Dead Memories (D.I. Kim Stone #10)(90)

‘Bryant, we could have been working on…’

‘Relax,’ he said, smirking at her. ‘Stacey and Mitch are already on their way, so don’t even think of touching it until they get here.’





One Hundred Fifteen





‘Really, boss?’ Stacey asked, looking at her, then at Mitch and Bryant and then back at the table.

The laptop had been logged and bagged by Mitch but he’d expertly done it so that the computer was on, open and the keys could be seen through the plastic.

‘Come on, Stace, you’ve worked in tougher conditions than this,’ Kim said, standing behind her.

‘Yeah, working through a giant condom is not my normal working day,’ she said, turning to the three of them looking over her shoulder. ‘And a little space, please.’

They all backed away as Stacey began to type.

‘I think I know what I’m going to find,’ Stacey said, as Kim saw the screen flash from one back-end menu to another. Kim was constantly amazed at Stacey’s ability to know exactly what she was looking at. It reminded her of the back corridors at an arena. Service areas and dark passageways that operated behind the scenes. Only the people that knew it well could find their way around.

‘You wanna share?’ Bryant asked.

‘If I did I would’ve,’ she said. ‘What I’m really interested in is how they—’

Stacey stopped speaking and Kim knew better than to push her. She wasn’t really talking to them but more to herself.

‘I’m gonna head off,’ Mitch said, collecting up his things. ‘Let me know what you want doing with the rest of this place.’

‘Will do,’ Kim said. She’d already explained they had no positive identification on whether this guy was the man in the car.

For all they knew the homeowner could walk in any minute with a perfectly reasonable explanation for his absence from work and from his home.

Although after what Stacey had told her about the missing file she doubted that scenario very much.

‘Wanna take a good look for it?’ Bryant asked, thinking the same as her.

She shook her head. ‘No point. If Ernest Beckett took my file it wasn’t for some late-night reading. He could have read it at work without risking his job and career. I reckon he got it for someone.’

‘I’d agree with that,’ Stacey said.

They both ignored her.

‘Yeah, I am actually talking to you guys, now,’ Stacey said, with amusement.

They both moved closer to the dining table.

‘Okay, as I thought. This file here is full of kiddie porn. Over three thousand images to be exact.’

‘Bastard,’ Bryant said. And Kim hoped that if it was Ernest Beckett mangled in the metal that he’d been alive at the time.

‘Not so fast,’ Stacey said, hovering her mouse over one short line of data amongst the thousands.

‘That is the only image that’s been viewed.’

‘Why?’ Kim asked, surprised. ‘Not normal behaviour for a paedophile.’

‘To check, I think,’ Stacey said. ‘Because I don’t think he downloaded them. Not intentionally anyway. They all landed on his computer on the same day. Nothing before and nothing since. He accessed one single image as though making sure that’s what they were.’

‘Blackmail?’ Kim asked.

‘Looks like it. I’ve got the email the attachment was embedded in. It came as a chance to win a holiday. Pretty poor and amateurish but to the naked eye convincing enough; but as soon as he pressed on the link to enter the images downloaded.’

‘I’m thinking there must have been some kind of follow-up message somewhere to tell him what to do, so I’ll carry on going through his emails and stuff.’

‘And you say there was a complaint at work?’

Stacey nodded. ‘An anonymous letter stating he’d acted inappropriately with one of his cases.’

‘But if he’d done everything they wanted, why do that anyway?’ Bryant asked. ‘He got them the file, handed it over so…’

‘Unless he said no. Maybe he had some sudden rush of conscience and said he was going to the police,’ Bryant said.

‘Could be,’ Kim agreed, taking out her phone.

She took the card from her pocket that she’d grabbed earlier and called the number.

The probation officer for John Duggar answered on the second ring.

Kim offered her a brief outline of what they’d found and then asked the all-important question. There was no hesitation from the woman in answering.

‘Absolutely not,’ she said. ‘John Duggar would not be remotely capable of executing anything near what you’ve described.’

Yes, that was exactly what she’d thought.

‘But I think he’d know a man who could.’





One Hundred Sixteen





Bryant ended the call and turned to her.

‘Yep, Officer Gennard confirmed that Duggar’s cellmate for five months was one Derek Lowry who was inside for cyber theft and selling on stolen identities. Could easily have cooked up the message with the images imbedded.’

‘Great, you get an address?’