Digital Circumstances

by BRM Stewart

  I found my voice. ‘The US seems to do that as well, to other countries.’

  He gave a wry smile. ‘Yeah, well… that’s another agency. I see myself as one of the good guys here. So,’ he let out a sigh, ‘the point is that I could get you to Prestwick airport by tomorrow morning and onto a Gulfstream out of there, no questions: your government would not raise a finger. In fact, I think the Scottish police would not be unhappy to see you leave.’

  I nodded, believing him. ‘You said there was a way out.’ I was beginning to think, seizing on his offer.

  ‘There is, Martin. There is. First of all, I’d like a bit more information on one or two things. Who were the main players here?’

  I swallowed; he must know everything, so there was no point holding back. ‘Ken Talbot was the boss, but Sandy Lomond did all the day-to-day management, including the computer stuff. And Colin Strachan was the main guy who started up the cybercrime – he had the contacts originally, someone calling themselves Gregorius. Colin retired a few years ago, left the country.’

  Grosvenor showed no reaction to any of that. ‘You know where Colin Strachan is now?’ His voice was even.

  I tried to shake my head, but ended up giving a strange bob and then a nod.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk more about that tomorrow. How about Charlie Talbot?’

  I frowned. ‘Charlie died in a car crash ten years ago.’

  ‘Apparently. But he was pretty big, yes?’

  I couldn’t understand what the hell he was talking about. Was he trying to trick me, to see how honest I was being? ‘Charlie’s brains were in his cock. He spent all his time chasing – ‘ I was about to say ‘fanny’ but changed it – ‘pussy. He was officially in charge of Bytes and Digits, and a director of B&D, but he did fuck all – which suited us fine.’

  Grosvenor was staring impassively at me. Then he took another sip of water. ‘OK. Who else?’

  ‘Well, you’ll know about Charlene.’

  Again there was an impassive stare, and a sip of water. ‘Tell me about her.’

  ‘Well – you know she set up the thing in Portugal when we got into that guy’s computer, and she was in Romania, watching what was going on. She got me out. I don’t think she was directly involved with the murders, but…’

  My voice tailed off because he was unlocking his mobile and checking his watch as he dialled.

  ‘Hey, Max, how you doin’?’

  I couldn’t make out any words from the other end.

  ‘Max, remember that other name we picked up on? … That’s the one. I think we may have missed something there. Could you go back and really dig deep on that one. Thorough. … Yes, I do. … And another couple of names: Colin Strachan, who worked at B&D and made the original contacts with the hackers but left town a few years ago, and someone calling himself Gregorius, who may or may not be a big player out there. … OK, Max – call me when you have something.’ He hung up, and stared at me again.

  Then he seemed to rouse himself from his thoughts. ‘You asked about the way out. We’ll start talking about that at breakfast – 0800. Don’t try to run away: we’ll find you, and I’ll be really pissed. But what I want you to do for now is go back to B&D and help us trace the bad guys at the other end of your operation, including ‘Gregorius’. If it doesn’t work then we’ll just lock you up somewhere. If it does work, then – ‘ and he shrugged. ‘We’ll see.’

  He yawned. ‘You have no bargaining power, Martin. On the one hand you have the Romanian police, the Portuguese police, the Scottish police, and the FBI. On the other hand you have various global criminal organisations and gangsters. Between a rock and a hard place, son. I think there’s a Scottish word that covers your situation, I believe: ‘fucked’.’

  He stood up and stepped to the door. ‘But don’t do a runner, Martin. I’ll see you at breakfast. 0800.’

  I stood up too. I was still shaking, alternately cold and hot, questions tumbling through my head.

  He let himself out, and I locked the door behind him and put on the chain, then stumbled back to my chair, and sat there, staring at where Grosvenor had sat.

  Options?

  I had to do what Grosvenor wanted – no choice. Could I cover myself?

  I looked at my watch: after ten.

  I hadn’t had my old mobile on since I left Glasgow; I plugged it in to charge, and thought. Then I switched it on, and watched the text messages and the emails pour in, and the missed call count rack up.

  Amongst the spam and the crap and the routine daily updates on things, there were several texts and voicemails from Sandy Lomond, all basically saying the same thing: ‘Where the fuck are you?’ and ‘What’s going on, and what do you know about it? Fuckin’ phone me, Martin.’

  Sandy would have thought that I had somehow brought the police down on the company, and gone into hiding with their blessing, and to an extent he wouldn’t be far wrong. But what had he done? What had happened when the police had gone in to rake through our files? Nothing at all had appeared on the news. What about Ken Talbot? What about the other staff – Claire and Graham?

  No sure what I was really doing, or why, I dialled Sandy’s mobile. But I just got weird electronic beeps. I guessed that would have abandoned his mobile somewhere so that he couldn’t be traced.

  I checked the dates on his texts and voicemails: all of them from the few days after the police would have moved into St Vincent Street, and nothing after. So, was he hiding in the sun somewhere, while Talbot was near death? Was anything functioning in B&D or up on Argyle Street? What about the dark network out there - Gregorius?

  I had to do what Grosvenor said, and hope somehow that I would prove useful enough to them that they didn’t want to just sling me in jail. But their track record on this wasn’t good: the FBI had extradited and imprisoned a lot of hackers, many of them vulnerable young men. Why should they take pity on me?

  I couldn’t think of any plan B, though.

  And Charlene was out there somewhere – even the FBI hadn’t known about her. What was she up to? How was she really involved?

  I went to bed, exhausted but unable to sleep. Partly this was the alcohol I’d drunk – I was up and down to the toilet all night – but mainly it was the thoughts swarming and tumbling inside my head. Finally, around four o’clock in the morning, I focused on something I wanted and managed to get to sleep, all my thoughts aiming for it. Fiona was dead and gone; Helen had left me, and would never trust me again. But Nicola liked me, and seemed to want to give some kind of relationship a try. That was what I wanted too.

  Alone in my bed – alone in the world – I seized the possibility that this could all work out somehow, and I could be with Nicola. I resolved that I’d pretty much do anything for that to happen.

  Chapter 27

  Edinburgh and Glasgow

  I wandered into the breakfast room at exactly 0800. I’d slept for approximately three hours, was woken by my phone alarm, and had tried to shower away sleep and my hangover, and residual memories from Romania. I really needed to think clearly, and here I was knackered and fuzzy-headed.

  I gave my room number and pointed across to the table – ‘Joining colleagues’, I said – and went over to sit beside Grosvenor, still in his jeans and thick, checked shirt, and Amanda Pitt, wearing a dark jacket and pencil skirt, looking thin and tired; she’d had her hair cut very short. Grosvenor was working his way through the full Scottish, Amanda sipped a coffee.

  She looked at me over the rim of her cup. ‘Hello again, Martin. You look dreadful.’

  Grosvenor checked his watch as he shovelled bacon and egg into his mouth with the fork in his right hand. ‘Good to see you,’ he mumbled through a mouthful of food. He poured me out a cup of coffee from the pot on the table.

  I fetched some cereal, and sat trying to eat it.

  We were all silent, looking at each other and then out to the castle, its grey walls almost obscured by the thick, grey rain. Around us came the excited chatter
of many languages. Two young Japanese women were up at the window, documenting every angle of the view.

  Finally Grosvenor wiped his lips, Amanda re-filled her coffee – and got the Polish waiter to bring us more – and I pushed away the last of my cereal.

  ‘Well then,’ Grosvenor said. ‘You’ve met DS Pitt. She kindly came over on the train for an early breakfast so we could talk. Let’s find some privacy.’

  We managed to find comfy chairs in a corner of the empty lounge bar, and sat with the new, fresh jug of coffee and our cups, our backs to the grille protecting the bar.

  ‘Well then,’ Grosvenor repeated. ‘This is another fine example of international cooperation, within certain vaguely defined boundaries of course. We’re not sharing absolutely everything. Except for you, Martin: you don’t have any chips left, so you just give.’

  I grimaced.

  ‘Have you thought about what we said last night?’

  I looked at Amanda, and she looked back at me.

  I nodded. ‘I’ll do what you want.’

  Grosvenor nodded, and now Amanda looked at him and gave an almost imperceptible nod, which he returned.

  ‘What’s been happening?’ I asked Amanda.

  She took a deep breath. ‘Ken Talbot is out on bail. He had a major heart attack last week, and they are planning a quadruple bypass, but the prognosis is not good. Sandy Lomond was questioned for twenty four hours and finally we attempted to charge him with some minor offences, but there was a cock-up with how the arrest was dealt with: he wasn’t charged with what we arrested him for, so we had to release him. And then he vanished: he’s somewhere in mainland Europe, we think; looks like he’s ditched his mobile phone, so no joy there.’

  She continued: ‘Talbot’s empire is fragmenting: we’ve rounded up a number of people – involved in drugs, prostitution, taxi firms, scrapyards – and closed down some of what he was doing, but, as usual, others are moving in. We’ve got some of our people undercover, and we’re well-placed to keep an eye on developments and pick off serious players as they emerge.’ She took a long drink of her coffee. ‘We’re processing a lot of information, but, following some discussion at top level, we’ve left B&D’s cybercrime activities alone.’ And she half-turned to Grosvenor.

  He yawned and scratched at his beard. ‘The Scottish police – and the Romanian and Portuguese police – have agreed to leave that all to the FBI for now; we’re better equipped to deal with it at present. We’ll keep them informed, of course.’ He nodded to Amanda, and she returned the gesture, her lips tight. ‘First we need you back in your office, then we’ll see what happens.’

  I nodded. I knew I had only the one tenuous link through to all of that side, and it might very well have been shut down since my unexplained departure, but I didn’t want to tell Grosvenor that, not now. ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then we’ll see. We’ll see what you can do. You might be able to play them. If not,’ and he shrugged.

  I drank my coffee. I was sure it wouldn’t work, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t run away again. I visualised life in a prison in America, and shuddered.

  ‘You’re sure you don’t know where this guy Colin Strachan is?’ he asked.

  I shook my head. ‘What about Charlene?’

  Amanda looked intently at Grosvenor as he explained: ‘When we started investigating the Portuguese murder, we picked up on a few names. Two of them reappeared in Romania: Martin here, and Charlene Anderson. We checked on her, and she is a hairdresser in Mid-Wales. So we – I – discounted her. After speaking to Martin last night I realised we had made an operational error there, so we checked again.’ He gazed into his coffee cup.

  ‘So what do you know about her?’ Amanda asked again. Her voice was calm, her body still.

  ‘It turns out the hairdresser she works for is owned and managed by Charlie Talbot. We had been checking – like you were – on Ken Talbot’s businesses, and Charlie Talbot’s name was all over a lot of them, and also many that didn’t seem to have any other direct connection to Ken Talbot, apart from the name.’

  ‘Yes,’ Amanda said, ‘but Charlie Talbot’s been dead for ten years. His name was obviously just being used as a placeholder: it wasn’t really him.’

  Grosvenor shifted again. ‘We thought Charlie Talbot might still be alive.’

  ‘Impossible,’ I said.

  ‘And is a sense he is. Charlene Anderson – Martin’s Charlene, who pops up here and there at crucial times – is Charlie Talbot.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Charlene Anderson is Charlene Talbot, calling herself Charlie in business documentation. She’s Charlie Talbot’s daughter.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ I said, shutting my eyes. ‘Of course she is. She looks just like him.’ The fine blonde hair, the high cheekbones. Shit fuck. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘She’s twenty three.’ Grosvenor looked baffled by the question.

  ‘Do you know anything about her mother?’

  Grosvenor frowned. ‘She works in the hospitality trade, has done all her life, all over Scotland. We haven’t had time to speak to her, and I don’t think there’s any need. She’s currently managing a restaurant in Aberdeen; married, with a teenage son. Charlene was adopted by a couple who moved to mid-Wales when she was still a baby.’

  Yeah. Charlie must have had the relationship, or one-night-stand or whatever, with Charlene’s mother around the time he was bedding Sam. Maybe she had been working at the hotel on Loch Lomond where Charlie had taken Sam. And Ken Talbot would have been able to pay for the child. Was that what Sandy had meant when he’d spoken about Charlene and Ken going ‘way back’? Was Charlene actually working for Sandy or Ken Talbot?

  I noticed Amanda’s fingers were shaking as she put her coffee cup down and reached in her handbag for her mobile, holding it against her lips.

  ‘We’re trying to find her, and I think it would be good if we kept our eyes open for her. I don’t know how much she knows, or what she might want out of this. It’s untidy, I know, but it can’t deflect us from the main plan.’

  Amanda had composed and sent a text, and now she had dialled and was speaking to someone. ‘Hi, it’s Amanda here. In connection with the whole Talbot enquiry, there is a person we want to trace: her name is Charlene Talbot, though she’s going under the name Charlene Anderson, and for business purposes she uses the name Charlie Talbot. Does that make sense? … Yes, she’s Ken Talbot’s granddaughter. … Yes, she’s involved in a lot of stuff: we’d like to find her. … No, just keep a watch and if you find anything let me know straightaway – I’ll decide what to do. Thanks.’ She hung up.

  ‘You think she’s dangerous?’ I asked.

  Amanda raised her eyebrows. ‘Do you think she is?’

  I didn’t know. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Charlene didn’t kill those people.’ But I was sure she had a ruthless streak to her: I had seen her close up. But I didn’t really think she’d killed people. ‘Can I ask a question?’ I said. They nodded. ‘In Romania, I was… well, I think I was drugged and – er – seduced, in my hotel. Coralia, the Romanian translator, set it up; Rodica was the girl – the prostitute. Coralia photographed us in the act.’

  Amanda was glowering at me, Grosvenor looked like he was concealing a smile in that big white beard.

  ‘A few of the photographs were texted to my partner Helen. And she dumped me because of that. Do either of you know how that happened?’

  They shook their heads. I absorbed that: if they hadn’t done it then it was down to the Romanians, or Charlene – maybe she had got hold of Coralia’s camera, or the memory card, or copies of the photographs, and sent them to Helen. She’d done something similar with the Portugal photograph.

  ‘OK,’ I went on. ‘In Orkney, someone broke into my hotel room and had a rummage around, and tried to get into my laptop.’

  Grosvenor raised his hand. ‘That would be me – well, a private detective I hired. He wasn’t much use.’

  Amanda was looking daggers at him. />
  I nodded. OK. ‘You knew I was in Orkney.’

  Amanda and Grosvenor nodded as one. He spoke: ‘Of course. You left a card trail all the way. We were just waiting to decide what to do. Then we saw your route to Aberdeen, where you went off the radar a bit, and on to this hotel.’ Grosvenor set down his empty cup. ‘By then I had a plan, and didn’t want you to mess it up by skipping off again. Hence last night.’

  I gazed blankly at them. All those weeks I’d thought I was free, and they were sitting on my tail, the whole time. I felt like an idiot.

  ‘OK, what now?’

  They stood up. ‘We check out, get the train back to Glasgow – you can go back to your flat and dump your luggage, then we’ll go down to B&D and start work. We have a computer expert coming over – he’ll be in Glasgow by this afternoon.’

  ‘I’ll see you at reception,’ Amanda said, and stepped away from us, dialling on her mobile.

  *

  We got a taxi down to Waverley station, and Grosvenor bought tickets for him and me. The three of us found a table in first class on the Glasgow shuttle service, and we hurtled across the central belt. The compartment was empty apart from us and an old English couple. He sat with his hearing aid and walking stick, staring out of the window. She had a newspaper, and loudly read out letters and articles; he didn’t acknowledge anything she said.

  I gazed out at the fields after we left the city, the cooling towers and flares of Grangemouth, and then on towards Glasgow, the high rises slipping away from view as we entered the tunnel and slowed and ground our way into Queen Street station. We joined the massed bodies on the concourse, dodging out of their way as their platform was announced with only minutes to spare and they piled through the barriers.

  Amanda said: ‘I’m going down to B&D now. You two follow later – let me know when you’re coming.’ This was to Grosvenor. To me she added: ‘Anything you need down there?’