Binary Witness (The Amy Lane Mysteries)

by Rosie Claverton

  come @ 9. things 2 do. u need strongr passwrd. @

  No prizes for guessing who that was from, but how did she get his number? Maybe the cleaning company gave it to her? Then again, with the cryptic comment about his password—which was perfectly acceptable, had numbers and everything—she might just have lifted the number off his email or something.

  As he tried to get comfortable in his narrow single bed, Jason closed his eyes and pushed away thoughts of gangs, of prison, his haunted past. There were two dead students. And questions his mind was desperate to answer.

  * * *

  This time, Jason didn’t even ring the buzzer before the door opened and he was admitted to the elevator and the flat beyond. “Amy?” he called, shrugging his holdall off his shoulder with a wince.

  She surprised him by appearing in the corridor and pushing the bag back onto the shoulder. Jason yelped. “I need the tape from Whitchurch police station. I’ve exhausted my leads.”

  Jason looked her over, taking in the slightly manic gaze and dishevelled hair, from where she’d clearly been repeatedly running her fingers through it. Quite possibly all night, from the tremor in her hand and the bruise-deep shadows beneath her eyes. “Have you slept at all? Or had anything to eat?”

  Amy waved her hand impatiently. “The laptops have nothing on first sweep but they didn’t have a firewall between them, so there may be a Trojan lurking under a filepath somewhere. God only knows what they were thinking, letting their tech get into that filthy state.”

  She walked back into the living room, muttering to herself, and Jason followed nervously. Three different days, three different Amys. He didn’t know which way was up with this girl. But he couldn’t deny that she was intriguing, that his life was getting interesting in the good way since she’d been around. “Whose laptops? What are you...?”

  He trailed off as he realised two laptops were plugged into her computer terminal, raw data scrolling across both screens. One was pearlescent pink and looked brand new, while the other was covered in stickers of every stripe, bands and logos and smiling kittens, with a series of letters along the top that spelled out Melody. “These are Kate and Melody’s laptops. How did you get these?”

  “Bryn fetched them for me, but he can’t bring the tape until tomorrow and I need it now. How else am I meant to work this out? There’s nothing else to find. There’s nothing about them that’s interesting or death-worthy. Why are they dead? Who wanted to kill them? None of it makes any sense and I need more data!”

  She tugged at her hair again, a clump of it coming away in her hand, and Jason automatically reached to stop her. She jumped away from him, suddenly meeting his gaze with wide, frightened eyes. Jason stepped back, holding up his hands in surrender. Her eyes darted away, back to her scrolling streams of letters and numbers. “It’s always better without the interface. It just gets in the way of the problems and the answers. The data. The clone is never as good as the original, but Bryn needs evidence like I need code.”

  He hadn’t heard her talk this much since they’d met, and she was probably running on adrenaline and caffeine, about to crash and burn like a meteor. “I’ll find something to eat,” he said and headed to the kitchen. He was greeted with several plates covered in half-eaten pieces of toast, as if she’d made herself some and then got distracted mid-bite. “Do you have any bread left?” He rummaged through the cupboards, finding half a packet of biscuits from his last visit.

  “I forgot to order the shopping,” Amy said, standing in the kitchen doorway and tilting her head to one side. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologise to me.” Jason thrust the biscuits in her direction before kneeling down to unload the dishwasher. He needed to at least start the cleaning process before he darted across town to fetch her tape. He added “errand boy” to the list of jobs he did for Amy that were nothing to do with cleaning, and considered that Amy might actually think he was her personal assistant. “So, what have you found out?”

  Amy’s face lit up and she started waving her hands like a child at the circus. Her hazel eyes were animated, her face expressive. She was captivating, like this. Jason felt he could watch her all day. “Melody was studying English Literature and Kate studied Ancient History, Melody in third year and Kate in second year. A lot of casual contact online, but I can’t identify anyone significant. The phones are both missing but the GPS is dead, useless. Kate’s battery’s dead by now, but why can’t we find Melody? Maybe he buried her already or threw her in the river.”

  At mention of the Taff, the conversation with Dan and Pete came back to him and he held up his hand. “Kate did have someone—guy called Pete. They worked together, had an on-off thing.” The look Amy gave him was incredulous and pitying and Jason was immediately riled. Nobody looked at him like that, not even those little shits from the night before.

  “I told you—she didn’t have anyone. There were a couple of Petes, but not particularly high traffic or quality interaction. I looked through all her social networks.”

  “Well, maybe they wanted to keep it a secret. Or maybe he’s just not into Facebook. He didn’t look like a Facebook kinda guy.”

  Amy rounded on him and Jason was unable to read the expression on her face, apart from guessing it was somewhere between fury and fear. “You went looking for one of the suspects in a murder investigation? Why would you do something like that?”

  Jason held up a hand, surprised at her vehemence. “I didn’t go looking for no one! I did a job at the club where Kate worked. I got talking to the guys there. Pete was pretty cut up about her death, and one of his mates told me they had a thing for a bit. That’s it. Jesus, woman, no need to go mental over it.”

  Amy seized his wrist and dragged him into the living room, pulling up Kate’s Facebook profile and searching her friends. Two guys called Pete appeared on screen, one retching into a bucket and the other dressed as a Ninja turtle. “Which one is he?” she said urgently, pointing at the screen and shaking his arm.

  Jason reclaimed his arm, massaging his stinging wrist, and squinting at the screen. “Neither. He’s got a beard and he’s older than these guys. Told you—not a Facebook guy.”

  Amy flopped into her chair. “I need that phone. He could be the key to this and he’s out of reach!”

  “Why don’t you go talk to him? He’s not hard to find.”

  The reaction was instantaneous. Amy’s body stiffened, her eyes fixed and staring. “No. I...no.” Amy put a hand to her temple, as if struggling to concentrate.

  “Come on—I’ll come with you. He’s a big guy, but he’s not scary or nothing.” Jason leaned down to try to catch her eye, but Amy leapt to her feet, her breath coming hard and fast. Little puffs of air escaped her lips with barely a second between each gasped exhale and desperate inhale. Jason twisted to follow her motion as she darted around the living room, muttering under her breath and pressing the heel of hand into the centre of her chest.

  After a few moments, Jason stepped into her path and grabbed her shoulders. “Amy, stop! What’s going on?”

  She shuddered to a stop and took a decent breath. Then another. She seemed to calm, the tension leaving her body and the high colour in her cheeks fading, but the unnatural energy about her had dissipated. Jason guided her over to the sofa, afraid that her legs were about to give out.

  She sat heavily, still struggling to bring her breathing under control. Jason started looking round for an inhaler, but her fingers snagged his sleeve and he was essentially tethered to the couch. He sat beside her and her breathing eased, as if him looming over her had been adding to her stress.

  “What was that about?” he said after a moment and she shook her head, unable to look at him but also unable to let go of his sleeve. It should’ve been weird, but everything about Amy was weird and Jason left his favourite Adidas hoodie in her possession.

  “
Nothing,” Amy said, in a strange quiet voice. “Don’t...don’t go to the police station. It can wait for tomorrow. I don’t need it today.”

  “It’s no problem for me to go.” But her grip tightened on his sleeve and he backtracked hurriedly. “But you’re right. Can probably wait, eh? I’ll just...clean up here, all right?”

  “Right,” she said and slowly released his sleeve. With an awkward pat to her shoulder, Jason got to his feet and went to make them both a cup of tea. He had no idea what that was but knew he didn’t want to see it again. It was as if she’d had some kind of attack and lost control of her body and mind. Maybe it was some kind of seizure?

  Stirring the sweeteners into their tea, Jason struggled to put it all together. Amy wasn’t like his other clients. Of course, the little old ladies loved to chat but he had the feeling that they didn’t need him quite as much as Amy did. Her flat was a disaster, but it went deeper than that. She needed someone to hold her life together—she didn’t seem to be able to fend for herself at all.

  Amy was more of a mystery than a serial killer in Cardiff town.

  Chapter Eleven: A Night in Pictures

  “So, what’s next?” Jason said, gulping down his scalding tea without flinching. Amy shrugged, staring at the surface of her tea as if she could divine the answers to the murders in the murky brown liquid.

  “I need more information. I need to manually trawl their email and browsing histories if the automatic searches fail.”

  “I could go back to the club,” Jason offered. “See what I can stir up. And there’s always uni—someone might know something about what happened before they died.”

  Amy carried on as if she hadn’t even heard him. “We need to establish a timeline. We know Kate was at home, but only because of the photograph. And what about Melody? What was she doing right before she died and at what point did she go missing?”

  “The news reports say she was on a night out.” Jason stood and headed for Amy’s odd corridor mailbox. How did mail even get up to the first floor? He couldn’t see Amy going downstairs to fetch it just to dump it in a metal crate in the hallway.

  Jason fished out the paper and opened it to page three, where there was a comparison of the two dead girls. He knew today’s Echo had a summary of the cases, because his mam had been tutting over it at breakfast between sending him baleful glances and asking him about his ribs. “They say she was wearing a blue dress. Her friends said she left them about midnight to get a cab home. No one saw her after that.”

  Amy threw up her hands, tea slopping over the side of her mug. “But someone must’ve seen her! CCTV must’ve got her—the city centre’s covered in cameras. They can’t find her?” She muttered about “amateurs” and headed over to her computer, her tea dregs clutched to her chest.

  “They’re still reviewing the footage, but they can’t even find her leaving the club. It was raining pretty hard, so the pictures are crap.” If Jason repeated what the BBC said, he might sound like he knew what he was talking about. But Amy didn’t appear to be paying any attention and was instead flicking through a set of photographs. Jason went to lean over her shoulder and realised she was looking through a Facebook album.

  Facebook, from his limited experience of it, was a gossip market. Photographs of nights out, bitching on people’s Walls, and suddenly everyone knew exactly who was sleeping with which sister and which one gave the best head. Jason had fallen foul of the Facebook rumour mill a couple of times, but knew that he might not have much to be self-righteous about. He hadn’t known she was a mate’s cousin when he had her up against the wall in that club. Made him more careful where he put it about—and who was watching.

  Suddenly, there was Melody, sporting a powder blue dress and a wide smile. Jason shivered—it was weird to see the girl looking out at him like that, unaware that she’d be dead in just a few hours’ time.

  “Her friend uploaded them yesterday. Looks chronological, which is a bonus. Saves me having to locate the timestamp after Facebook’s mangled it.” Amy sat back in her chair, with an expectant smile. “Tell me what you see.”

  Jason leaned forward and looked at the photograph. Three girls, hanging off each other, pissed but happy with it. Melody in the middle, skinny, dark blond hair, blue dress. The other two were brunettes, one plump and wearing purple, while the other clutched an empty shot glass and was decked out in red. They were having a good time. “Three girls on a night out. A good night out.”

  Amy gestured impatiently at the screen. “Look at Melody. What do you see?”

  Jason gritted his teeth and looked again. Her hair was a bit stringy, as if she’d slicked it with hair gel, and her dress was darker at the top around the neck. She was listing to one side, a sure sign she’d had one too many. He’d bet she was wearing stilettos—she looked like that kind of girl. “She looks tipsy. And her hair’s wet.”

  Amy clicked her fingers. “Her hair’s wet! And why’s that?”

  Jason hesitated, struggling to put together the pieces. “Because...it was raining?”

  “Why isn’t her dress wet?” Amy pointed at the dress with a well-chewed pen. “It can’t have dried much quicker than her hair, but it’s not even damp. Except—”

  “—at the top!” Jason reached out to touch her neckline, where it was now obvious that the darker patch of the dress formed a perfect V. “She was wearing something over the dress. That’s why no one can bloody find her—they’re looking for a girl in a blue dress, but she left in a coat.”

  “A gold star for you,” Amy said with a small smile. “But get your hands off my monitor.”

  * * *

  As Jason set to work on the living room, Amy raided the internet. She tried to explain to him what she was doing, but while he had many good points, living a digital life wasn’t one of them. “Basically,” she said, for the third time, “I’m seeing which people from Cardiff have uploaded photos to Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr or Flickr in the past week and whether any of them are from Friday night, particularly this club. Some people tag, but most don’t, so a lot of it’s manual. But there’s a stag party dressed as crayons that I’m tracking, so I think I’m close.”

  “Stag crayons?” Jason said blankly, and Amy pointed to the ludicrous six-foot men in clashing colours with pointy hats. Jason nodded as if in understanding and Amy released him to do the housework while she ran her search, with the odd procrastinating Google to verify the accuracy of the branding on the crayon costumes and how to create wax-effect makeup. It might come in useful.

  “Did you know that your carpet’s green?” Jason said, once he’d turned off the vacuum. “And you have a nice fireplace behind this box mountain.”

  “That’s nice.” Amy was wading through a set of pictures where not one of the subjects was in focus. Tedious, and headache-inducing.

  “It might still work. My mate’s a sweep Bridgend-way. Maybe he could clean it out for you?”

  “Decades-old soot raining down on AEON? A fire beside my delicate systems? I think it’s best left alone. Well alone.”

  “Ewan?” Jason asked and Amy stroked the side of her monitor.

  “AEON. My first assistant.” She patted her keyboard. “I’ve been evolving her for over ten years. I made my first hack with her running Windows 98.”

  She sensed that Jason was rolling his eyes, but chose to ignore him. He could never hope to understand the bond between a girl and her computer. Particularly this girl and this computer, the dynamic duo who could visit every corner of the earth together and plot Amy and Lizzie’s daring escape to a better life.

  The pictures started blurring together after a couple of hours, her eyes aching from a night of data harvesting, but the steady stream of mugs that appeared at her elbow revived her. Every now and then, she’d glance over at Jason, watching him take out the wine bottles and old newspapers, diligently filli
ng her accumulated green recycling bags.

  And when she turned back, there it was. The moment of Eureka.

  “I’ve got it!” Amy stood up and faced him, her cheeks aching with the force of her grin.

  Jason rushed to the monitor and stared at the picture, a camera-above-the-head dance-floor shot, fifty or so bodies caught mid-dance. “What am I meant to be looking at?” he asked.

  Amy pointed at the top right-hand corner, by the entrance to the stairwell. Jason squinted and grinned. “That’s a girl in a black coat.”

  “That’s Melody Frank. Ponytail, black coat. Looks like a different woman. She’ll be on all the cameras now.”

  Jason clapped Amy on the shoulder. “You’re brilliant.”

  Amy felt her cheeks heat, as Jason’s eyes softened. It was different from Bryn’s praise, rare and gruff. This was affectionate, natural. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. But she found she wasn’t afraid now, that she didn’t flinch from his hand on her shoulder. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt free from fear.

  Jason removed his hand. “I’ve gotta be off. I’ll be here at nine tomorrow, yeah?”

  And like that, the moment fled. “You’re going?”

  “I have a job in Canton. You should get some kip before you crash.”

  She felt her head nod but the warmth did not return, and it was with a strange sense of emptiness that she watched him pack up his things and leave.

  Chapter Twelve: Somebody Told Me

  The best way to interview nightclub staff was to turn up as they were opening, flash the badge at the bouncer and loudly declare that you wanted to see the manager. Bryn found that guaranteed him a cosy back room and time with every staff member he wanted. Jean Moore, manager of Koalas and proud Australian ex-pat, wanted him the hell out of her club—preferably before it got too busy for her to spare even one staff member for his interrogation. Suddenly, with the boss on their back, the staff became delightfully willing to speak with him, knowing it got them in Jean’s good books—and out from under her watchful eye for ten minutes.