by D C Vaughn
Colin drove, which was another bonus in that the ANPR system that tracked car number plates and was used by the police to locate vehicles would be looking for her car, not Colin’s, whom she felt fairly safe to assume was not a person of interest in the case. He parked his battered, silver Ford Focus on his drive and led her into the house.
Like most guys who lived alone, Colin was not big on being tidy. The house wasn’t a complete mess, but beer cans and crisp packets littered a coffee table in front of a flat–screen television large enough to grace a small cinema. The floors were laminate, easy to clean, and there was no sign that anybody had deigned to wash up in the last few days.
‘It’s this way,’ Colin said as he gestured up the stairs.
Rebecca followed, alert enough that she was being asked upstairs inside the home of a man she had met less than thirty minutes before, but also unconcerned. Colin didn’t strike her as the kind of guy who was on the verge of sexual assault, and right now her need was great enough to take the risk. If Colin really was in danger and it was something to do with Sam’s work, then everything the police had assumed and were working on was misdirected, and it was precisely the kind of evidence that she would need to put them on the right track without tainting it: she had no means of tampering with data that was protected by the Official Secrets Act.
Colin led her to one of the three bedrooms, but she could see right away that there was no bed in there. Instead, she could see a row of desks and six television monitors arrayed before her, all showing different feeds of what looked like surveillance footage. The curtains were drawn and the whole thing was powered by several computer servers that glowed with an eerie blue light that reminded her of something out of a science fiction movie.
‘What’s this?’ she asked. ‘Darth Vader’s bedroom?’
If Colin had a sense of humour, he kept it to himself.
‘What you’re seeing here could get me thrown into prison for treason,’ he said as he gestured to the television screens.
Rebecca was no gadget geek. In fact, a lot of the time she was a confirmed luddite when it came to technology. She didn’t really understand all the latest iPads, mobile phones, computers, games consoles and all the rest of it. About all she wanted in her life was a reliable mobile phone and a laptop, and it irritated her that even a bloody mobile phone came with countless gadgets and “apps” that didn’t interest her. As long as they worked, she didn’t care much for the how.
Each screen showed what looked like a camera attached to somebody, each of them going about their daily business. Of the eight screens in total, two were dark, mostly. She could see vague flickers and flashes of light and assumed that the cameras were in somebody’s pocket or something.
‘Okay,’ she murmured, uncertain, ‘what am I looking at?’
Colin seemed to gather himself, nervous as ever, building up to some momentous announcement that Rebecca was by now jaded enough to believe would be a tremendous let down.
‘Have you ever heard of an American program called PRISM?’
‘Should I have?’
‘Everybody on planet earth should have,’ Colin replied, ‘but it’s something which slipped under the public consciousness in the wake of the September 2001 attacks in New York City. PRISM is a clandestine surveillance program launched in America in 2007. In short, it stores Internet communications from around the world and allows the American National Security Agency to access that data under the Patriot Act. Its existence was leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden and made international news a few years back.’
Rebecca recalled the name Snowden, and the furor over his leaks of covert intelligence data, but that was a long time ago and she didn’t have any idea what it had to do with her or Sam.
‘Okay, so what?’
‘Most media reports focused on the leaks themselves, but what most missed was the financial agreements between the NSA and PRISM’s development partners, which were worth millions of dollars. U.S. government officials defend the program by asserting that it can’t be used on domestic targets without a warrant, that it has helped to prevent acts of terrorism, and that it receives independent oversight from the federal government’s executive, judicial and legislative branches. Of course, none of that matters behind the scenes to the developers of such technology, who make fortunes from this kind of thing.’
‘Stop pulling my chain,’ Rebecca urged. ‘I missed a police meeting for this.’
‘You have to understand what went on before, to understand what’s happening now,’ Colin urged. ‘To realise what this is really all about.’
Rebecca calmed herself and nodded, trying to ignore the pain in her head and her queasy stomach as Colin went on.
‘In 2008,’ he began, ‘researchers at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Japan, working on human neural networks, worked out a way to sample electrical signals moving from the retina to the brain’s visual cortex. They realized that for any given image witnessed by an observer, a unique signal was relayed to the brain, and thus those individual signals could be recorded, analyzed and stored.’
Rebecca struggled to follow what Colin was saying. ‘Like fingerprints?’
‘Very much so,’ Colin agreed, and for the first time offered her a bright smile. ‘Just like fingerprints or DNA, everything we see has a recognisable neural imprint in the brain, which can be stored.’
The pain in Rebecca’s skull intensified as she tried to focus.
‘Was Sam working on something like that?’
Colin gestured to the screens.
‘Sam was involved in developing methods of remotely transferring such neural data,’ he explained. ‘The researchers in Japan back in ‘08 decided to use the information they’d discovered. They sat volunteers down, wired them to electrodes and then showed them hundreds of images, recording each data signal into a database which could then be accessed. Then, they took new volunteers, sat them down, wired them to the same networks but instead of showing them images they asked them to think about certain images, places or objects such as trees, houses, cars and so on.’
Rebecca felt as though she might have to use the bathroom again, her stomach in freefall.
‘And?’
Colin’s voice dropped an octave.
‘The neural “fingerprints” from their thoughts were analysed by a computer which tested them against the database they’d built, and they then displayed the result onto a screen in another room,’ he said. ‘There, researchers were astounded to see blurred but recognisable images. No matter what the subjects were asked to think about, reliable data would appear on the screens in the control room. The researchers were literally seeing a person’s thoughts on a screen.’
***
XX
‘All clear.’
DCI Stone walked through the front door of Rebecca Kyle’s apartment and stood for a moment, surveying everything as the forensics team checked the apartment room by room.
The apartment was fairly tidy, a woman’s touch evident in the choice of colours, furniture and dressings. Sunlight beamed through the living room and open plan kitchen, and Stone could already see wine bottles lining the kitchen counter just like the last time he’d been here. Beyond he could see through into the bedroom, a duvet in disarray over a double bed, another empty bottle and glass on the bedside table and a fourth bottle standing near the bed.
‘I thought you said that Kyle wasn’t much of a drinker?’ he asked Kieran, whom he’d brought along as the DS was the man who knew Rebecca best.
‘She isn’t,’ he confirmed. ‘She gets migraines from alcohol if she’s not careful. She’d only ever have one or two glasses at the most on a night out, office party type stuff.’
Hannah Marchant peered into the bathroom, sniffed the air.
‘Vomit,’ she said, ‘pretty sure she’s hurled in here within the past few hours.’
‘Maybe she’s sick,’ Kieran thought out loud. ‘She might not have been well enough to
make the meeting. We could check the doctor’s surgery, see if she’s there?’
Stone nodded. ‘Do it, but with all this wine about she’s more than likely got a self–inflicted headache. In my experience the innocent and the sick don’t drink themselves to sleep and Rebecca’s smart enough to have used a phone to call in.’
Stone wandered through the apartment and quickly spotted pictures on the walls. Most were static images of Rebecca and Sam on holiday, with family, smiling, content. A couple of others were digital picture–slides, shifting silently from one to the next in procession; Rebecca and Sam sky–diving, sailing, standing in the jungle in what might have been Thailand or similar. Every image was one of a happy couple doing what all happy couples did before marriage, children and mortgages became the order of the day.
‘I’m not feeling the abusive partner vibe here,’ Hannah said.
‘People tend to surround themselves with positive images,’ Stone replied. ‘They don’t tend to photograph their partners beating them.’
‘That’s not what I mean,’ Hannah said as she gestured around them. ‘Sam’s been missing for five days and Rebecca’s only been home a couple of days.’
‘So?’
‘So,’ Hannah went on, ‘if I were back from my fiance’s death or disappearance, having been almost killed myself, and he was on my shit–list for being abusive, I’d have pulled every last image down. I wouldn’t want to look at his face. Check this out.’
Hannah walked into the bedroom and gestured to the double bed inside. Stone could see photo frames gathered densely on both bedside tables.
‘All the pictures are facing where Rebecca must have slept in here,’ Hannah said. ‘She’s rearranged them to point at her. That’s not what an abused partner does if they’re given half a chance to escape.’
‘Stockholm Syndrome?’ Stone hazarded.
The psychological tendency of an abductee to become emotionally attached to a dominant abductor or partner was well–documented, but Stone knew the connection was tenuous and Hannah wasn’t having any of it.
‘Not a chance,’ she replied. ‘They were walking arm in arm on the CCTV footage. Witnesses remember them in the Mill pub, looking like a normal couple. There’s nothing to suggest there’s anything going on here other than a happy engagement.’
Stone frowned. ‘Then why report him for assault?’
Hannah made a note in her book. ‘I’m going to follow that one up,’ she said. ‘The report came from that company that Sam worked for, right? Neuray?’
‘Yeah,’ Stone nodded, looking around. ‘Doesn’t explain Rebecca taking off and missing her meeting.’
He looked around some more, and eventually made his way into the bathroom. He could not detect the scent of vomit that Hannah had mentioned, but then he was a couple of decades older so she’d likely be able to smell things that were far subtler. Still, he poked around the cupboards a bit, saw nothing out of place and no evidence of medication for Rebecca’s OCD condition.
He was floundering about for some tangible piece of evidence connecting her to the crimes when a uniform hurried in to the apartment.
‘Got a witness boss, right outside.’
Stone followed the uniform with Hannah and Kieran right behind him, and they were led outside to where a middle–aged woman was waiting with a WPC keeping her company.
‘Mrs Rose Dwyer, of number eighteen,’ the WPC introduced the woman to Stone. ‘She saw Miss Kyle this morning.’
Stone took Rose Dwyer in at a glance. Forties, wedding ring on one finger, calm expression so not over–eager to impress the police with her knowledge.
‘Can you tell me what you saw, madam?’ Stone asked.
‘I saw Rebecca outside with a young man. He’d been hanging around, talking on his mobile phone, but when Rebecca appeared he stopped her and they started talking.’
‘You say that Rebecca walked out of her apartment building and was confronted by the man?’ Stone asked.
‘Yes, although confronted is a bit harsh. He just approached her and they talked.’
‘What time was this, Rose?’ Hannah asked.
‘About ten thirty,’ Rose replied. ‘I’d got back from the school run and was doing the washing up. My kitchen faces the apartments so I could see them both clearly.’
‘You called her Rebecca,’ Stone observed. ‘Do you know Miss Kyle personally?’
‘Enough to pass the time on the street,’ Rose replied. ‘I know she’s a detective so word kind of gets around about things like that. It’s an easy way to break the ice, if you know what I mean.’
Stone knew what she meant. Ten thousand introductory conversations with new accquaintances flashed briefly through his mind. The ability of the police detective to delve into the private lives of suspects was a powerful draw to those interested in what went on behind closed doors. Detectives got to find out about everything, and folks assumed it happened every day.
‘Can you tell us a little more about how the man approached Rebecca, and what he looked like?’ Hannah asked, notebook once again in her hand.
‘Youngish,’ Rose replied, ‘dark hair, slim build, nothing extraordinary about him really. It looked to me like Rebecca was on her way somewhere and he was holding her up. She was wearing a smart trouser suit, like she was off to work really.’
Stone and Hannah exchanged a glance.
‘She might have been on her way to us,’ Hannah suggested.
Stone turned to Rose. ‘Did he pressure her in any way, or seem aggressive?’
Rose tilted her head slightly, glanced up and to the left. ‘No, not at all, he just seemed to be holding her up in some way because she kept trying to walk away, and then after talking for a bit her body language changed and she went with him.’
‘Went where?’ Stone asked.
‘To the man’s car,’ Rose replied, ‘a silver one, but I don’t know the make. Is Rebecca all right? She’s not in danger, is she?’
‘We don’t think so,’ Stone reassured Rose. ‘We’re just trying to figure out where she’s gone. Thanks for your help.’
Stone turned away with Hannah and they walked back toward the apartments.
‘What do you think?’ Hannah asked.
‘Not sure,’ Stone replied, thinking hard. ‘She might have been coming to us on time, but then she might have been heading to Gatwick instead, we just don’t know.’
‘It would seem most likely she was coming to us,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s a stretch that she’d flee the country, she’s not stupid.’
‘Unless she’s guilty.’
‘I’m not feeling it.’
‘You’ve changed your tune.’
‘That’s what the evidence is supposed to do.’
Stone nodded as they walked, then stopped outside the apartments in the sunshine and savoured the warmth for a moment.
‘What do we do?’ Hannah asked.
Stone thought for a moment. Innocent until proven guilty, was the pillar upon which the entire justice system rested. That said, Rebecca was out there somewhere and even if she was innocent of any crime, she might herself be in some kind of danger. They had two dead bodies in the morgue, one unidentified, the other connected to Rebecca. Whatever the hell might be going on, he was starting to get the sense that custody might well be the safest place for Rebecca Kyle, guilty or not.
‘Keep the warrant out,’ he said. ‘I want Kyle in a cell as soon as possible, before whatever’s going on here gets away from us. And find CCTV of the vehicle she got into, and ANPR to figure out where it went if you can.’
Hannah hurried off at once, leaving Stone with the frustrating sense that he was seeing only half of a picture, the other half obscured and hidden in some kind of darkness.
‘What the hell are you involved in, Kyle?’ he asked himself out loud.
***
XXI
Rebecca Kyle stood in Colin’s room and tried to process what she had heard.
‘They were able to see
people’s thoughts on a screen?’
Colin nodded, then put his hands up as though surrendering to her.
‘I know how it sounds, but it’s as real as you and I. The achievement made national news in Japan and, briefly, around the world. Then, silence. There was no follow–up, no further advances, no Nobel prize or accolades for the scientists involved. It was like the whole thing vanished into thin air.’
Rebecca glanced again at the monitors arrayed in Colin’s house. Suddenly, she felt her skin crawl. The images were mostly clear but they zipped left and right, occasionally dipping up and down, as though somebody were running with a hand–held camera.
‘Tell me those images are from cameras,’ she said.
‘In a sense, they are,’ he replied. ‘These feeds are leaked directly from Neuray Solutions. Each represent the current visual and neural activity in a number of people on the company’s books. You’re not seeing camera imagery. This is the visual representation via the optical and cortical activity within their minds.’
Rebecca felt as though the entire world outside the darkened bedroom had fallen silent. She was standing in the home of a young man who was one step away from being labelled a geek, in a darkened room filled with computer drives and monitors, watching a feed from the minds of people who had no idea they were being watched by her that very moment. Some were walking along streets, others in shops or offices of some kind. One was reading a newspaper on a park bench, the words blurring in and out of focus as the reader’s gaze scanned the lines. One appeared to be rummaging through a waste bin.
Then she noticed the blue sky on some of the monitors, the cold air, the movement, the town around them, the architecture spookily familiar.
‘Is this…,’ she began. ‘Is this live?’
