Ghost in the Machine (7 page)

Cullen asked the guy at the nearest desk for Gregor Aitchison. He pointed to the far corner at a fat man with a beard, wearing combat trousers and a violent orange t-shirt. They crossed the room and he lumbered to his feet as they approached.

Cullen showed his warrant card. McNeill had agreed he should lead, as she wasn't formally assigned to the case. "Gregor Aitchison?"

"Aye. What do you want?"

"We spoke on the phone," said Cullen. "About a missing person."

Aitchison stared at the floor. "I told you. You need a warrant."

"All we're looking for is a little bit of information that may help us contact one of your users," said Cullen.

Aitchison closed his eyes for a few seconds. "Fine. I'll see if there's anything I can do. There's a limit to what I can give out, mind."

"Sure."

Aitchison's desk was covered in rubbish. He grabbed a handful from a big bag of cheese Doritos.

Cullen and McNeill found some unoccupied chairs and sat down.
 

Cullen moved a half-eaten ham and mushroom Pot Noodle onto the floor. "You might want to think about some sort of security here. We just walked right in."

Aitchison raised his eyebrows. "I'll get that looked at."

Cullen didn't imagine he would. "As I said on the phone earlier, the missing person we're looking for is a user of Schoolbook. We have reason to believe she met someone on your site and arranged to meet up with him, a man called Martin Webb. We believe she went on a date with him on Wednesday, which is when she was last heard from."

Aitchison finished chewing and rubbed his orange-stained fingers against his trousers. "What's this woman's user name then?"

"Caroline Adamson."

Aitchison navigated to Caroline's profile and retrieved a list of what looked like her friends. He wiped his hands on his trousers again and ran his finger down the screen, leaving a cheesy smudge. "You're right. He's a friend of hers."

"Can you check for any activity in the account since Wednesday?"

"Sure." Aitchison went into another window and tapped some keys. "Got something. Somebody tried to access her account today."

Cullen's heart fluttered. "What?"

"About twelve thirty-five," said Aitchison.
 

"It was me," said Cullen.

McNeill frowned. "You were trying to log into her account?"
 

"It was already logged in," said Cullen, "I was trying to look at his profile."

Aitchison took another handful of Doritos. "Database agrees with you. Says she was still logged in from Wednesday night. Account was sitting dormant till you got chucked out."

"Doesn't it time out?" said Cullen.

"It's not that smart yet," said Aitchison. "Only chucks you out when you try to do something. Next release, maybe."

"Has there been anything else?"

"There's a fair amount of messages between these two accounts," said Aitchison. "Hundreds, goes back months."

McNeill raised her eyebrows. "Did you say
hundreds
?"
 

"Aye," said Aitchison. "At least a hundred and fifty each."

"Can you give us a copy of the messages and any information about Martin Webb?" said Cullen.

Aitchison looked round at him. "Look, pal, it's not me who sets the rules, okay? I told you on the phone, if you've not got a warrant, then I can't give you anything. If I got caught doing this, my knackers would swing. And anyway I'd need a DBA for what you're after."

"A what?"

Aitchison rolled his eyes. "A database administrator. I'd have to get one of them allocated to this if you wanted access to the tables or any extracts done. It all costs, you know. We run a pretty tight ship here. We're not like an American start-up."

Cullen thought about mentioning the lax security at the front door again, but he let it pass. "Can you print them out?"

"On what?" said Aitchison. "We don't have a printer here."

"You're kidding me."

"No." Aitchison sniffed and took a drink from the bottle. "Nobody uses them for anything other than photos these days."

"What about personal details?" said Cullen. "Email addresses, house address, phone number?"

"I'll see what I can do," said Aitchison, "but, if anyone asks, I didn't give you it, right?"

Cullen nodded at him. "Your secret's safe with us."

Aitchison looked through screens of data, frowning. "There's no postal address." He tapped away again. "Got an email address, mind. [email protected]."

"Shite," said Cullen. "That's obviously made up."

Aitchison narrowed his brow. "No it's not, pal. We've got a ton of users on there. I've got an account myself."

Cullen was dumbfounded. "Intarwubs?"

"Aye, it's magic," said Aitchison. "Funny videos and that. Pisses all over YouTube. There's talk of us buying the site outright."

Cullen scribbled the email address in his notebook, still not believing it was valid.

"What else can you tell us about him from your database?" said McNeill.

Aitchison sighed. "Look, I've pushed it really wide here giving you that. Any more and it's got to be a warrant."

McNeill closed her eyes. "Can you access the messages they've exchanged?"
 

"I can," said Aitchison.

She leaned in close to him "Could you?"

"I could."

"For us?"

Aitchison looked at her, his mouth practically hanging open. "No, I can't. It's got to be a warrant."

*
*
*

McNeill drove, taking the back way along the A71. As they crossed the City Bypass it was nose to tail, Friday early leavers contending badly with the relentless rain.
 

"Do you think we'll get a warrant for Schoolbook?" said Cullen.

"It's all up to Bain, really," said McNeill. "We need a RIPSA request."

Cullen nodded - Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Scotland) Act. "I've used that before, but only to get texts or numbers off a mobile, not to extract chunks of a private database."

"Aye, same here," said McNeill. "The form needs the authorisation of a superior officer - Bain would do, but it'll probably get referred up the way. Who knows where it'll end up."

"You tried flirting the information out of that poor guy, didn't you?" said Cullen.

"Aye, fat lot of good it did us." McNeill smirked. "Are you jealous?"

Cullen felt himself redden.

"That's not the issue right now," said McNeill. "Scott needs a RIPSA. Can he get it?"

"Let me think about it," said Bain.

They had been at it hammer and tongs since they got back to the station. McNeill was becoming increasingly aggressive, with Bain digging his heels in more. Cullen kept catching people looking over, people who obviously knew Bain's reputation and just laughed it off.

"You've had more than enough time to think about it," said McNeill.

"I can't hear myself think with you nipping my head all the time." Bain glared at her for a few moments. "Listen, Butch, I do need to have a proper think about this. It's political. Besides, I put Cullen on this one - you shouldn't even have been out there."

"Scott asked me for support," said McNeill. "I'm a DS, he's a DC, he needed my support so I gave it."

Bain looked at Cullen. "This true?"

"Aye."

"Fair enough," said Bain.

McNeill pushed a form across the table. "We just need this authorised and then we'll stop nipping your head."

Bain grabbed it from her and read it. He tapped the tabletop for a few seconds. "I need to speak to DCI Turnbull about this."

"Why can't you just authorise it?" McNeill's voice rose as she spoke. "Why do you need to speak to Turnbull? This information might help us find a missing person."

"Calm it, Butch," said Bain. "There was a memo came out about this a couple of months ago. We need to be very careful with what we're doing with these powers." He sniffed. "The press can be real arseholes when it comes to us nicking people's mobiles and hacking into their emails. It's all this shite about privacy these days, nothing about us catching murderers or anything."

McNeill grimaced. "Can you go and speak to Jim, or do you want me to?"
 

Bain's nostrils flared as he got to his feet. "Right. I'll go and see if I can catch him." He marched off with the form.

McNeill pinched the bridge of her nose. "Why does everything have to be such a bloody ordeal with him?"
 

"Cos he's a prick?"

"You're right." McNeill looked around her desk. "Back to that cold case, then. I need to see James Anderson in Scene of Crime. If I'm not back in ten minutes, send a search party." She got up and trudged off.

Cullen opened up intarwubs.com. It was full of techy jokes and cartoons, with links to a few sites that looked like FHM but even less classy. He eventually found a contact number for a company called Infinite Communications. A quick Google showed the company ran several similar sites - yummymummy.com, chiefexec.com and premiershipbanter.com. Opportunists, he thought.

Cullen dialled the number and, after a few transfers, was put through to someone who could assist. "I'm trying to find out who set up an email address on your site."

"I understand you're with the police?"

Cullen gave his warrant number.

"And it's for the user big underscore martin underscore webb at intarwubs? I'll see what I can do then get back to you, is that okay?"

"How long?" said Cullen.

"I'm not sure. There are a few procedures I need to go through before I can give the information out, but it shouldn't be too long."

"I'll wait." Cullen sat listening to hold music, tinny and slightly out of tune. After three minutes of waiting, his mobile rang in his jacket pocket. He put the other phone on the desk and answered the mobile.

"DC Cullen?" A woman's voice. "This is Debi Curtis, we met earlier?"

Cullen was unsure why she was calling. "How can I help?"

"I was just checking my Schoolbook account. Just called to say I hadn't heard from Caroline for three weeks. I think I said a week when we met earlier. Sorry."

"That's okay." Cullen struggled to understand why she was calling about that.

"She was chatting about Jack in the message," said Debi. "She did say she'd got a new man on the scene. Oh and I think she'd had a row with Rob about Jack."

Cullen sat forward. "What did she say?"

"He'd cancelled picking Jack up at the last minute. Caroline said it was the second time in a couple of months."

"And did you reply?"

There was a pause. "No, I didn't. It was still sitting unread until I checked. Haven't had the time, I'm afraid."

"Can I ask when you last contacted Mr Thomson?" said Cullen.

"Not for a good six months. I went out for drinks with him and Kim. I think it was her birthday. I didn't really have anything to say to her, but I still get on with Rob. He occasionally makes a comment about some of my posts on Schoolbook, but if you're asking about personal messages, then there's nothing."

"Okay. If you do hear from Caroline, please give me a call."

He put the mobile on the desk and picked up the other handset, still the same hold music. He wondered if the argument with Rob was anything important.
 

McNeill came back to her desk with a bigger scowl than the one she'd left with.
 

"No need for the search party, then?" said Cullen.

"No," said McNeill. "Actually, our Scene of Crime Unit might need them to help search for a clue."

Cullen laughed.

The voice came back on the line. "DC Cullen?"

"Have you got anything for me?"

"Why yes, I have. The account was set up three months ago." He read out the details Martin Webb had provided - age twenty-nine, full name Martin David Webb, place of birth Belfast. "And there's a CV as well."

Cullen was perplexed. "A CV?"

Cullen could almost hear him smiling down the phone line. "Our site's heavily used by technology professionals for networking."

Cullen wondered why technology professionals would be posting public information about themselves on a site covered in glamour models. "Can you send it through?" He gave his email address.

"No problem." There were a few clicks and taps. "That should be in your inbox now."

"Is there any other information you can give?" said Cullen.

"Nope, I'm afraid that's it."

"Okay, thanks for your help." Cullen ended the call and opened up his email program. There was one from a generic address at Intarwubs dot com, sitting at the head of the usual long list of memos. He clicked on the attachment - the machine took an age to open it.

McNeill looked over his shoulder. "What's that?"

"Martin Webb's CV," said Cullen as he read the document. "Holy shit - there's an address."

Cullen struggled to find a parking space on Arden Street. Cars were double parked on the street, so Cullen joined them.

McNeill scrawled
'On Police Business'
on an old envelope and placed it on the dashboard.

They got out and looked up and down the road. They were parked outside number thirty-four, which was a stair door. The main door flats either side displayed no numbers.

Cullen pointed to the right. "They start low at the Warrender Park Road end." He then nodded at the main door on the left. "This must be thirty-six."

McNeill raised an eyebrow. "Well deduced."

He grinned as he rang the bell.

The door opened slightly and a woman's head appeared in the gap. "Hello?" Her accent was American.

He showed his warrant card and introduced them.

She opened the door fully. An extremely fluffy ginger cat swarmed around her thin ankles. "Anne Smythe."

"Ms Smythe," said Cullen, "we're looking for Martin Webb."

Smythe frowned. "Martin Webb?"

"Yes," said Cullen. "This is the address he gave on a CV."

"There's no Martin Webb here," said Smythe. "Just myself and my husband."

"What about any old post you get?" said McNeill.

"We've been here for ten years," said Smythe. "I'm afraid I don't recognise that name at all."