IMPOSTURE: Hunters become the hunted in this gripping murder mystery

by Ray Clark

  As the roundabout came into view, so too did the damaged railings; they were covered with flowers, and standing in front of them was a fellow neighbour, Wendy Higgins, with her brown Labrador, Pouch. Wendy was a widower, having lost her husband three years ago to a sudden heart attack. The man hadn’t lingered. Here one minute, gone the next.

  “Good morning, Alan,” said Wendy as she spotted him.

  Braithwaite noticed she’d lost weight recently and hoped she was okay but didn’t like to mention it. Women can be funny about things like that.

  “Morning.”

  The two dogs met up, touched noses and then roamed across the grass verge toward the fence and the field.

  “Not the best morning to be out.”

  “I wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for him,” replied Braithwaite.

  Wendy Higgins laughed. “Slaves, that’s all we are. We care more about them than ourselves.” She huddled into her coat a little and stared at the electric box. “Bad business, that.”

  What could he do but nod in agreement?

  “I wonder what happened to them? How long were they laying there unnoticed?” asked Wendy Higgins.

  “I’ve no idea, love, but I’m sure the police will get to the bottom of it.”

  “I keep wondering what they were doing out at that time of night.” Wendy’s gaze was distant. “You’re not safe anywhere these days. You don’t think it was one of those terror groups, do you?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. Burley is a small village. They usually target people in big cities; there’s more of them to hit.”

  “What a dreadful world we live in. My doors are at locked at six every night, Alan. I don’t trust anyone anymore.” She glanced over at the dogs, both quite happy stretched out on the grass. “Have they found the vehicle yet, do you know?”

  “There’s been nothing in the papers or on the news. Plenty of posters appealing for help. A good spell in the army wouldn’t hurt them. Never did me any harm… if I could just get my hands on them.”

  “Terrible, terrible business, but you shouldn’t work yourself up, Alan. I mean this in the nicest possible way but I suspect your army days are well behind you,” said Wendy. “Anyway, I shan’t keep you any longer. I’ve walked Pouch and I think we’re both ready for a hot drink and a few biscuits.”

  Both of them glanced over at their dogs but only Pouch was sitting on the grass verge in front of the electric box.

  Braithwaite turned his head in all directions but he saw nothing of Spike.

  “You didn’t see him wander off, did you?” he asked Wendy.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Spike!”

  Pouch stared at both of them but if Spike was around he wasn’t letting on.

  “He can’t be far away,” said Wendy. “I’ll help you look for him.”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that, love, it’s bitterly cold.”

  “We’ve been out half an hour already, a few more minutes isn’t going to make much difference.”

  “Spike!”

  Pouch lifted himself to his feet and wandered closer. Wendy Higgins placed his lead back onto his collar, as if something bad had happened to Spike and she didn’t want Pouch going the same way, wherever that was.

  Braithwaite stared beyond the electric box at the overgrown field. “He can only be in there, surely.”

  “You go and have a look and I’ll try around here.”

  Braithwaite nodded. He scurried to the fence, standing on the first rung, gaining some height. Peering into the field wasn’t helping. The grass was way overgrown and even if Spike was in there he wouldn’t see him.

  But then he heard a growl.

  He turned back, shouting to his friend.

  Wendy and Pouch came over.

  “I think he’s in there. I’ve just heard him growling.”

  “Is he okay?”

  Braithwaite yelled a couple more times with no luck. On the third shout, the dog barked. He climbed the fence, dropped into the field, where the grass reached up to his waist.

  “Careful, Alan, you don’t know what’s in there.”

  “I know Spike is.”

  “Yes, but we don’t know what else.”

  Braithwaite decided to risk it on the basis that Spike didn’t sound hurt. He continued to call the dog’s name, hoping it would carry on barking.

  Within minutes he found the terrier sitting in front of an expensive brown leather attaché case. The steel locks were tarnished and the grainy exterior was ravaged, indicating it had been in the field for some time; nothing a decent clean wouldn’t put right.

  Braithwaite bent down to retrieve the case, wondering where it had come from? He couldn’t open it because the latches would require the correct numbers. Apart from that it had a set of tumblers that needed keys. If they were anywhere around here he wasn’t going to look for them, he’d freeze to death.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said to Spike.

  He found Wendy Higgins waiting for him when he reached the edge of the field.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “Seems to be. I’ve just found this.”

  She gave it the once over. “Where?”

  “In the middle of that lot.” He glanced at Spike. “He was guarding it.”

  “Looks expensive,” said Wendy, “is it locked?”

  “Yes. Must be something important because it has numbered codes and keys, but I couldn’t find them.”

  A dark expression crossed Wendy’s features. “You don’t think it has anything to do with the hit and run, do you?”

  Alan Braithwaite stared at her. “It crossed my mind.”

  Wendy Higgins had her phone out, dialling 999.

  Chapter Eight

  Two further days passed without any useful information coming to light, and nothing positive from the discovery of the attaché case. Gardener and Reilly were sitting in the incident room sorting through witness statements amounting to very little, when Patrick Edwards and Paul Benson found them.

  “How’s it going with the statements, sir?” asked Edwards.

  “Slowly, Patrick,” replied Gardener. “The only positive we have is that three separate witnesses have confirmed the presence of the 4x4 in the village within the time range.”

  “They all say the same thing,” added Reilly. “It was white. The engine was running. Four people were inside – although one couple said the occupants appeared to be arguing with each other.”

  “No one remembers a registration,” said Gardener. “How have you two got on?”

  “We’ve actually managed to pick up the tyre tread pattern,” said Edwards.

  “Both from the scene of the collision,” offered Paul Benson, “and the grass verge where the vehicle hit the railings. There was enough of a print for the tech guys to come up with something.”

  “That sounds positive,” said Reilly.

  “Not as much as you think,” replied Edwards. “We know it’s a 4x4. The search narrowed the tyres down to possibly an Overfinch.”

  “A what?”

  “A Range Rover,” replied Benson. “From that we’ve discovered that they were fitted to thirty-five million vehicles worldwide. Only three million were sold in this country but it’s still like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  Gardener sighed. “But at least it’s something. Do we know the make of the tyres?”

  “Yes,” replied Benson. “It was a Goodyear Wrangler, but they also fitted Michelin and Bridgestone to some of the vehicles so that might help to narrow it down again.”

  “What about the paint scrapings?” Gardener asked.

  “It helped, but there are still over five hundred thousand to comb through, with no idea where it was bought. We don’t have a registration, or even a partial one.”

  “Good luck with that one,” said Reilly.

  “Are there any registered in this area?” asked Gardener.

  “No,” replied Benson. “Not white ones an
yway.”

  As Edwards and Benson were discussing their find, Gates and Longstaff entered the room. Both were laughing and chattering. Each of them held a bottle of coke in one hand and a Mars bar in the other.

  Reilly jumped up. “Now we’re talking, girls.”

  Both deviated away from Reilly. “No you don’t,” said Gates, “these are all ours.”

  “So much for team players,” muttered Reilly, making his way to the coffee machine.

  “It’s not all bad,” said Longstaff, dropping a couple of chunky KitKats on the table in front of him, creating a smile as wide as the Liffey.

  “I take it all back.”

  “Please tell me some good news,” said Gardener.

  “I wish we could,” replied Gates, taking a seat.

  Longstaff joined her and took a sip of coke. “We’ve just come from the bank.”

  Reilly sat down, placing bottled water in front of Gardener, with a coffee for himself. “Knowing what we know about banks and how secretive they like to be, I guess it didn’t go well.”

  “Actually,” said Gates, “it depends on how you look at it.”

  “Go on,” said Gardener.

  “Cyber crime is all over this one,” said Longstaff.

  “Cyber crime?”

  Gates nodded. “They’ve been at it for a few days. It appears that there are some irregularities in bank procedure.”

  “Yes,” said Longstaff. “Brian Jennings, the manager, isn’t quite sure what’s happened but it involved David Hunter. There wasn’t a lot more they could – or would – tell us.”

  “I’d look at that as positive,” said Paul Benson.

  Gardener shook his head. “If cyber crime are involved there must be a whole side to this story that we know nothing about.”

  “Which means we’re going to need your help, sir,” said Longstaff. “We’ll need you to contact them and see if you can get them to cooperate.”

  Chapter Nine

  Four days after the attaché case had been discovered – seven following the hit and run – two cyber crime team officers from Bradford walked into Millgarth police station in Leeds and asked to speak to DI Gardener. They were shown into his office.

  “Grab a seat,” said Reilly.

  The Bradford Two introduced themselves as DI Steve Winter and his partner, DS Shona Pearson. Winter was a thin, fresh-faced youth with a head of spikey black hair and wire-rimmed glasses. If he turned sideways on, Gardener would have trouble seeing him. Shona Pearson was a pretty woman, also slim, late twenties, with olive skin and almond eyes.

  Gardener stood and, shaking hands with them, he introduced Reilly, who took an order for drinks and swiftly returned with them.

  “I have to say,” started Gardener, “that when one of my officers informed me that cyber crime were already involved in a murder case we were investigating, it more than piqued my curiosity.”

  “And ours,” replied Winter, “but from what we’ve learned about the case, we figured it wouldn’t be long before something serious happened.”

  “Would you mind telling us your involvement, Mr Gardener?” Shona Pearson asked.

  Between them, he and Reilly explained the strange events of the hit and run. The Bradford Two listened without interruption and then came straight to the point.

  “How much do you know about computers, sir?” Pearson asked Gardener.

  “A little,” he replied, “but I’m certainly no expert.”

  “Mr Reilly?” she inquired.

  “Less than him.”

  “Do you know anything about Bitcoins, Mr Gardener?” asked Steve Winter.

  “No,” said Gardener. “I’m afraid you have the edge on me there. I’ve heard the term but I’ve managed to stay away from it.”

  Shona Pearson continued, “I’m not being disrespectful here when I say that we’ll try to make it as simple as we can.”

  “It’s a modern bank account,” elaborated Winter. “A ‘wallet’ is basically the Bitcoin equivalent of a bank account. It allows you to receive Bitcoins, store them, and then send them to others.

  “It’s digital currency. There are two types. Virtual Currency; unregulated digital money, which is usually issued and controlled by its developers, used and accepted among the members of a specific virtual community.

  “And then there’s Cryptocurrency; a digital token that relies on cryptography for chaining together digital signatures of token transfers, peer-to-peer networking and decentralisation.”

  Reilly stared blankly at Winter. “Jesus Christ. You’re not talking my language here, son. I have enough trouble with normal bank accounts.”

  Winter smiled, and continued, “Essentially, every hacker loves dealing in Bitcoins because they think they are completely untraceable. But that’s not true. With every Bitcoin transaction, anyone with an ounce of skill can see the entire chain block.

  “A Bitcoin wallet is similar to a numbered Swiss bank account in old money. We might not know who sits behind the account, but we know the account number.

  “So, people with Bitcoin wallets will pay money in and out of their account for all sorts of things, some of them illegal – like buying ransomware on the dark net; some of them legitimate – like renting server space in Canada.

  “What we have to do in cyber crime is something called cluster analysis. We look at what Bitcoin wallets are being used to feed scam money into, and then establish if any of the wallets have been used for legal purposes. If so, it’s very likely they used some kind of traceable identification linked to the legal transaction. That way we find the black hat hackers.”

  The meeting grew very quiet with everyone glancing around the table, opening and closing files.

  Finally, Gardener said, “Are you saying that you think David and Ann Marie Hunter were involved in something illegal?”

  “That they were ripping the bank off?” added Reilly.

  Shona Pearson leaned forward. “Actually, that’s not what we think, sir. To be perfectly honest, we think it was the Hunters who were being blackmailed.”

  “Blackmailed?” questioned Reilly. “Any idea who, or why?”

  “We’re not sure, yet,” replied Pearson. “This case is still in its infancy for us.”

  Winter continued. “The online crooks infected computers of the Trans Global Bank with a brand-new Trojan system nicknamed Octopus, giving them direct access to the company’s network and online banking passwords–”

  Gardener interrupted him. “What’s Octopus?”

  “Never mind that,” added Reilly, “you might need to explain how a Trojan works, for me.”

  Winter nodded. “An attacker who has compromised an account holder’s PC can control every aspect of what the victim sees or does not see, because that bad guy can then intercept, delete, modify or re-route all communications to and from the infected PC. If a bank’s system of authenticating a transaction depends solely on the customer’s PC being infection-free, then that system is trivially vulnerable to compromise in the face of today’s more stealthy banking Trojans.

  “I find it hard to believe that there are still banks using nothing more than passwords for online authentication on commercial accounts. Then again, some of the techniques being folded into today’s banking Trojan’s can defeat many of the most advanced client-side authentication mechanisms in use today.

  “Banks often complain that commercial account takeover victims might have spotted thefts had the customer merely reconciled its accounts at day’s end. But several new malware strains allow attackers to manipulate the balance displayed when the victim logs in to his or her account.

  “Perhaps the most elegant fraud techniques being built into Trojans involve an approach known as ‘session riding’, where the fraudster in control of a victim’s PC simply waits until the user logs in, and then silently hijacks that session to move money out of the account.

  “With the Trans Global Bank, it was a new strain of malware that we dubbed Octopus. It’s very act
ive and appears to have tentacles wandering off all over the place, looking into everything. It hijacks customers’ online banking sessions in real time using their session ID tokens. We’ve also discovered that Octopus keeps online banking sessions open after customers think they have ‘logged off’, enabling criminals to extract money and commit fraud unnoticed.”

  Reilly smiled and sipped his coffee. “I think I’ll stick to standard practice from now on.”

  “That makes two of us,” said Gardener, staring at his phone, wondering why youngsters today ran their entire lives on them.

  “Anyway,” said Winter, “a week later, the thieves made their move by sending a series of unauthorised wire transfers to money mules, individuals who were hired to help launder the funds and relay them to crooks overseas.

  “The first three wires totalled more than £350,000. When David Hunter went to log in to his company’s accounts fifteen minutes prior to the first fraudulent transfers going out, he found the account was locked. The site said the account was overdue for security updates.

  “He asked Brian Jennings, the bank manager, for assistance, and was told he needed to deal with the bank’s back office customer service. They were alerted but could not provide an answer for what was going on. They said they would look into it. Within seven days, the thieves sent out fifteen more wires totalling nearly £2.5 million. The bank was unable to reverse any of those fraudulent wires.”

  How crime had moved on from the standard wage heist of the olden days, thought Gardener. “I spoke to David Hunter’s brother, Roger, recently. When we met, I asked if David and Ann Marie had any financial problems that he knew about.”

  “He said they didn’t,” added Reilly, “but this tells me there was obviously something amiss. Do these thieves have names?”

  Winter reached into a briefcase and pulled out some more paperwork. “They do but when you hear them you’ll probably laugh, like we did.”