.’

‘Yuk! I’ve had some of that. Is this girl a sadist?’

Pye smiled, imagining Stallings’ expression at the other end of the line. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘she’s a dentist.’

‘Same thing. Once we’ve got into her account, what next?’

‘The second screen name you’re looking for is fatallyg, all one word. That’s. .’ He spelled it out. ‘What I can’t give you is the password he used.’ In the silence that followed he could almost feel his colleague’s frown.

‘Mr McIlhenney didn’t tell me that,’ she sighed. ‘Never mind, I might get lucky. It might be very simple, or he might have tried to be too clever in linking it to himself or someone he knows, that we trip over it quickly. A lot of people do that; I’ve had experience of this sort of stuff before. What I’d like you to do is send me an email with all the personal detail you can on Mr Glover: full name and date of birth, wife’s details, children’s details, his postcode, their postcode, and anything else you think might be relevant. Did he have a profession, apart from author?’

‘He was an accountant.’

‘That could mean it’s number-based. . but he was a wordsmith as well, so maybe not. I’ve never read any of his books. Might there be something in them he could have used?’

‘I’m no expert either. All I can tell you is that his main character’s name is Detective Inspector Walter Strachan.’

‘Spelling as in the footballer?’

‘The same.’

‘That’s something else to go on. As soon as we’re up and running, I’ll start playing around with combinations of that. Meantime, you put that email together and get it to me as quickly as you can.’