Stalker

Chapter Forty-Four

It was after 1pm by the time Beth and Matt left Fell Court where they’d been investigating the suspected child abuse, and they were emotionally drained. Thankfully it wasn’t the worse case they’d come across, not by a long way, but even so it was worrying. A neighbour had reported hearing a child screaming and crying for help on a number of occasions. They’d interviewed the neighbour and the child’s parents who claimed the neighbour was racist and that their daughter had been having nightmares – even in the day. Aged six, and with English as her second language, the child had nodded agreement with her parents, although to Beth her eyes told a different story.

They’d taken statements and waited for the social worker to arrive. It was the first time the family had come to the attention of the social services so it was likely they’d be given the benefit of the doubt and be monitored for now. But Beth was sure there would be a next time. The haunted look in the girl’s eyes had said it all.

The fresh air outside was a welcome relief. Matt opened the car and automatically climbed into the driver’s seat.

‘My chauffeur,’ Beth teased.

‘You can drive if you want to?’

‘No, it’s fine. I need to return the call from forensics. John texted while we were in there.’

Beth keyed John’s number into the car phone as Matt dove in the direction of the police station. ‘We’ll pick up something to eat on the way,’ he said.

Beth nodded. ‘Hi John, Beth here returning your call.’

‘What kept you?’ he said disgruntled. ‘I thought you said you wanted the stuff on Flint’s new laptop urgently. I worked on it over the weekend.’

‘Sorry, John. We got held up. Thanks for putting in the extra hours. What have you got for us?’

‘I’ll email you the full report but I thought you’d want to know my findings so far.’

‘Yes please.’ John was very good at this job and he often held the key to solving a case, or at least providing sufficient evidence to take the case to court. He liked the detectives to acknowledge that. ‘Thank you,’ Beth said again.

John cleared his throat. ‘You were right when you said Flint had recreated the live streams on his new laptop, but it was through a mixture of hacking and password guessing. As you surmised, the ones he couldn’t get into had high-strength passwords not derived from their names, streets, or date of birth. They’d also changed the password on their routers.’

‘Well done us,’ Matt said.

‘It’s pretty basic stuff for a hacker,’ John added. Matt looked deflated. ‘People make it too easy for hackers,’ John continued. ‘However, what you weren’t to know, and I’m sure Flint didn’t know either, was that despite installing good virus software his laptop had been hacked, as had his other computer.’

‘Really?’ Beth said. ‘When?’

‘At least ten months ago on his old computer, and as soon as he went online with this laptop. Flint didn’t practice what he preached, and not realizing he’d been hacked once, he used the same login and password, so they already had the details they needed.’

‘I see,’ Beth said thoughtfully. ‘So it was by the same person or persons.’

‘Yes. I’m still checking what exactly they accessed but in theory it could have been all Flint’s files and folders. So they would know everything Flint did about his clients, and about him too.’

There was a moment’s silence as the full implications sunk in.

‘Struth!’ Beth said.

Matt let out a long, slow whistle. ‘That could put a different take on things.’

‘There’s more,’ John said, his excitement palpable. ‘Not only did they hack in, but they’d been goading Flint and leading him on for many months using the dark web. You’re familiar with that term?’

Beth was about to say they were, but John continued with his explanation anyway.

‘The dark web is a collection of websites that use an encryption tool to hide their IP addresses so you can’t find them on a search engine. It needs specific software and configurations to use. The fact that these people need to hide their identities and their activities says it all. It’s used by terrorist groups, whistle-blowers, black market sales, paedophiles and weirdos who think it’s fun to play sadistic interactive games. Flint was computer savvy but I’m sure he had no idea who was targeting him and how serious it was until they sent him that final email.’

‘What email is that?’ Beth asked.

‘The one that was sent to his laptop on Wednesday morning from a group calling themselves Watching You. They didn’t use a VPN so Flint was able to trace them. It was probably then that the penny dropped and Derek realized at least some of what was going on.’

‘And then he suddenly disappears,’ Beth said.

‘Who are they? What do you know about them?’ Matt asked.

‘Not a lot at present. They’re well hidden on the dark web. From the little I’ve seen so far they really are a nasty bunch. But it’s very time-consuming trying to keep track of these buggers and sift through all the data they generate, and there’s just me been working on it.’

‘Thank you, John, it is appreciated,’ Beth said. ‘Tell us when you have more. I don’t suppose you know where the group is based?’

‘Like most of these groups they’re global, the Internet is worldwide, after all – hence www: world wide web.’

‘Yes, but was there a UK branch?’ she asked.

‘It’s not that simple. These dark web groups subdivide into smaller groups, sometimes down to two or three members, so there can be many all over the place.’

‘And the group that’s been targeting Flint has how many members, do you know?’

‘There is evidence of four but one’s been sleeping by the look of it.’

‘Sleeping?’

‘A non-active member. He was involved until about six months ago, then disappeared and another guy took his place. There’s quite a hierarchy in these groups and they give themselves identities, like Devil’s Child, Hell’s Fury and so on.

‘So when will you be able to give us the location of the group that’s been linked to Derek Flint?’ Beth asked, glancing at Matt.

‘I can do that now. I made it a priority. As I thought, the group that’s been targeting Flint is the nearest group geographically to him. They are operating from a computer at 35 Bushmead Close. You’ll have to look up the postcode.’

‘No need,’ Beth said as Matt screeched the car to a halt and began a U-turn. ‘We know where it is.’

‘They’ve been active this morning until about half an hour ago. If you’d returned my call sooner, you might have caught them red-handed.’

‘Thank you, John. We’re on our way there now,’ Beth said.

‘I’ll email my full report when it’s complete, but you realize the connotations for your case against Flint?’

‘Yes,’ Beth said. She disconnected the call and turned to Matt. ‘It’s been blown wide apart.’