Aslan230: I’m here.
TORquil: Not like you to be punctual.
Aslan230: Very funny. What do you have for me?
TORquil: Data’s in the drop box. Beyond that, the mobile Dialogos is interested in is physically located in Pittsburgh, USA. Of interest to you, I suspect, the phone itself is inside a police station there.
Aslan230: A police station? How, in God’s name, did you access it?
TORquil: It was still charged and it wasn’t in a Faraday cage. Modern phones are greedy for data. So long as they are on and have access to a signal, they are always reaching out for the weather, or the time, or the state of local traffic. The phone doesn’t care if it’s in a police station or not, it still looks for data. It was easy enough to persuade it to take in hackware disguised as innocent looking information. As for not being in a Faraday cage, perhaps the American police were also poking around, or maybe they were just careless.
Aslan230: Did they detect you? The Americans are good at cyber.
TORquil: I don’t think so. Dialogos warned me the phone was in police hands. I was very careful.
Aslan230: What else can you tell me?
TORquil: The phone belongs to a woman by the name of Lindsay Harris Delcade, now deceased. She was found dead some days ago inside a local school, Calderhill Academy. Murder, no less. The academy is open only to the American nomenklatura: very exclusive and extremely prestigious. Link to local media is here. Not a lot of coverage. Americans kill each other a lot, I think, so maybe not very interesting to them.
Aslan230: Thank you TORquil – payment will be as promised. Goodnight.
Morosov leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. The short English day was already at an end, the office windowpanes splashed with streetlight. A pair of double-decker buses rumbled by outside, one immediately behind the other, their brightly lit interiors crammed with shoppers. Morosov paid them no attention, his eyes fixed on the smooth plaster above his head. Broad fingers played an absent-minded tattoo on the edge of his desk.
‘Anything interesting?’ Dianna asked. She disposed of the last possible Pittsburgh church photo with a tired swirl of the mouse. It had been a tedious, eye-aching day.
‘Possible yes,’ Morosov replied. He fired over TORquil’s link to the Lindsay Delcade murder story. ‘Our target has interest in mobile phone of dead woman.’
Dianna, happy to be doing something other than looking at pictures of orthodox churchgoers, ran quickly through the available information. She read it out loud, her voice crisp and natural, like an actor reading well-rehearsed lines.
Parent Found Murdered at Elite Private School.
A woman was found dead this morning in the basement of Calderhill Academy, one of the region’s most prestigious private schools. The school, on Joseph Avenue, Pittsburgh, has been closed today while detectives canvass the area. Pittsburgh police department confirmed that a forty-one-year-old woman has been found dead at the scene but refused to provide further details. However, family members have revealed the victim to be Lindsay Harris Delcade, forty-one, of Fox Chapel PA. Other sources alleged that she had been stabbed …
Dianna’s voice faded away. She consumed the rest of the article in silence.
‘Well this is interesting,’ she said, looking up. ‘At least, if your taste runs to the lurid. A wealthy, well-connected woman done to death inside her children’s school. Ongoing investigations into a possibly interrupted drug deal. No named suspects. Wow. This would have been real tabloid stuff if it had happened over here.’
‘Da. But what is interest of target in this woman?’ Morosov was frowning. ‘Target run great risk to get information of mobile phone. Great risk. Why he do this?’
‘A lover?’ Dianna suggested. ‘He must be close to her.’
‘Possible, yes.’ Morosov leered at the photograph on his computer screen. ‘Good looking woman. I would – how is saying? – bend over wheelie bin.’ He took no notice of Dianna’s pained expression. ‘But if lover, why need phone? Phone not tell him thing he does not know.’
‘Lots of people keep secrets from their lovers.’
‘Da, but target good at find secrets. In this case, if he lover, he no need phone. So he has other connection, yes?’
‘It says here that Muzz Delcade,’ Dianna pronounced ‘Ms’ in the British fashion and with a hint of disapproval, ‘was a homemaker and mother of two. So she can’t have interacted with your target professionally. She didn’t have a profession. Unless …’
‘Unless, what?’
‘Well … the only professions that a housewife is likely to interact with are doctors and teachers – because of the children.’
‘Target not doctor. Not in wildest dreams.’
‘Teacher, then.’
‘So. Find website of this …?’
‘Calderhill Academy.’
‘Da.’
Once again cursing the annoying sweater, Morosov leaned over Dianna’s shoulder while she surfed the web. It took her only seconds to locate the website for Calderhill Academy, Pittsburgh. As with all American sites, Calderhill Academy’s was high-gloss and full of information: page after page of sleek-looking, overenthusiastic children and mindlessly grinning teachers. There was gushing prose about how a rounded education was more important than going to a good college, juxtaposed with long lists of the good colleges that Calderhill’s children were headed to. And, on one discreet page, the cost of attendance.
‘Good God,’ Dianna muttered. ‘How many people can afford this?’
‘Plenty. Is America. Everybody rich. Find teachers now, yes?’ Tired of leaning, Morosov stood up straight to stretch his back.
‘Here we are. It looks to be alphabetical rather than by seniority, starting with a Mr Gregory Abimbola.’
That got Morosov’s attention.
‘A black man?’
‘It’s America. I’m sure they have lots of BAME teachers.’
‘Enough with this BAME. Is black. And this American school for rich childs, yes? American black is poor. This, everyone knows. Not normal for rich American childs have black teacher. What he teach, this black man?’
‘French – and Russian.’
‘Nu nifiga sebe!’ Morosov bent down again, his chin practically on Dianna’s collarbone. ‘Open up. Quick.’
‘OK, OK. Keep your shirt on … Here we go. Hmmmm. He’s English by the looks of it. B.A. in Russian Studies and International Relations from the University of Birmingham; M.A. from Bristol—’
‘There no picture.’
‘Clearly.’
‘Check other teacher. See if picture.’
‘Alright. Er … yes.’ Dianna peered critically at her computer screen. ‘I’ll bet he’s been photoshopped, though.’
‘Another.’
‘OK. Let’s look at this one. Yep. She has one too. Photoshopped for sure.’
Dianna proceeded down the list. Every teacher they looked at had a picture on the website.
‘Stop. Who this?’ Morosov asked.
‘Dr Demetrius Freedman. Chemistry, by the look of it.’
‘He is black. Long face. Like Maasai warrior … Is good. I see enough. School give picture for every teacher, even black teacher who might scare away parent. Every teacher except …’
‘Gregory Abimbola.’
‘Da. Dianna, you wonderful woman. Buy me ticket to Pittsburgh tomorrow morning leaving. Then you go home, enjoy rest of weekend. Maybe even get under big strong man.’ He clapped her on the shoulder and returned to his desk. He was almost bouncing up and down with excitement.
Dianna made the arrangements, her cheeks tinged a delicate shade of red.