I Dare You: A gripping thriller that will keep you guessing (A Kate Blakemore Crime Thriller Book 1)

by Murray Bailey

  Voices. Two people, a man and a woman, rang the doorbell of number eight. Amir was pleased with himself for including a microphone in the doorbell. The sound wasn’t ideal, but he could make out what they said. The girl cursed as she hurried to the front door. The man introduced himself. They were cops. Amir took notes as the cops asked the girl questions. She was tense and flustered, which suited his plans. The man and woman almost played the roles of good cop, bad cop, but it was subtle and they learned little. The girl handed them a photograph. So that is what she received from the Czech Republic: a photograph of someone called Boomer. Now it made sense.

  She got more anxious and asked them to leave. Amir checked his watch. Almost 2pm. So he had been right, she was waiting for a specific time. Runtime. She needed to get rid of the cops and onto the computer.

  When the girl showed them out, the police hadn’t immediately left. For a short time they continued to stand near the front door, although it sounded like they may have taken a step back to look up at the apartment.

  “What do you think?” the man asked.

  “She’s lying.”

  “I don’t think she knew Sarah had disappeared. That seemed genuine. She probably has just been trying to make contact because of the ex-husband’s death.”

  “I think you’re right, but she lied about the photo. She knows who this Boomer character is. Why was she so agitated? She said she had something to do. Do you think it’s related?”

  The man paused as though considering. “It’s related.”

  “We should bring her in—formally.”

  “Not yet. We are just looking into a missing woman in the Czech Republic. All right, this Peter Sikorski, her ex, has been murdered but we don’t know that’s linked.” He said something else, but the cops were moving away and it became too faint for Amir to hear what they were saying.

  Almost instantaneously the cursor on the laptop began tomove across the password box. She typed,I dare you. She didn’t click Enter, but the arrow hovered over the button. When the clock changed to 2:01 she clicked. Nothing happened for the girl, but on Amir’s computer a text file opened. He flipped control back to his machine to see the file.

  When he had finished reading, he picked up his phone.

  Hamasalih answered on the first ring. “Speak,” he said.

  “I have the evidence that we have the right man.”

  “Good. Now find him. You know where he is?”

  “No, but I have a plan.”

  Amir ended the call, turned off the phone and switched control back to the girl’s PC. She wasn’t there; he could hear sobbing and it disgusted him. Western women were so weak. If she could cry at the loss of the disk, what state would she be in when he killed her fat effeminate friend?

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The next afternoon, Andrew called. “It’s going really well,” he said. “They’ve invited me to stay for the weekend.”

  “Sounds very promising,” Kate responded, but her voice was flat and she immediately regretted not sounding more enthusiastic for him. “No really, that’s good news.”

  “You sound despondent. What did the document tell you? I thought you’d be happier now.”

  She told him what had happened, that she’d lost the data card.

  “Oh, Katie!”

  “I’ll find it,” she said, trying to sound convincing.

  “What about Boomer? Have you made any progress finding him?”

  “I found some stuff on the internet.” Realization struck her. “Oh, you mean try to trace him through the army. Is that possible? How would I do that?”

  “No idea. I’d start with the internet, try the army websites. Anyway, got to love ya and leave ya. Finance people to see.”

  “Don’t forget to hammer out those commercials… and get the agreement in writing.”

  “Yes, Mother,” he said, and was gone.

  Kate’s spirits lifted after the call. She had something to focus on again and immediately began trawling the internet. She went on a number of general question-and-answer sites, registered and posted the question:

  Hello! I’m trying to trace a friend in the US Army. How do I go about finding them?

  She found an army forum, again registered and posted the question. Then she sat back and waited. After two cups of Earl Grey and no response, she pulled out a pad of paper. In pencil she wrote anything and everything she knew—everything Joe had told her—on the paper. She spaced the words out, putting Joe in the middle and placing the names Boomer, Sarah and Peter randomly on the page. Then she added me and drew lines from Joe to the others. She rubbed out Joe to Sarah. From Peter to me she wrote:

  Photo of Boomer?

  She drew a dotted line from Peter to Boomer. Were they connected? She’d start with assuming that Peter had sent the photograph on Joe’s behalf.

  She drew a connecting line between Sarah and Peter. Under Sarah’s name she wrote:

  What did she know?

  Next to Boomer she wrote:

  Danny Guice

  Which army unit?

  Under Joe’s name she listed his aliases and the nickname Mirrorman.

  She turned over the page and wrote:

  Questions—Actions

  and underneath that:

  What was in the file named Trust Me? Can I trace Boomer? Is Joe really American?

  It felt like there were more questions, but for the moment her mind was a blank.

  She turned to the previous page, sipped the tea and stared at the mind map. No inspiration came for a while although something niggled at the back of her brain. Something she couldn’t quite reach. Was it Joe’s aliases that bothered her? She wrote:

  FBI?

  and drew an arrow to the aliases.

  She had spoken to a British policeman before Woodall and the other one… what was his name? Woodall and… Hurwitz, the nicer one. What was No-neck’s proper name? Drawing a blank, she moved on and wrote:

  British police

  then added the names Mather and Littlewood to her list.

  She flipped over to the questions.

  What do the British police know about Joe’s arrest? How come the FBI could do that? Find who the other policeman—No-neck—was and speak to him.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by her iPhone. Lisa.

  “Fancy joining me and a bunch of others at a wine bar tomorrow evening?” Lisa sounded as bubbly as ever.

  “Sounds perfect. I could do with something to take my mind off things.”

  “Oh, what things?”

  Kate gave her a quick update on losing the data card with Joe’s document on and trying to locate Boomer. Her friend listened intently.

  “I have a boyfriend—well I guess he’s an ex by now—in the States. Anyway, he used to be in the US Army. I could ask him if he knows how you could find Joe’s friend.”

  “Wow, yes! Yes please. That’d be great.”

  “OK, consider it done… assuming he responds to me, that is. Must have been three years now. Anyway…” She hesitated. “Just another thought…”

  “Yes?”

  “Why don’t you find out what happened to Joe?”

  Silence.

  Lisa said, “Kate? I said why not find out where Joe is?”

  Kate realized she was pacing the room. That was the burning question she had avoided. What had happened to Joe since he was arrested? When she had searched for details about him all the newspaper reports were prior to him coming to England. Why had there been nothing since.

  Her pulse quickened. “Oh my God, Lisa. I could kiss you. I’ve just had an idea.” She quickly ended the call, with a promise to see her friend tomorrow, and dialled Thames Valley police. Her hands were shaking as she picked up Inspector Mather’s business card and gave the receptionist his extension number. Mather answered on the second ring. There was no surprise in his voice when she introduced herself.

  “I’d like to speak to you,” Kate said. His long silence prompted her to continue. “I’m so
rry I was rude yesterday, but I really did have something urgent to do. I was preoccupied.”

  Mather said, “I’d like you to come down to the station.”

  God, why do they say it like that? Something about the phrase made her feel guilty. Her nervousness made her laugh and then say something she immediately regretted. “Anything I should confess to?”

  Fortunately, he didn’t respond to the question. Instead, he said, “When can you make it?”

  Kate suggested some times and he said he was based in the head office in Reading. They agreed on 4:30 tomorrow, Friday.

  “I have a favour to ask.” A little awkwardness edged Kate’s voice.

  “Favour?” Mather was curious.

  “A year ago, my boyfriend was picked up by the police or secret service or maybe even the FBI—I’m unclear who.” She could hear Mather writing notes. “It seemed to make sense at the time but now I’m not sure it does.”

  “What was his name—your boyfriend?”

  “Joe Rossini.” She spelt it out.

  “I’ll see what I can find.”

  A thought struck her. “Could you check the name Greg Towers as well?” She explained that this was supposedly his real name.

  “Supposedly?”

  Did she sound like some crazy woman? She wondered what to say. Over the telephone it was so difficult to judge whether the other person was interested or following. “The two men—they said they were detectives—told me Joe Rossini was a fake identity, that he was British and his real name was Greg Towers. He had used other IDs before too.”

  Inspector Mather’s next words answered her fears. “I understand,” he said. “Give me the exact date this happened and I’ll pull the files.”

  When she put the phone down, a wave of calm came over her. Taking positive action, with the promise of some answers, brought a smile back to her face.

  She spent the evening curled on the sofa with Tolkien, half watching an old Hitchcock movie. Just before half past nine she received an email response from one of the general question-and-answer websites.

  Someone called Scram79 wrote:

  If you know your friend’s unit, you will be able to find out where they are posted. Then contact the base.

  Just as she read the email, her mobile rang. Queen ringtone. Andrew.

  “Buona sera!” Andrew said.

  “I see your Italian’s improving.”

  He laughed. “My memory is too! I forgot to tell you something earlier, but before I say, how’s the searching going?”

  “Some progress, I think. I need to find out which unit Boomer was in.”

  “Great!”

  “So what did you forget to tell me?”

  Andrew paused, teasing. Finally, he said, “If you can’t find the data card, no worries. We’ll take a look on Monday when I get back.”

  Kate didn’t get it. “What are you saying?”

  “I copied the file onto my hard drive. We’ll be able to read the Trust Me document.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Amir learned two things that changed his plans: the girl’s friend in Italy wasn’t returning until Monday, but more importantly there was another copy of the document. There was information in that document that must never be made public. With so much at stake, it was clear that Amir needed to deal with the risk.

  From Kate’s PC, Amir easily obtained the address in South Ascot. Driving the Satcom van past the house, he noted that the door opened onto the street. Too exposed. He parked the van and found an alley which ran behind the row of Victorian houses. The narrow path provided access to the rear of the properties—small walled yards. Dressed in the blue overalls and carrying his small bag, Amir located Andrew’s house and tried the gate. Locked, but a simple bolt could be reached over the top. He slid the bolt and entered the yard.

  The rear door was a modern, five-lever affair. The downstairs windows were UPVC and had security bars. A room beside the kitchen appeared to be a study with computer equipment. The upstairs windows appeared to be sash-style and wooden—less secure. An alarm box on the rear was real, the one on the front a fake. He quickly returned to his van and removed a folding ladder and a lightweight satellite dish.

  Erecting the ladder beside the alarm, he filled the box with No More Gaps. The foam quickly solidified and would prevent the bell from ringing. He stuck the satellite dish on the wall and, while looking as though he was fixing the cables, he was in fact beginning to cut through the glass.

  He made a hole big enough to insert his arm and release a catch. He opened the window and stepped into a bedroom.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he hurried to the landing and down the stairs. There was no doubt in his mind that the alarm would have been triggered and a monitoring company would get the automatic call. The police could be notified within minutes.

  Amir located Andrew’s study. There were three desktop computers, one of which looked as though it was being rebuilt. One PC was clearly the main one, so he disconnected it. He found flash drives and an external backup and put these in his bag. Then he picked up the PC and walked out of the back door. In total, he had been in the house for less than five minutes.

  He left the ladder and fake dish on the wall and walked calmly to the van. He was long gone by the time the police arrived.

  The first time he stopped, he went into the back and removed the hard drive from the PC, opened it and destroyed the disk. He did the same for the backup disk and crushed the flash drives. As he drove to his next destination in the countryside he tossed the components from the window into the ditches. He passed a lay-by containing a parked grey family saloon and continued on until he reached a tubular metal five-bar gate. On the other side of the gate was a short track through a copse to a field. He stopped under the cover of trees and began to pour petrol inside the cab and then the rear. After setting the van alight, he threw his overalls into the flames. Then he returned to the road, walked to the grey saloon, got in and drove away.

  He picked up his phone and dialled.

  “Speak,” a man immediately answered.

  “I had a problem. It looked as though there was another copy of the document.”

  “Had anybody read it?” Hamasalih asked, his voice showing no emotion.

  “No. It’s been dealt with it.”

  “And progress on finding our man?”

  “The girl doesn’t know, but she will find him. She is already making progress.”

  “Good.”

  “And if I need to help?”

  “Do what you need to. You know what’s at risk. We trust your judgement.”

  Amir switched off the phone. He hadn’t mentioned the involvement of the British police. Their interest hadn’t been expected so early. She had asked the inspector to find out what happened, which was good. However, they clearly wanted something. They wanted her at the police station.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Inspector Mather said, “Start from the beginning, Kate.”

  They sat in Interview Room Three in an intimidating building in an old section of Reading. Kate had never noticed it before today. Behind it, an imposing red-brick Victorian prison loomed, somehow threatening. The old prisons seemed a greater deterrent to crime, not that Kate considered herself a criminal. She could imagine a dingy interior with cast-iron stairs and balconies, and heavy doors that clanged shut, entombing the inmates in their six by eight cells.

  Mather sat across from her, a desk between them. DS Littlewood sat to her left, at an angle, studying her side on. A tape recorder was whirring on the table. Kate had thought through everything she was going to say. After the phone conversation with Mather she realized that, unless the story was told logically, it could sound mad—as it had a year ago. And she didn’t want to be treated like that again.

  After a calming breath she began by explaining how she and Sarah had met at university. She told them what she knew about Peter, when they had met and about going to the engagement party. She progressed to meeting Joe
—a friend and work colleague of Peter’s. Kate felt no embarrassment at saying she and Joe had become lovers. After about three months he had managed to get a job in the UK and, shortly after that, had moved in to her apartment in Windsor. Then she described the shock of watching Joe being bundled into a car a few months after that.

  “About a year ago?” Littlewood checked.

  “Right. I thought it might have been a kidnapping and reported it to the police. Finally someone came and took a statement. I heard nothing until two detectives stopped me in the street.”

  “They said they were detectives?” Littlewood again.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s what they said. I didn’t look at their badges. They told me that Joe was a conman and wanted on a number of charges. I checked on the internet, like they suggested, and found news articles about him, although his name wasn’t mentioned.”

  “How did you know it was your boyfriend?”

  “The dates tallied. Joe had been in the Czech Republic and left at the same time as the wanted man.” Kate’s voice trailed off. She took a sip of water and looked into Mather’s face. The inspector remained impassive.

  Kate began again: “A year to the day of his disappearance, my friend found something.”

  Littlewood asked who the friend was and wrote Andrew’s name in her notebook. “Go on, please.”

  “There was a data card with an encrypted file. There was a password that only I would know. It was a message for me from Joe.”

  Littlewood leaned forward slightly. “What did it say?”

  Kate studied the wall opposite. She felt her throat flush with embarrassment. “I don’t know. I seem to have lost it. I was in a flap when you came round. I needed to key the password in at a certain time.”

  For the first time Mather’s eyes registered something. Understanding, perhaps?

  Littlewood said, “So you lost the file.” Her tone suggested incredulity.