Conspiracy Theory Pt. 02

"I thought the original was lost?" He asked. She nodded.

"As did we – however last week something tried to access the mainframe within the Otaku research facility," She said. "Kyushu recognised it immediately – it was nearly identical to the program we tried to acquire five years ago, only more…polished, more inventive in its nature."

"How do you know it's the same thing?" He asked as he took his turn to take a drink. "I mean, couldn't it be those hackers that you had trouble with a couple of months ago?"

"Togusa thought that initially, then we realised whatever was trying to get in was attempting to do so by duplicating an access code of someone who was already logged in." Yuriko paused for a moment. "My access code in fact. It had identified me as being the highest ranked member logged on and used that to circumvent most of the security protocols. Kyushu reacted by disabling the only connection it could have come in from; the Central Government network. It took three days for Kyushu to reconstruct the firewalls in our system."

"Great," he muttered. "So, not only was our attempt to grab it five years ago a balls up someone else got hold of the finished program and is using it." He shook his head. "Jesus…" Yuriko looked at the clock on the wall.

"I'm sorry Gideon, but you need to go."

"Okay," he said as he got up. "I'll see what I can find out and I'll be in touch." He moved away and then stopped. Gideon looked back at her. "It's nice to see you again Yuri." The use of the pet name he'd made up for her one night six years ago made her smile. Then he turned and left the establishment, leaving her alone again.

****

Dan made it to the coffee house ten minutes early. As he walked past the window he saw the Japanese lady whom he was meeting sitting at a table in the rear third of the establishment involved in what appeared to be quite an intense conversation with a generic looking guy dressed in jeans and a faded black jacket. For some reason he couldn't quite put his finger on, he held back from entering and disturbing them. He watched them as they continued to talk, then the stranger got up and left.

As he left the coffee shop Dan tried to take a photograph of him with his camera phone. Even though the image wasn't fantastic, it still provided him with a reasonable likeness of the unknown figure. Once he was confident that the interloper wouldn't be returning, he entered the coffee house.

The Voice, Ludgate Circus

Amy rubbed her eyes as she tried in vain to stave off her hangover. At the same time she kept flicking through the various snippets of information that had been filtering in through the Reuters news feeds. She always skimmed the obituaries. Her first job as a journalist had included updating the canned bios that the newspaper kept ready. Today there were various foreigners. They didn't interest her. Nor did the footballer. Her eye lingered longer on the bureaucrat. Sir Nathaniel Parry. Brief illness. Blah blah blah.

She was about to turn the page when she realized that something had caught her eye. What had it been? Five frustrating minutes later she found it. 'One of his final responsibilities was chairing the IT committee IDCES.' That was odd, she thought. Two senior members of the same committee dead. Oh well these things happened. But it reminded her. She'd been spending so much time researching Close's other activities she hadn't really looked at this committee. There would be nothing to it, but she would send off a Freedom of Information request to obtain the minutes of the committee meetings – all she'd managed to determine so far was who had actually been on the committee with Close. She'd end up with a mass of nothing, but it would prove she was on the job. As she sat there, a shadow appeared over her desk

"Please, don't talk too loudly." She pleaded with whoever was standing behind her.

"Don't worry," Paul Dixon said. "Nights out with Kirk invariably lead to a hangover. So, what's on today?"

"Not much – I've been looking through some of the stuff that we pulled on Close's career and speaking to people about him – all round nice chap it seems." Amy said. Paul picked up a sheet of paper from the printer.

"Mmm, looks like the boy racers were busy the other day as well." He muttered. "Burned out wreck of a car on the Marston Industrial Estate – wasn't that close to where Doctor Close lived?" Amy looked at it then crosschecked against a piece of paper on her desk. She grabbed the Dictaphone from out of her draw and paused to snatch her coat from the rack behind her. "Was it something I said?"

"I'll be back in a bit." She said as she scampered out of the office.

****

"I still don't understand how I can help you?" Dan said as he stirred his tea. He looked at Yuriko; her face was an almost impenetrable mask of calm. "I mean, you think that someone here, in the UK, stole a computer program from your corporation and you're trying to locate them to serve them with some sort of subpoena?"

"That's sort of the situation, yes." Yuriko answered. "All I'm asking is that if you hear anything that you contact me." She removed a small card from her jacket pocket and passed it to Dan. He looked at it for a moment before he transferred it to his jacket pocket.

"I'll keep my ears open," Dan said as he got up, eyeing Yuriko with a degree of suspicion. "But I don't completely believe you."

"Be that as it may Crossman-san, I would appreciate whatever assistance you might be able to render in my direction." It was Yuriko's turn to stand. "I hope to hear from you soon." She inclined her head slightly before leaving Dan in the coffee shop. He stood there and scratched his head for a second before leaving himself.

Once he was outside and in the fresh air he made his way back to his car, parked around the corner from the establishment. Once he was inside the vehicle he grabbed his cell phone. After failing to locate Amy at their office, he called her mobile number. It rang several times before she answered it.

"Amy, it's Dan," he said as he put his keys into the ignition of his car. "I've gotten a bit sidetracked on my way up north."

"Yeah – I gathered that." She answered. "I can't talk at the minute Dan, I'll speak to you when you get back. I think I'm onto something but I need to check out a few things myself first."

"Okay. I'm about to send you a picture to your phone – see if you can find out anything about this person and I'll speak to you later." Dan replied as he ended the call. Once he had sent the picture to her phone and buckled himself in he fired up the engine and pulled away.

****

Amy stashed her phone. She looked around at the desk sergeant and tried her best smile.

"I really need to talk to…" she paused as she consulted the business card in her pocket. "Edward Simmons – it's really rather urgent."

"I gathered that Miss Hemmings," the desk sergeant replied. "However the Inspector's out at the minute – if you'd like to take a seat I can get him to see you when he comes back."

"When will that be?" Amy asked. The desk sergeant shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "Right, well can you get him to ring me as soon as he's back?" She asked as she scribbled her mobile phone number on a scrap of paper. "Thanks."

The Casterbridge Hotel

Simmons found himself grimacing at the scene before him. Even though he'd seen many deaths, the whole murder-suicide thing always left him feeling slightly bereft of himself. His mind was awash with questions as to how such a situation could possibly have reached this extreme in this day and age, after all, it's not like a lesbian affair was something that crippled careers these days. In fact, Simmons was certain that it had enhanced some colleague's promotion opportunities.

As the repetitive flash of the crime scene photographer's camera continued to illuminate the dull surroundings – no one had disturbed the curtains as yet, despite the discovery of the bodies nearly ninety minutes ago – he became aware of some sort of excitement between the medical examiner and her junior counterpart.

"Make sure you get a clear picture of this," she said. Her name was Evans or Griffiths or something Welsh in origin from what Simmons could recall. "It's important."

"Why?" Simmons asked. Davis – that was her name – the neurons in his brain firing on all cylinders.

"Well, ordinarily when someone slashes their wrists you get the initial hesitation cuts," Davis said as she carefully placed one arm back on the bed before lifting the other. "You know, they're testing their pain threshold, then you get the deeper cuts that sever the artery. However, on this person here, there aren't any hesitation cuts."

"That's a first." Simmons mused. Davis shrugged her shoulders.

"It's unusual I'll give you that, especially for a woman, but not totally unheard of." She said.

"Thanks doc," he said as he checked his notebook one last time. "I think I've got everything I need from here – let me know if you find anything else…weird." He stepped out of the room and headed down the hallway towards the elevators, muddled thoughts floating around his head desperately seeking clarity.

By the time Simmons had returned to the Police station he'd been bouncing several thoughts around his head. This was the third death in his area in the first three days of the week – even for the capital that was an increase on the statistical norm for this time of the year. He entered the station through the back entrance, located near the car park. As he did so he made his way through the holding cells and to the staircase. Just as he made it half way up the first flight a uniformed officer coming in the opposite direction stopped him.

"Simmons, there's someone here to see you." He said. "Right little pest – went away and came back again when you hadn't returned within the hour."

"Where is she now?" Simmons asked.

"I put her in interview room three." The uniformed officer said.

Bryant House, the Phoenix Industrial Estate

Inside an unfeasibly large benefit processing office located in a somewhat generic industrial estate overlooking a canal, sitting at a desk that management often criticised for being far too messy to represent productivity, sat the diminutive figure of Eric Allen. After spending the best part of a decade working in the IT systems of the DWP – and its predecessor, the DSS – Eric found himself a home in the role of a quality assurance checker and security analyst. His receding hair, milk bottle glasses and nervous demeanour were overlooked by his supervisor who valued his ability to produce quotas of clearances in excess of anyone else under her management.

Each day would bring with it its own unique challenge – at least, that's the way Eric liked to see it. He picked up a pile of TPS reports and began to sift through them. To the uninitiated these pieces of paper were filled with line upon line of numbers and letters; yet to Eric each piece of paper sang a song more complex than the greatest aria's composed by Puccini, Verdi or Bizet. Where others saw simply numbers, he saw streams of data that told a story.

And this is where the problem began for Eric on this Wednesday morning. He studied the latest series of TPS reports that had been passed to him by the secure printers that sat somewhere in the depths of the building and found himself utterly confused by them. The entries on the report simply didn't tally up with anything he'd seen before. He looked around his section for a moment before picking up the telephone. As he dialled the number he found that his palms were sweaty.

"Hi there, it's Eric Allen on Corporate Governance here…yeah, I'm not too bad actually Andy, look, have you got five minutes in your capacity as security administrator for me to run something by you?" Eric said nervously. "Great, I'll be down in a bit – I think I've got a real security breach."

****

"You know that I can't reveal any information to you concerning an ongoing investigation," Simmons said as he looked at the pieces of paper Amy had thrust into his hand. "All I can publicly say is that we're aware of a incident at the Marston Industrial Estate on Monday and we're investigating it."

"Is it connected to the death of Doctor Donald Close?" Amy asked. Simmons paused for a second, his brow furrowing before he shook his head while he took another glance at the piece of paper. Two further names on the list jumped out at him courtesy of his grisly early morning wake up call.

"I can't divulge that information Miss Hemmings." He replied. "I appreciate you coming in though and bringing this information to my attention – I'll look at it when I get chance." Amy looked at him, almost glaring at him.

"There's something else, isn't there? Something you're not telling me." She challenged him. He shook his head.

"Look, I can't say anything because it might compromise my investigation." He replied. However, he took a pen out of his pocket and scribbled something on the back of one of the pieces of paper before thrusting it back into her hand. "Now I have to go Miss Hemmings, good day to you." Simmons showed her out of the interview room and then left her almost as quickly as he'd arrived. She almost stumbled out of the Police station before looking at the piece of paper he'd put in her hand.

There were two words inside that screwed up scrap of paper.

Casterbridge Hotel.

****

"Shit!" Andy exclaimed as he slammed the telephone down. Eric looked at him, his chubby frame almost spilling out of the chair Andy sat in. "Answer phone again."

"Are you sure this Sally Williams will be able to help?" Eric asked.

"She should do, she's the head of the IT procurement project board that I attended the other month." Andy replied. "But you're right – this data index code is nothing like anything we're using – it's a completely alien system, and those national insurance numbers are complete bullshit, they don't follow the right pattern."

"That's what I thought – I've cross checked them against the benefits system and up until two weeks ago these folks never existed – they simply appeared and started getting full Income Support and Incapacity Benefits." Eric said. "There are no adjudication packs and no documentation to support them."

"Are we sure that these just aren't folks who arrived in the country?" Andy asked, hoping to find a banal explanation for the discrepancy staring them in the face. Eric shook his head.

"Nope, names and addresses are all registered in this country but to different people." He pulled a piece of paper out of the pile. "See, the Howard family – mom, dad, crippled kid – are registered as living at two three five, Dennis Hall Road," he then picked out another piece of paper. "I checked the residential records against local electoral rolls and the Revenue & Customs database – the actual residents of that address are the King family, with three kids and have been there for fifteen years. This record – the Howard family – simply didn't exist on the Departmental Central Index up until two weeks ago."

Andy shook his head, unable to fault his colleague's investigative work to verify that he himself hadn't made an elementary mistake in analysing the data that was in front of him.

"I've found thirty five entries like this," Eric added. "Each of them raking in the best part of two hundred quid a week in automated benefit payments."

"Have you been able to trace the payment destination?"

"Nope," Eric said. "It goes into a Building Society holding account – once it's in there it could go anywhere and we couldn't track it."

"Bollocks." Andy said as he picked the phone up and dialled again. "Fucking message service again." He gritted his teeth for a moment. "Sally, it's Andy Dawson from Bryant House, we've got a security issue here and I need to talk to you about it urgently…"

****

Simmons sat down at his desk and felt like something had gone seriously wrong with his day as he ran through what he'd discussed with the young reporter thirty minutes previously. He wondered who had tipped her off about the car they'd found on the industrial estate – not that he thought it was directly related to Close, but the dead body of a security official, from MI5 particularly, always set people on edge.

Taking the time to be certain he leafed through his notebook to the comments he'd transcribed from their first encounter. Again, nothing of importance there – and then he recalled that the car had been discovered after he'd spoken to Crossman and Hemmings. He reached over to his telephone and dialled a number from memory. The line rang out several times, prompting Simmons to consider hanging up.

"Pryke." The voice on the other end answered.

"Hey there, it's Ed." Simmons said. "Listen, I think I've got a Box Five Hundred problem."

Thornton Road, Bradford,

2:15pm

The engine in his car sounded laboured as Dan steered it around the streets of Bradford. The area he found himself in was littered with row upon row of terraced housing. As much as he hated them himself, the northern town's history had made them a necessity during the Industrial Revolution and they had remained a prominent feature of it ever since.

There was one particular property that Dan was searching for – one that he hoped would provide him with some background on Close's other work within government outside of his role in the Iraq survey group. That was prospective Conservative Party candidate Anita Rodriguez. He brought his car to a standstill and exited, quickly finding the constituency office in the ground floor of a detached house midway along the street. As he approached the building he could see the campaign stickers adorning the windows.

He knocked on the door and took a deep breath – this was the always the hardest part.

The Casterbridge Hotel

It hadn't taken long for Amy to get one of the porters to tell her what had happened at the hotel the previous evening. After speaking to several other members of staff to confirm that it hadn't been a case of mistaken identify she found herself sitting in a quiet corner of the bar looking at the piece of paper that Simmons had given to her, then at the copies of the paperwork she hadn't handed over to him.

She took a moment to consider everything in front of her then took a few minutes to make more notes on the piece of paper before reaching an inevitable conclusion. The four deaths in the last three days – a suicide, death by apparently natural causes and a murder/suicide – had all been members of the same inter-departmental board.

The Inter Departmental Committee for the Evaluation of Software.

She sat back in the chair and found herself chewing idly on the pen in her hand. As she stared at the information she had collated it just struck her.

Either that's some really terrible luck, or something far more sinister. Then a second thought drifted through her head. Why would someone go around killing people on a software committee?

Thornton Road, Bradford

Dan sat in the small back room that doubled up as Anita's office at the rear of the property and cradled a cup of tea in his hands. He reasoned that this was probably once a study attached to the second living room, but the conversion of the lower part of the house into campaign offices had rendered the room obsolete in the main. He waited as Anita finished talking to her research assistant before joining him and took the opportunity to take in the photographs that adorned the walls. There were a variety of pictures, each of them featuring Anita with progressive Conservative Party leaders starting with a black and white photo of Margaret Thatcher when Anita couldn't have been any more than eighteen years old and ending with a more recent colour picture of Anita shaking hands with David Cameron at what appeared to be some sort of rally.