Ghost in the Machine: Scott Cullen Book One by Ed James

Author:Ed James [James, Ed]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781479124848
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2012-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

"Big wow," said Bain.

Cullen was showing him the printout. They were at the meeting table in the Incident Room, McNeill sitting opposite Cullen. "Why is he stealing laptops?" he asked.

"I don't bloody know, do I?" said Bain. "Maybe he's a thief."

"Caroline's laptop was on her bed when I went round there on Friday," said Cullen. "Someone's been in the flat between me going round there and Caroline's body being found."

"You serious?" asked Bain.

McNeill looked up.

"Yes. I saw that laptop with my own eyes. A MacBook. Not a particularly new one, mind. It's not on the SOC manifest. I checked Debi's manifest too, hers is gone as well."

"For Christ sake."

Just then, DCI Turnbull appeared, making a beeline for Bain. "Here's trouble," muttered Bain, moving over to his own desk.

McNeill wheeled her chair over to Cullen's desk.

Cullen flicked through his notebook. "I looked at Caroline's laptop just after 12.30pm on Friday." He went to the latest page. "I asked the SOCOs, they got to her flat at half eleven on Saturday morning."

"So there's a twenty-three hour window where someone got into Caroline's flat and stole her laptop," she said. "It's got to be the killer."

"The other thing the SOCOs told me," said Cullen, "Caroline's keys were missing from her possessions at the hotel."

"So we can link the two, then," she said. "He took her keys to get into the flat, so no break-in. Why did he take her laptop?"

"Well," said Cullen, "the reason I found out that the laptops were missing, was that Charlie Kidd reckoned he might be able to track the other user from the chats if he had them." McNeill looked mystified. "He found an IP address for Martin Webb, but it was fake. He reckoned there might be some useful data on Caroline's or Debi's laptops from when they'd chatted with Martin Webb. That's why I was trying to get one or other back from the SOCOs."

"So he had the same thoughts and he's covering his tracks?"

"Aye. It's another dead end."

He stroked the back of his neck, thinking.

"There might be another way," he eventually said, looking at her. "They could have been chatting from their work computers."

She nodded. "Good idea. I'll get Charlie or Dave on to it. We'll need a RIPSA."

She returned to her machine and found the form. They were now experts at filling in the forms and it took them only a couple of minutes before they printed it out.

"Let's see if we can get it approved," said McNeill.

They looked over at Bain and Turnbull. Bain's body language was defensive.

"Right, Jim, I'll get someone onto that," said Bain, loud enough for their benefit.

"Please do, Brian," said Turnbull, "I'm sure there are synergies we can leverage here."

Turnbull nodded at them and walked off at pace.

"Leveraging bloody synergies," muttered Bain. He looked up at Cullen and McNeill. "Right, where were we?" he asked, getting to his feet.

McNeill explained the situation.

"Right, Butch, I want you and a few big ugly bastards in uniforms going round the doors in Caroline's street, see if anybody saw anything when he was swiping her laptop.

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