Death Call

by Wendy Cartmell

  “Thank you, Clive, but this is a private meeting,” Terry snapped at the man and Crane wondered why.

  “Really? Then you should have closed the door.” He turned to Crane, hand outstretched, “Clive Butler, I take it you’re talking about the bogus 999 response call. I flagged it up to Terry here last week.”

  “It was you who talked to the other victim?” Crane had to blink away sudden tears as the thought of what happened that terrible night threatened to overwhelm him again.

  As the two men talked about their calls, Crane could see out of the corner of his eye that Terry was shrinking under the harsh reality of not one but two calls. It was as though he was slowly slithering out of his chair and any minute would end up on the floor. His ‘computer glitch’ had suddenly morphed into reality.

  Crane said, “So, Terry, are you going to play ball?”

  “Well, I’ll have to get permission from my superiors.”

  Crane thought for a moment. “This might help: tell your boss that if you help us legitimately, that the organisation in general and him in particular, will get the kudos for helping solve the case. If not, we will hack into the system behind your back and slate you in the press when the truth gets out. I think you’ll find your boss will have no option but to allow it.”

  He stood and handed over a business card, which confirmed his position in one of the Hampshire Police Major Crimes Teams. The face that he was currently on compassionate leave and strictly forbidden to investigate anything was irrelevant as far as Crane was concerned. So was the fact that he had just threatened Terry with an illegal activity.

  “Give me a ring tomorrow on my mobile and we’ll sort out the arrangements for Dudley-Jones to have access to your system. By then we might have had some replies from our piece in the Aldershot News.”

  What Crane actually meant was that maybe they would have some worthwhile answers to the call for victims to come forward. The ten emails they had received so far had all been duds, but he wasn’t about to tell Terry or Clive that. He motioned for Dudley-Jones to follow him out of the office.

  “It was good to meet you, Clive,” he said turning to him and slipping him a business card as well. “Give me a ring. It would be great to catch up sometime.”

  Clive grinned, “Will do, Sgt Major,” and passed Crane a card of his own.

  18

  The phone on Anderson’s desk rang, interrupting his report on the arrest of Damien Little.

  “Hi, Derek, Billy Williams here.”

  Anderson took this opportunity to stand and stretch his body, which had been in the same place for far too long. As he greeted Billy, he wandered over to the glass panels in his office, looking out over the CID offices.

  “I’m calling about Crane,” said Billy.

  “I guessed as much. What’s happening?”

  “Well, he went to the Emergency Response Centre in Winchester and spoke to a supervisor there.”

  “Oh God, has he upset someone?”

  “No, I don’t think so, at least no more than usual,” and the two men shared a short burst of mirth, having worked with Crane long enough to know that subtlety wasn’t part of his nature.

  Billy then said, “What he did find there though, was the other case similar to his. Apparently by chance he met an operator named Clive, who confirmed he’d talked to a victim of a similar call.”

  Derek promptly sat down at a chair by the conference table. “Bloody hell, so that other call is real. I didn’t think it was, you know.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Billy unconsciously echoing one of Crane’s favourite sayings.

  “What happened?”

  “An elderly lady rang 999 to ask where the ambulance was. She’d talked to someone about quarter of an hour before, who’d said the ambulance was on its way. But Clive couldn’t find any evidence of her first call.”

  “And her husband died?”

  “Yes he did.” After a pause Billy continued, “So I thought you should know. Just in case it makes a difference to the police’s stand on it.”

  “I don’t know if it will, Billy.”

  “But you’ll try?”

  “Yes, I’ll try.”

  Derek replaced the receiver. He ran his hand over his craggy face as he tried to make sense of it all. He’d been convinced Crane had been crazed with grief when he’d come up with the idea of a rogue 999 operator. But it seemed that view might not be true. Crane might just possibly have corroboration of his wild theory. Derek sighed and pushed himself to his feet.

  Walking out of his office, he said to Ciaran, “I’m just off upstairs, won’t be long.”

  Ciaran waved in reply as Derek pushed through the door and climbed the stairs. He couldn’t get his head around the idea of someone deliberately hacking into the Emergency Response Centre computer system and wanting to hear people die. It didn’t seem rational. He’d met some criminals in his time, but nothing like this. But for Crane’s sake, for Tina’s sake even, he had to try to convince his boss to take Crane seriously. It was going to be a tough sell.

  Superintendent Grimes was alone in his office and motioned for Derek to enter. Signing a piece of paper with a flourish, he then lifted his head and asked what Derek wanted.

  After explaining that they had found another victim of the bogus 999 operator, he said, “Can I help Crane now? It seems he may have a case here as there are now at least two victims that we know of.”

  Grimes clicked his pen against his top teeth for a moment, and then said, “No.”

  “No?”

  “Is there something wrong with your hearing, Derek? No means no.”

  “But, guv, there could be more victims out there. Can’t we just do a low-key operation? Perhaps go and talk to the Emergency Response Centre ourselves?”

  “Look, Derek, I know Crane’s your friend, but let’s face it he just isn’t detached enough from the investigation. Motivated by grief, he’s grabbing at clues and jumping to conclusions. That’s what I think he’s doing here. One elderly lady, who no doubt has a bad memory, does not a case make. So no, we won’t be part of this vigilante crusade. Do I make myself clear?”

  “As crystal, sir.”

  Derek had to bow to his boss’s order. But he wasn’t happy about it. And neither would Crane be.

  19

  Crane was jittery. He couldn’t seem to sit for any length of time without jumping out of the chair and pacing around the room again. When he did sit down, his foot tapped rapidly. Should he make the call or not? He couldn’t just keep sitting there doing nothing. It was driving him nuts. Not when there was a potential lead just sitting in his lap, waiting to be followed up.

  It had been Dudley-Jones who’d made the suggestion. They’d been sitting in Crane’s garden, watching Daniel play and idly chatting about the case. Dudley-Jones got to wondering about who would have access to the system, in order to hack into it, or to render one of the lines dead, when in reality it would be re-routed to the perpetrator.

  “My guess is it’s someone in the centre,” Dudley-Jones said.

  “You mean an employee?”

  “Yeah, I reckon so. At least that would be the easiest way into the system. You know, to create whatever havoc they wanted to. Anyway it’s just a theory.”

  Just then, Daniel fell over and Crane had run to comfort him. As a result, he had not revisited the idea until the following day. So, the question still was, should he ring himself, or not?

  “Oh, fuck it,” he said and picked up the phone to ring Terry, the manager they’d visited at Winchester.

  When Terry answered the call, he didn’t seem very pleased to hear from Crane. “What can I do for you?” he asked in clipped tones.

  That put Crane’s back up immediately. “We need your personnel list,” said Crane, not bothering with the social niceties.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your personnel list,” Crane replied.

  “Why? That’s confidential information.”

&
nbsp; “Because the person answering those calls could well be someone who works there.”

  “No, surely not?”

  “Well that would be easiest way into the system, according to Dudley-Jones, rather than a random hacker trying to get on through a back door.”

  “A back door? But we don’t have any.”

  Jesus Christ. Crane realised the man thought he meant a physical door.

  “A virtual back door,” he clarified. “A hacker opens one so he or she can gain access to someone’s system.” Crane sounded confident, but to be honest he was only parroting what Dudley-Jones had told him. “So it makes sense for us to look through the personnel list and follow up on anyone who would have the skills to do such a thing.”

  “But I can’t just let you have the list. You’d have to get a court order.”

  “Look, this would really speed up the investigation,” said Crane. “I’m sure you want that as well as we do, don’t you?”

  “Of course, what do you take me for? But that doesn’t mean I can hand out confidential details willy nilly. Sorry, it’s more than my job’s worth. Call back when you’ve got the Court Order.”

  Bugger. Crane cut the call and threw the handset across the room. Now he would have to ask Derek if he would get a Court Order for him, seeing as how Crane’s investigation was strictly off the books. He got out of his chair and went to retrieve the handset. He saw there was a big crack across the screen and when he pressed the call button, he couldn’t hear a dial tone.

  “For fuck’s sake,” he muttered and left the room to find Mrs Strange. Ascertaining that Daniel was down for a nap, he decided to go and buy a new phone. The fresh air would do him good and he could think about what to say to Derek before he waded in as he normally did.

  As he unlocked the car, he changed his mind and decided to visit Derek first. A face-to-face meeting would be best and it would also help salve the wounds left by their last row.

  20

  Things had started out well enough. As Crane passed through the CID office, people stared, looked away, or tried to ambush Crane. Nevertheless, Crane wouldn’t be deflected and walked purposefully towards the Major Crimes team’s part of the office.

  Holly saw him first and flew to him, putting her arms around him and squeezing. Then she jumped as though she’d been electrocuted and backed away. “Um, sorry, sir, it’s just that, well…” Emotion then got the better of her and she ran off in the direction of the Ladies toilets.

  Crane looked at Ciaran horrified.

  “Fancy a cuppa, guv?”

  Crane nodded his thanks and ducked inside Anderson’s office.

  “Got a minute?” he asked.

  “Of course I have, you wally,” said Anderson, coming over to shake Crane’s hand. “How are you doing?”

  Crane answered as best he could, but kept clear of the efforts of Mrs Strange. The last thing he wanted was another row. Ciaran walked in with the coffees and Crane and Anderson busied themselves with a small cake from Derek’s bottom drawer.

  After slurping the coffee to rid his mouth of the remnants of his cake, Derek asked, “So, what can I do for you? Are you coming back to work?”

  Crane shook his head. “No. Human Resources say I’ve got to start bereavement counselling first.”

  “Therapy? You? I’d like to be a fly on the wall during one of those sessions!”

  “Actually, you’d be very bored. My contribution will amount to very little. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard but we found another case…”

  Crane finished his story with his request for a search warrant.

  “Crane, I don’t know what to say. I don’t see how I can help you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because what you’re doing is not a legitimate enquiry.”

  “Then make it one.” The solution seemed pretty clear to Crane.

  “I can’t. Grimes was adamant. No police involvement.”

  “So you’re just going to leave it, are you? Where’s your humanity? People are dying, for God’s sake! How many more are going to die before you do something? Well fuck you, if you won’t’ do something, then I will.” Crane slammed his mug down on the table and stood up.

  Stalking out of Derek’s office he slammed the door behind him, hard enough for the partitioning to shake and loud enough for everyone to look in his direction. Neither action really made him feel any better, but he was just so frustrated. He needed to catch this lunatic before any more people died unnecessarily. Why was he the only one that could see that?

  21

  Derek winced at the damage done to his office door and wall as Crane made his dramatic exit. He ran his hands through his uncontrollable grey hair and wondered what on earth he could do to help. It was so awful seeing Crane in such pain. Derek and Jean missed Tina, of course they did, but their grief wasn’t the same as his friend’s was. To lose a wife like that, in those circumstances and at such a young age… no wonder Crane was crashing about in the throes of his grief. A Court Order for a personnel list to help an unofficial investigation – whatever was he thinking.

  Then the word ‘personnel’ suddenly made Derek wonder. Personnel. Winchester. Computer hackers. Who in that area would be able to achieve something like that?

  Standing, he strode the two steps to his door. Opening it, he yelled, “Holly!” and then returned to his chair.

  “Yes, boss?” she poked her head around Anderson’s door.

  “Come in and talk to me for a minute, would you?”

  “Why? Are you lonely?” she joked.

  Smiling, he said, “No, I need to know about computer hackers.”

  That seemed to get Holly’s interest and she walked through the door and turning around a chair from the conference table, sat in front of Derek’s desk.

  “So, where do you want to start?”

  “To be honest I’ve no idea and I’m not even sure I’ll know what you are talking about, but can you try and explain to me how you go about something like that?”

  Holly pushed her black rimmed glasses back up her nose. “In layman’s terms there are ten steps to hacking into a system.”

  “Go and list them on the whiteboard would you? That would help me.”

  “Sure.”

  As Holly started scribbling, he took in her cargo-pants and muddy-coloured tee shirt. She wore no make-up and her hair with two streaks of purple tint at the front, was tied back in two plaits. He knew some people thought her standoffish, but he knew that it was only because she had difficulty relating to people. Her work consumed her and she couldn’t understand people who didn’t have the same level of dedication that she did.

  Finally, she stood back from the board, revealing her jottings.

  “Right, here are my top ten tips for hacking. Not that I would condone such an activity,” she said, grinning.

  “Of course not,” Anderson said with the same mock seriousness. “Right, off you go then,” and he settled in his chair to hear her explanation.

  “I’ve tried to make it as simple as I can, so here goes…

  1.It can only be done by someone who has in depth knowledge of several programming languages.

  2.Know your target – you need to gather as much information about it as you can.

  3.Use a ‘nix’ terminal to generate the commands.

  4.Then you ‘test’ the target.

  5.You need to determine the operating system of your target.

  6.Then find a path or open port into the system.

  7.Crack the password or authentication process.

  8.Once in, get ‘super user’ privileges.

  9.Create a ‘back door’ so you can get back in again.

  10.Cover your tracks as you leave.

  That just about sums it up,” she finished.

  “So you’ve got to be a bit of a clever bastard to do it?” Anderson, to be honest, still hadn’t much of a grasp on
what it took to hack into a computer system. Nevertheless, he now had a grudging respect for anyone who could.

  “Afraid so, guv,” agreed Holly.

  “That means it’s quite a small pool of people who could hack into the 999 system.”

  “Not as small as you’d think,” said Holly. “Remember, you don’t need to be near to your target. It could be on the other side of the world from you.”

  “Okay,” Anderson nodded. “In that case, why would someone want to hack into the Centre at Winchester?” he mused aloud. This was his area of expertise, he realised, trying to out-think the criminals. Then he had it. “You know I think this is personal.”

  “Personal?”

  “Yes. It’s not like someone wanting to hack into the NSA, or the Pentagon; a faceless organisation on the other side of the Atlantic.”

  “I guess not.” Holly moved her head from side to side, as she weighed up his suggestion.

  “So, maybe our hacker has had what he or she perceives to be a bad deal at the hands of the 999 services, or the NHS. In that case he or she could be closer than we think.”

  Anderson paused, considering his options. He could take his theory to Grimes. He could take it to Crane. Alternatively, there was a third option. Tell no one.

  Coming to a decision, he turned back to Holly and said, “Do a search for anyone we know of that has been involved in computer crime in the Winchester area. No, scrub that. Anyone in the South of England and we can try and narrow it down from there.”

  “Will do, Gov,” Holly stood to leave.

  “Oh, and don’t tell anyone you’re doing this. Understand?”

  Holly grinned, “Understood, guv.”

  22

  Crane was in the greasy spoon café in North Camp. Memories assailed him. The old team meeting there for breakfast after a hard night on surveillance. Sgt Billy Williams, his second in command, Kim his office manager, Dudley-Jones who was with them while he was helping with the Team GB terrorist problem and Sgt Jones who had run the Military Police on the Garrison. They were all scattered to the wind now. Billy was in charge, taking Crane’s role. There was a new Officer Commanding whose name Crane didn’t know. Sgt Jones had retired and Kim had left the forces to marry Padre Symmonds. Good times, even if they were investigating horrible crimes, Crane thought.