Little Boy Blue

75

We think we’re anonymous, but we never are. However we might try to protect ourselves, however smart we think we’ve been, it is impossible not to leave a footprint of some kind. Max Paine’s killer had left his or her mark in the corridor outside the flat and perhaps he or she had left a digital mark too.

The latter was increasingly the case in police work and DC McAndrew was no stranger to content warrants and cyberspace. Rolling her neck with a loud click, she returned her attention to the screens in front of her, making a mental note to go to her pilates class later. Too much data sifting played havoc with your posture and she could feel her back beginning to protest at her lack of activity.

Click, click, click. McAndrew and the team were working on the supposition that Paine’s attacker had deliberately cleared the flat of electronic devices – anything that could send or receive messages. Such a tactic might work in the short term but it was nothing more than a temporary fix. Paine hadn’t been very assiduous about backing up, but the apps, downloads and messages from his tablet and smartphone were synced to the Cloud. McAndrew sifted through them now, searching for the important clue that seemed to have eluded them so far.

She flicked quickly through the dating apps, before finding what she was really after. His e-diary. Scrolling straight to yesterday’s date, she took in his diary entries – a doctor’s appointment at 11 a.m., coffee with a friend at 12 p.m., a Tesco’s delivery at 3 p.m. After that came his work commitments – Paine was a nocturnal worker. A ‘Mike’ at 6.30 p.m., ‘Jeff’ at 8 p.m. and then the final appointment of the night at 9 p.m. None of the names gave them much to go on – no surnames and the first names probably false – but the last meeting of the day was even more oblique. Just a time and next to it a single initial:

‘S’.