by Damien Boyd
‘D’you want your computer used as an exit relay?’
‘What’s that when it’s at home?’ he asked.
‘Traffic goes into the onion network, bounces around various computers and then out again to the site you want to visit. That last computer is the exit relay. We can trace that one if we’ve got the site you visited.’
‘So, other people will be visiting sites via my computer?’
‘Yes. Once you join the network you’re using other people’s computers and they’re using yours.’
‘No bloody fear.’
‘I thought not.’
‘How many people are doing this then?’
‘Millions are accessing the deep web every day without really realising it. Not so many use the dark net, but enough . . . Too many.’
‘Can you uninstall it when we’ve got what we need?’
Jane smiled. ‘Here we go.’ She read aloud, ‘Congratulations. This browser is configured to use TOR.’
‘What now?’
‘Give me that URL again.’
Jane tapped 2hr9458nv032ye23 into the address bar as Dixon read it to her from his phone. Then she added ‘.onion’ on the end and hit ‘enter’. ‘It can be slow because you’re being routed through the other computers.’
‘This slow?’
‘It’s not unusual. It’d be faster in the big cities where there are more computers in the network.’
‘Another advantage of living in the country,’ muttered Dixon.
‘Here we go,’ said Jane. ‘It’s a forum. PhpBB. It’s a free download, probably hosted on a virtual server, with the traffic routed through TOR.’
‘You’re showing off now, aren’t you?’
Jane grinned.
‘You’d have thought they’d hide it behind a login screen, at least, wouldn’t you?’ asked Dixon.
‘They probably think there’s no need. And there isn’t, really. After all, who’s going to find it?’
‘You mean apart from us?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Look, look.’ Dixon jabbed his finger at the bottom of the screen. ‘In total there is one user online.’
‘That’s us. One guest, based on active users over the past five minutes.’
‘They’ll know we’ve been on the site though?’
‘From the server logs,’ replied Jane.
‘The statistics are interesting,’ said Dixon. ‘Total posts 176; total topics 1; total members 3; our newest member: DeniseM. It doesn’t say when she joined.’
‘It’ll be in her Member Profile, and it should tell you next to her posts as well,’ replied Jane. ‘Most users ever online was three on Thursday, March 22, 2.05 a.m. That’s all of them.’
‘And it’s the night before she travelled down.’ Dixon shook his head. ‘And look at the last post. The early hours of this morning, by Siegfried.’
‘Isn’t he a character from Wagner?’
‘He’s also a character from All Creatures Great and Small.’
‘About the vets?’
‘That’s it. Let’s have a look then.’
Jane clicked on ‘Your First Forum’ to reveal the topic ‘Shit Happens’, started by author Tristan. She looked at Dixon. ‘All Creatures Great and Small?’
‘Siegfried’s brother.’
‘What d’you want to do now?’
‘Read it. Can you copy it first? Get a screenshot of every page?’
‘I can download something that will copy the whole site.’
‘Will it take long?’
‘Shouldn’t do.’ Jane was scrolling down the forum thread. ‘It’s not a big site, and there aren’t any photo . . . oh shit.’ She turned the laptop towards Dixon. ‘There are photographs.’
‘That’s Harry.’ Dixon gritted his teeth. ‘Before and after.’ The look on Harry’s face, the fear in his eyes, had haunted him since that morning in the mud. But this was different. Worse. Harry was fully conscious, his eyes wider, full of tears and focused on something behind the camera. The trephine, probably.
‘There’s another.’ Jane scrolled down to reveal a photograph of a man lying in a shallow grave in the sand, his hands reaching out towards the cameraman. His head was tipped to the left, the trickle of blood dripping off the front of his temple on to the sand beneath him.
‘David Cobb.’
‘Still alive by the looks of things.’
‘I’ve seen enough.’ Dixon stood up. ‘What can I do?’
‘Make another coffee?’
‘This is pretty grim stuff.’ Jane grimaced as Dixon leaned over the back of the sofa a few minutes later and handed her a mug. ‘It looks like Siegfried is The Vet and Tristan the copycat, reading between the lines.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘This bit: “I did what I did and got away with it. I got lucky. But things are different now. There’s DNA and no one on the payroll.”’
‘Do they know each other then?’ Dixon was standing behind Jane, peering over her shoulder.
‘Definitely. You need to read this.’
‘How much longer to copy it?’
‘Not long,’ replied Jane. ‘It reads like Tristan is taunting Siegfried. He tells him what he’s going to do and when. Then posts him photographs of it.’
‘The modern day equivalent of The Vet’s Polaroids.’ Dixon sighed. ‘Scroll down to the bottom of the thread.’
Dixon was standing in front of her now, with his back to the television, watching her eyes darting from side to side as she read the forum posts. She looked up.
‘There’s going to be another murder.’
‘When?’
‘Today.’ Jane’s eyes widened. ‘You get a mention.’
‘Read it out.’
‘“That wanker from the furniture factory is next. They need to know who they’re fucking dealing with. They need to be taught a lesson.” Then the next post is from Siegfried.’
‘When?’
‘Early hours of this morning. “Just leave it, will you? Denise is dead and they’ve found him. Dixon is getting too close, and we really don’t need this. Just calm down. You need to get out. Spain or somewhere. Have you got money?”’
Jane went silent, her eyes still darting from side to side.
‘Read it out,’ snapped Dixon.
‘“Too late. I’ve got him.”’ Jane looked up. ‘It’s timed just after six this evening: “Going to cremate this fucker in his own bloody factory. The furniture should do it” – then there’s a smiley face – “What say you?” That’s the last post. There’s no reply from Siegfried.’
‘Call it in,’ said Dixon, putting on his coat. ‘And finish copying that website.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Bailey and Whyte on the Walrow Industrial Estate. It’s the only furniture factory I can think of.’
‘Didn’t they go bust?’
‘They went into administration, but they’re trying to sell it. The Administrator took the contract away from Horan and gave it to Harry Lucas. Big one too, I shouldn’t wonder.’ Dixon checked his phone and snatched his car keys off the side.
Jane had dialled 999 and was holding her phone to her ear. ‘Police, please.’ She looked over her shoulder towards the kitchen. ‘Be careful,’ she shouted, but the back door had already slammed shut.
Dixon accelerated hard along Brent Street, heading south towards the A38, his phone clamped to his ear.
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Where are you, Jonny?’
‘The chippie in Highbridge. I just stopped on my way home.’
‘The code is a website address on the dark net. Horan’s been posting photos of his murders online. He’s in the Bailey and Whyte factory now with another victim.’
‘I’m on my way.’
‘Don’t go in until I get there.’
Sexton had already rung off. Dixon dropped his phone on to the passenger seat as he turned across the central reservation and out on to the southbo
und A38. The car behind him braked sharply and flashed his lights. If he was hooting his horn too, Dixon couldn’t hear it over the roar of his old diesel engine.
He allowed his speed to drop as he approached the motorway roundabout and then accelerated hard on the long straight towards the roundabout at the entrance to the industrial estate. Bailey and Whyte was on the far side, its huge units backing on to the River Brue.
He flicked his headlights to full beam as he raced along the quiet service road, all of the offices and warehouses on either side quiet and dark. An industrial estate at night was a grim place, but there would be few pedestrians to worry about, maybe just the odd boy racer burning rubber in a souped up Ford Fiesta. Dixon winced. Knowing his luck, he’d get pulled over himself.
He left tyre tracks in the soft grass verge of yet another roundabout and sped along Commerce Way. The large factory loomed out of the darkness ahead, the entrance lit by streetlights and the roof by his headlights. He screeched to a halt in front of the large steel gates at the entrance, jumped out of his Land Rover and looked in the window of Sexton’s BMW.
‘Oh shit.’
‘He said he was going in. Told me to wait here.’
Dixon spun round to see a small man in a blue raincoat holding a spaniel on a lead.
‘We walk along the Brue.’
‘Is there another way in?’
‘At the far end of the complex,’ replied the man. ‘There’s a side gate just there. That’s where the young man went, through there and in that door.’ He was pointing to a small door at the side of two huge steel doors, large enough for a lorry to back into the warehouse.
‘Wait here.’ Dixon opened the side gate and began walking across the car park, breaking into a run as he neared the open door.
A single gunshot was amplified by the steel fabricated units, the echo tinny but recognisable all the same.
Dixon sprinted back to his Land Rover.
‘Have you got a phone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Dial 999 and tell them where you are; tell them you heard a gunshot.’
The man started fumbling in his pocket.
‘Then get clear,’ continued Dixon, climbing into his Land Rover. He started the engine, put on his seatbelt and then reversed along Commerce Way. Fifty yards should do it. The gates would be no match for a Land Rover.
He slipped it into first gear and stamped on the accelerator, crashing into the gates at almost thirty miles an hour. The chain snapped and the gates dropped off their hinges, crashing to the ground. Into second gear now, foot down hard on the accelerator, Dixon aimed at the middle of the large steel doors, his Land Rover smashing into them and punching a hole clean through.
Once inside the loading bay, Dixon swerved sharply to avoid a body lying on the concrete floor, hitting another man a glancing blow with the front wing of the Land Rover. The man fell down the side of the Land Rover as the front crashed into a stack of chairs, which fell across the bonnet and roof.
Dixon jumped out and ran over to the body lying on the ground, bending down and picking up a handgun as he did so. He rolled the body over. Jonny Sexton had a single bullet hole in the middle of his forehead, his body limp and lying in a puddle of his own blood.
It was then that Dixon spotted the second victim, slumped forwards with his hands tied behind him, a small pool of blood seeping into the concrete floor at his feet. The hole in his forehead had not been made by a bullet. More blood was pouring down his neck, turning his white shirt red to match the tie under his grey suit.
Footsteps behind him. Dixon spun round – too late.
‘You see? And I’ll have my gun back if you don’t—’
The last word of the sentence was drowned out by a loud crack on the back of Dixon’s skull, just behind his right ear. He saw nothing except perhaps a swinging arm. He couldn’t tell, his vision blurred for a reason his mind was too slow to comprehend. A sharp pain hit him, but not in his head, in his ear. He tried to reach up.
‘He’s broken my fucking wrist!’ A second voice behind him.
The word ‘wrist’ made it through the fog, but what came after that was muffled by another crack. No pain from this one though, only darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jane leaned back, allowing the water to wash the shampoo from her hair. Funny how things turn out. She always thought someone would be worrying about her when she went out to work, not the other way around.
Was that a knock at the door? She couldn’t tell over the noise of the running water and Monty barking. It was either the door or something on the TV had set him off. Or perhaps he was sitting on the window ledge again and someone had walked past the cottage with a dog. She waited. More barking, a pause – Monty must have stopped to draw breath – then a knock and yet more barking.
She turned off the shower, thanking her lucky stars whoever it was hadn’t knocked five minutes earlier, and reached for Dixon’s bathrobe. Jehovah’s Witnesses? An Avon lady? Dixon said he had left that catalogue out on the doorstep.
There’s not another bloody election going on, is there?
Monty was standing at the front door, his paws up on the wire cage Dixon had fitted to catch the post, a figure visible through the frosted glass pane.
Jane opened the door. She noticed the tears streaming down Louise’s face first, even before she realised who it was standing there in front of her.
‘What’s going on?’
‘You’d better come.’ Louise’s car was behind her out in the road, the engine still running.
Jane braced herself for something bad. Something very bad. ‘Tell me.’
‘There’s a fire.’
‘Where?’
‘Bailey and Whyte, the furniture place in Highbridge.’
‘That’s where Nick went.’
‘Jonny Sexton went in. There was a gunshot and Nick went in after him.’
‘What about the fire brigade?’
‘It’s too intense. The furniture’s burning.’
‘They haven’t gone in?’ Screaming now.
Louise shook her head. ‘They can’t.’
Jane turned and dashed up the stairs, reappearing less than a minute later in jeans and a pullover, her wet hair straggling behind her. She stamped her bare feet into a pair of trainers on the landing and ran down the stairs, ignoring the laces trailing in her wake. A coat, snatched off the back of the kitchen door. Phone. Door keys.
‘Right, let’s go.’
Once in the car she tied her shoelaces and then checked the time as Louise raced out towards the A38, following the exact same route Dixon would have taken less than an hour earlier. She should have gone with him. There’s no way she’d have let him go into that factory. Not alone. And a gunshot?
‘Who said there was a gun?’
‘There was a dog walker there who heard it.’
Armed Response! You call for Armed Response for fuck’s sake!
They crossed the motorway roundabout without slowing down, the child’s booster seat in the back of Louise’s car sliding across and slamming into one of the doors, the sky ahead lit up bright orange.
‘That’s not . . .’ Jane’s voice tailed off.
‘It’s full of furniture,’ replied Louise. ‘I heard one of the fire officers say it would burn for days.’
‘Days?’ Jane glanced along Burnham Moor Lane off to her left. A small crowd was gathered on the motorway bridge watching the flames in the distance.
‘It gets worse as you get nearer,’ muttered Louise, ‘although we’ve got the whole of Walrow sealed off now.’
‘Anyone would think it was bloody Bonfire Night.’
Louise stopped at the police cordon at the entrance to the Walrow Industrial Estate and spoke to PC Cole. He ducked down and glanced across at Jane sitting in the passenger seat, then waved them through.
They raced past a Sky News van, which was first on the scene, but it wouldn’t be long before the other outside broadcast news crews
arrived. The white belly of a helicopter hovering overhead glowed orange.
Jane wasn’t counting, but there must have been at least six ambulances parked along Commerce Way. Then came the fire engines, lines of them parked on either side. Another large crowd was gathered on the railway bridge off to the right, watching the flames climbing into the sky.
‘We won’t get much further,’ said Louise. She slowed a hundred yards from the entrance to the factory, turned right and parked on the forecourt of South West Tyres.
Jane looked up at the factory. A line of conifers obscured all but the flames towering above them and four fire fighters on long ladders directing hoses on to the roof. She watched them disappear behind clouds of acrid black smoke, before appearing again as the smoke was carried away on the wind.
‘There’s Lewis.’ Louise climbed out of her car, went round to the passenger side and opened the door.
Jane sat motionless, watching the flames, not even noticing Lewis striding across to the car with the Chief Fire Officer in tow, the white helmet the sign of his senior rank.
Lewis squatted down beside the car and looked up at Jane. ‘There are twelve fire appliances here already and more on the way.’ He glanced up at the CFO and nodded.
‘I’m John Stewart, Fire OIC. We’re doing everything we can. The Environment Agency are keeping the sluice gates shut so we can pump water from the River Brue, and we’re trying to contain it at this end of the factory so we can go in.’
‘Is he still in there?’ Jane turned her head slowly, revealing the tears cascading down her cheeks.
Lewis nodded.
‘I want to see,’ said Jane, taking off her seatbelt.
‘That’ll be up to Fire OIC,’ replied Lewis.
‘I can show you where he went in,’ said Stewart. ‘But I can’t let you get too close. It could collapse at any time.’
Jane stood up, feeling the full blast of the heat for the first time, over a hundred yards away and yet scorching, the roar and crackle of the flames drowning out the helicopter hovering overhead.
Louise put her arm around Jane and walked with her, Lewis just in front, more to be on hand to stop her if she tried anything stupid. Jane knew that.
They got no further than the entrance gates, knocked off their hinges by Dixon’s Land Rover now over an hour ago. A ring of fire engines circled the end units, two of them with long ladders pouring water from above.
