The Autumn Tree (DI Bliss Book 8)

by Tony J. Forder

  Bliss was undeterred. ‘Maybe. But you saw how Drake reacted. I’m confident he knows nothing about the site, which I wouldn’t have known if we’d not come. I’m equally certain we now have him wondering if he’s been cut out of a money-making machine being run by somebody inside his outfit. Believe me, after what he heard from us, Lewis Drake is going to do some digging of his own. All of which means our visit might still bear fruit.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of whoever is doing this on the side. What he lacks in size and stature, he more than makes up for in viciousness and lack of scruples. You still reckon it’s Parkinson?’

  ‘She’d be my prime suspect, yes. Nicola has a unique position inside the organisation, and few people know that business better than her. I wouldn’t be surprised to find her son and daughter involved, either.’

  Chandler was listening to him, but checking her own phone at the same time. ‘This isn’t so good,’ she said, still reading a text. ‘Yeva heard back from Sara. Somebody else in the WhatsApp group confirms Abbi Turner has been off the grid since Wednesday.’

  He cursed and turned his face to the rain that had begun falling from a sky swollen with malicious intent. As they had suspected, it was looking like their killer had already abducted his new victim. Bliss had been prepared for this moment since first hearing from the Met about the other murders, but now he and the entire team had to face one clear truth: they were up against the clock, and a young woman’s life expectancy was ticking down with each second that elapsed.

  Thirty-Two

  By the time Bliss and Chandler arrived back in the city, both DC Ansari and Glen Ashton had news about the investigation. Bishop was not in the incident room, so it was Ansari who updated them while wincing at the taste of her vending machine hot chocolate.

  ‘With ERSOU’s assistance, we’ve been monitoring traffic coming in and out of the Dark Desires website since we first located it. There’s a whole technical explanation for what we’re doing and why we’re currently waiting for further results. Do you want to hear it?’

  ‘Is it possible to tell us in layman’s terms?’ Bliss asked. ‘I’d be okay with all the geek speak, but you know how slow on the uptake Pen can be at times.’ He received an elbow nudge from Chandler for his troubles.

  Ansari gave a knowing smile. ‘I’ll do my best. A full technical explanation would involve telling you all about up and down data streams, IP traffic, proxy servers, private networks, public domain, and virtual private networks. Am I right in thinking you aren’t interested in any of that?’

  ‘Absolutely. After all, I’m getting on a bit, and Pen is as thick as a plank.’ That earned him a second nudge aimed at the ribs, which he managed to avoid. The less-than-nimble movement resulted in several muscles complaining with sharp jabs of pain, leaving him groaning and wishing he’d taken the elbow instead.

  ‘You all right, boss?’ Ansari said.

  Bliss winced and stretched his limbs. ‘Yeah. Just ache a bit.’

  Chandler snorted and chuckled. ‘Don’t worry about him, Gul. He’s playing the martyr here, but he banged on about it all bloody morning on the drive down to London. Only one thing worse than man flu, apparently, and that’s man ache.’

  Bliss shook his head. ‘Don’t ever become as cynical and unsympathetic as her, Gul. Heart like stone, this one. Go on with what you were telling us.’

  ‘All right, let me think how best to describe it more simply… Okay.’ Ansari walked over to the closest whiteboard and began drawing on it with a blue marker pen. She outlined a rectangle on the left side of the board and another in the centre. In the first she wrote an L and in the second she wrote DD. She then took a step back and tapped the first shape with the marker. ‘Let’s say this is your laptop. This here in the middle is the web server on which the Dark Desires website resides. If you go online and access a site in the usual way, the security protocols at the other end can see your laptop’s network address – its IP number.’

  ‘That much I’m aware of. So does it work the other way around? Can my laptop see the Dark Desires IP address?’

  ‘Not the server itself, no – not easily, anyhow. But if it was a standard site with a domain, you would at least be able to see the external address it shows to the public. For instance, what website do you visit most often?’

  ‘Besides Pornhub, Jimmy,’ Chandler said.

  Bliss ignored her. ‘I suppose that would be the Chelsea website.’

  Ansari nodded and took out her phone. Seconds later, after a dazzling display of thumb-typing, she said, ‘Okay. So when I ping the website name, the IP address comes back as 151.101.2.133. That isn’t the IP of the domain server, rather the public-facing one assigned to them. But because it’s part of the domain name system, we can at least get that far.’

  ‘Which presumably provides a starting point for your tech wizards to dig deeper?’

  ‘Precisely. That said, in our case we’re dealing with the dark web, remember? No domains. No domains means no lookup facility. And the Dark Desires server won’t be connecting directly to the internet in the usual manner; it will have layers of protection which ultimately broadcast a completely different IP to the outside world.’

  Bliss exhaled softly. ‘All right. So its own security measures effectively disguise the address of the source.’

  ‘That’s it in a nutshell.’

  ‘So, for example, if its address was 1.1.1.1, the security stuff might tell us it was 2.2.2.2 instead.’

  ‘Bang on.’

  Bliss thought about the logistics and the definitions of the example given. ‘But whoever updates the website with new information or removes the old won’t be working on the server itself, will they?’

  ‘Almost certainly not. More likely a computer terminal or laptop.’

  ‘So are they likely to also have all this same level of protection?’

  ‘That’s a great question, but impossible to answer, I’m afraid, until we know what device or devices are being used. See, an organisation will probably have its own private network – so if you use one of its devices, it’ll be directed through the same route out onto the internet. If that’s the case, it becomes even more secure, because its private network is hidden from anyone or anything outside the organisation.’

  Bliss thought about Lewis Drake, his operation and the people who worked for him. If you were going to run Dark Desires without either him or his other employees being aware, it was unlikely that you would do so from within the operation’s own organisational framework.

  ‘What if the source isn’t inside the organisation’s private network? Is the server still likely to have that level of protection?’

  ‘The server will still be protected in the same way,’ Glen Ashton said, jumping in for the first time. ‘It’s standard protocol these days to place a server behind a proxy and a VPN. Only a real amateur would fail to protect such a valuable and private resource.’

  ‘Fair enough. But how about the device they’re using to update it?’

  Ashton nodded. ‘Now we’re getting down to the real nitty-gritty. We have to assume it’s still protected with a VPN – or possibly even several of them – but most likely not inside a private network as well. However, it’s far more likely that the person doing the updates uses a suitably secure laptop, tablet, or home PC. Possibly even their phone.’

  Bliss’s technical knowledge was limited, but he was capable of following the logic of it. ‘So if I’m getting this right, you’ve reached the point where your software is attempting to breach the security on both the server and the device connecting to it?’

  ‘Yes. And we got there because we were eventually able to establish a pattern. It’s to do with that upstream and downstream IP traffic Gul mentioned before. We can tell which devices are being used to look at data and even download data, but more importantly in this instance, which ones upload data. There is always some back and forth, up and down, but a greater preponderance of one will tell us
who is doing what. We’ve managed to identify both – now we wait while the software does its job and finds its way through the security.’

  Bliss tried to keep the pieces flowing in order to see how it might all come together to produce the information they needed. Meanwhile, Chandler sought her own clarification. ‘Let me see if I’ve wrapped my head around it: you’ll eventually be able to identify the exact computer this mostly upstream traffic comes from?’

  The face Ansari pulled before responding suggested Chandler was close but not quite there. ‘Provided they’re not going through a local network, yes. If they are, we’ll hit another wall. We can tunnel under it, but doing so would be illegal. In truth, what we’re doing could already be construed as an illegal act, but at least it’s one we can argue about afterwards.’

  ‘So the best we could hope for in those circumstances is to contact the organisation concerned and ask them to track it down and tell us.’

  ‘That’s correct. Which, in this case, they will obviously refuse to do.’

  Chandler glanced across at Ashton. ‘So what can the NCA do about that, Glen? Issue a warrant and threaten to close them down if they don’t comply?’

  Ashton considered the question before replying. ‘It’s a legal quagmire. If we can prove they are functioning as an organised crime outfit, if we can prove trafficking… the onus is on us to provide evidence to the CPS that the organisation is operating illegally. If we do that, then we can seize it all and analyse it at our leisure. But that also depends on who owns the hardware and where they’re based, and reaching that point will be hugely time-consuming. I’d say the best chance we have is that some of the traffic is coming from a device with mid-level security that we can breach. If whoever is doing the updating does it from a home laptop, we’ll benefit from the domino effect. It’ll mean we can find their provider. If we find their provider, we can find their router. If we find their router, we find them.’

  Bliss put this together with what he and Chandler had discussed on their way back from London. If Dark Desires was being run by Drake’s people without his knowledge, then in all likelihood it would not be receiving the technical security privileges of that operation. For all he knew, it was a one-man band using a home laptop – or a one-woman band using hers.

  It quickly became clear that they had two main leads: get to their killer directly through the girls he used, or via the website from which he sourced them.

  ‘Gul,’ he said, ‘what if I were to suggest that the person running Dark Desires might well have a function inside Lewis Drake’s organisation, but be operating the site without his knowledge or consent?’

  Ansari drained the last dregs of her hot chocolate before saying, ‘That scenario provides us with our best chance of tracking them.’

  It was precisely the reply Bliss had hoped to hear.

  Bishop entered the room at that moment, deep in discussion with DC Hunt. Bliss had been waiting for him to return to the incident room before announcing the outcome of the visit to Belmarsh. It was evident from the first sentence that Bishop had not informed the rest of the team about the trip.

  ‘Is it everything they say it is security-wise?’ Hunt wanted to know.

  Bliss nodded. ‘And more. Mind you, they did allow me to leave with personal photos taken on my phone.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘DS Chandler standing around in her underwear.’

  He heard a gasp beside him. Felt the sting of a slap on his forearm. He chuckled. ‘If anyone would like a copy, let me know. I’m thinking of starting a WhatsApp group, so you can apply there.’

  ‘At least I still look fit, old man,’ Chandler said disdainfully. ‘My belly isn’t sagging, unlike somebody’s I could mention.’

  ‘True. But gravity is taking its toll on your boobs, you have to admit.’

  ‘Whatever. You still got a thrill copping a free peek.’

  ‘You’re a woman. You were standing there in your underwear. Of course I’m going to look.’ Bliss glanced around the room, searching for support.

  ‘Stick me on your list, boss,’ Hunt said, raising a hand.

  Ashton followed suit. ‘I’ll have some of that, too.’

  Chandler clapped her hands together. ‘This is all very sweet and charming and more than a little pervy, but can we please get back to business? For your information, our phones were confiscated upon arrival, so our esteemed colleague Detective Sergeant Bliss is a lying gobshite.’

  Bliss held up both hands. ‘It’s a fair cop. But the image of Pen in her bra and knickers is indelibly imprinted on my mind’s eye, so if anybody would like me to describe it in minute detail, see me afterwards.’

  This provoked more laughter. Chandler ignored it. ‘We’re basically waiting for the ERSOU techs to spit out some answers, but we have no idea how long that wait might be. In the meantime, there’s every chance that Abbi Turner is being held by a madman even as we speak. Does anyone have any bright ideas how we can move forward on that?’

  His partner’s question echoed the turmoil rampaging inside Bliss’s head. He found himself going back and forth and meeting insurmountable barriers at every turn. They were waiting for the system, waiting for Drake to contact them with a name. The latter did not fill Bliss with confidence; Drake was more likely to take things into his own hands than he was to work with the police. Meanwhile, the girl he believed to be their next victim was potentially being subjected to any number of unspeakable horrors. It seemed to him that if Abbi Turner was that person, getting to know her better should be their next move.

  He suggested as much, and this received a ripple of enthusiasm. ‘But how?’ Bishop asked, putting voice to the most obvious question.

  Chandler was the first to respond. ‘We could obtain a warrant to search her flat. The address we have for her is bound to be her own home rather than her work-based accommodation. I’m not sure what we’d find there, but it’s a good place to start.’

  ‘How about her profile on the dark website?’ Bliss asked.

  Bishop shook his head. ‘It works in a completely different way. It provides only a central mobile number. All communications are routed through there.’

  ‘We could scan the other sites for her, though,’ Hunt said. ‘We have her photo. Gul and Glen can have a go at tracking her to other sites if DI Burton is busy. They’ll hopefully offer up a number and location. If it’s different to the one we have, we know it’s for clients only and that the one we have is the one she calls home.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan.’ Bishop looked to DC Gratton. ‘Phil. Start working up the warrant. Use the address we have – we can always amend it later on if we need to.’

  Bliss was shaking his head. He had an empty feeling in his stomach. ‘We’re reaching and hoping. I hate it when a case deteriorates to this point. Five days in, so much information flowing through our hands. Yet not only are we no closer to catching this bastard, but he’s already secured his next victim.’

  ‘But it’s still progress,’ Bishop argued. ‘On Wednesday we thought we had one murdered sex worker on our hands. Today we know we’re after a serial, we know how he acquires his victims, and we also have the name and address of his next victim.’

  ‘I agree. That’s why I mentioned the flow of information. But where are we still? Scratching our heads, playing catch-up. Yes, we’ve clearly made good progress; I’m not denying that at all. It’s the details we’re short of, and with no obvious way of obtaining them quickly.’

  ‘Patience and diligence, Jimmy. Patience and diligence.’

  Bliss dipped his head and smiled. ‘Hitting me with my own words, eh? Low blow, Bish. Low blow.’

  Bishop chuckled. ‘But clearly they made an impact. I remember you telling me there were three assets we needed most of all when an investigation reached this stage. Patience to wait for a break without becoming disillusioned. Diligence to ensure we don’t miss that break when it presents itself to us.’

  ‘I’m happy you took it in
and have found it useful. But do you recall the third item on the list? I didn’t mention it to you at the time, but added it at a later date.’

  Bishop shook his head.

  ‘Luck,’ Bliss said. ‘When the strands of a case get tied up in knots and you feel as if you’re getting nowhere, it’s often a stroke of luck that gives you the break you waited for patiently and worked towards diligently.’

  ‘Of course. If I remember correctly, I argued against including it.’

  ‘You did. You said the first two were down to us, whereas the third was out of our hands. That luck should never be considered alongside what we brought to the table.’

  ‘And I still believe that to be true.’ Bishop sniffed and stood upright. ‘I won’t sit by and wait for fortune to decide our case.’

  Bliss wagged a finger at him. ‘And like I said back then: you’re missing the point. You don’t wait for a lucky break; you work twice as hard to force it out into the open. Afterwards you can look back and admire all the hard work that went into a successful investigation, but in my experience you should never rule out a stroke of good fortune turning things your way when you least expect it.’

  Thirty-Three

  The team had commandeered a section of the canteen and were sitting together enjoying their lunch. Ansari and Hunt both ate food they had brought in from home, while the others each tucked into an all-day full English. Fuel was important; Bliss always recommended to others that they take regular pit-stops, while forgetting to do so himself more often than not. Investigations had a habit of stopping all the clocks for him, turning his world inside out to the point where he’d barely know what day it was, let alone what time.

  Having the unit together without the need to discuss ongoing caseloads was good for morale, and Bliss was pleased to see DS Bishop continuing the tradition. After-work drinks were a great way of blowing off steam, but people had home lives to get on with, too. Food and drink mixed with laughter midway through a shift was fast becoming the only point in the working day they all looked forward to.