The Stolen Ones

by Shy Keenan

Genres: High-tech & Sci-fi Thrillers

Synopsis

The children are sending her messages...

Dr. Cordelia Hunter has been brought in by the police's elite child protection unit to consult on their investigation into a terrifying internet paedophile ring.

Using skills she developed during her own traumatic childhood, she recognises a child being abused in the live internet film is sending out silent messages. Ones that only she can understand.

But with the clock ticking and the police frustrated by their rules and red tape, she realises she may have to make it her own mission to track down the child rapists, and the innocents they are abusing.

Before it's too late.

Release date: May 26, 2011

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 384

Sample

Chapter 11

‘Good lunch, Princess?’ Bob called, spraying half-chewed bits of sausage roll all over his copy of the Sun.

‘Fine, thanks. Just went to Prêt.’

‘Classy lunch for a classy lady.’

Cordy forced a smile as she sat down at her desk and turned on the computer. It’d been a week since their run-in, and – on the surface at least – their working relationship was surprisingly cordial. She got the distinct impression that Bob actually enjoyed riling her, so her new policy was to try not to take the bait. So far the truce was holding. They’d been working closely together on the Sex Offender Register, and Cordy had been grudgingly impressed by Bob’s no-nonsense efficiency. Less so, it had to be said, by his personal hygiene.

‘Hunter, can I talk to you a sec?’ Anthony asked, appearing in the doorway of the Ops Room with a Costa cup in hand. His dark eyes looked unusually serious.

‘Shoot.’

He pulled over a chair and sat down beside her, close enough for her to smell the freshly ground coffee and the clean citrus tang of his aftershave.

‘The good news is that we’ve managed to capture another link to the site. From the discussion boards, it looks like the clip will be live in about ten minutes. I know you’re not going to like this, but I think it might be better if you sit this one out.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘It’s not that anyone thinks you can’t handle it. But trust me, what they’re putting out there is pretty brutal – particularly the ones featuring the old guy – and there’s really no need for you to watch it live.’

When Cordy didn’t reply straight away, he leaned closer and tried to catch her eye. ‘I mean, we’ll obviously be recording it, and capturing a series of screen-grabs too. You’ll be able to look at the relevant sections first thing tomorrow; as soon as it’s passed through the edit suite.’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘Sorry, but I should go help Reynolds set up. Incidentally, she’s not watching it. And that’s not us being sexist, it’s just—’

‘No,’ Cordy said firmly, getting her notebook out of her leather shoulder bag. ‘I appreciate your concern, but I should know exactly what we’re dealing with. I need to watch it from beginning to end so I can see the set-up for myself. It might help me profile the abusers and get more of a handle on the victims. Isn’t that what I’m here for?’

Anthony looked as if he might be about to argue, but Cordy was already halfway to the door.

‘Shouldn’t we get going?’ she called.

‘Yeah. Don’t know what the chief’s going to say but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘OK, fine. If you’re all right with watching it, I’m sure your insight would be really useful. You coming, Sampson?’

The older man let out a noisy puff of air and wiped his hands on his trousers, leaving behind a few crumbs of pastry. ‘If I must. Can think of better ways to start the afternoon than with a load of kid—’ He glanced at Cordy. ‘With a load of obscene images of children.’

Cordy rolled her eyes and moved aside to let the two detectives out of the Ops Room. She followed them down the hall to a small technical suite made even more cramped by a bulky camera, tripod and microphone system that Tammy had set up to record the clip. As Cordy peered inside she tried not to think about what she was about to see and hear, but still a tight knot of dread formed in her stomach. Child abuse didn’t scare her – for her there was no terrible mystery to it, just a sad mundanity – but watching grown men brutalising children was never fun.

Anthony held the door open, and as she passed he rested a warm hand lightly on her shoulder. The contact made her jump, but she forced out a quick, brittle smile before moving away. The knot in her stomach loosened a little. They were all in this together.

‘Right,’ said Fiona, as they knocked and entered. ‘Good afternoon, you lot. Take a seat. I’d appreciate silence while we’re watching the clip. We’ll debrief afterwards. Reynolds, you can leave now. Dr Hunter?’

Anthony jumped in. ‘It’s OK. She’s watching it too.’

Fiona gave her a hard look, and Cordy hoped that she looked tougher than she felt inside.

‘Fine,’ she said at last. ‘Sampson, pull another chair over, will you? I think there’s one under that desk in the corner.’

When they were all seated and Tammy had stuck a ‘Do Not Disturb’ notice up outside the door as she left, there were a few painfully long minutes of silence. Cordy was sure the others must be able to hear her heart thudding in her chest, as her fight-or-flight instinct kicked in. It took all her determination to stay sitting there in front of the computer, her fingers gripping her pen so tightly that her knuckles turned ghostly pale.

The page they’d been directed to was fairly basic. It could almost have been a rudimentary version of YouTube, except the box that dominated the page was still dark, and there was no way to replay old clips. Down the sides were the names of the ‘performers’: Alice. Lolita. Kurt. At the bottom of the screen was a button that allowed you to email requests to the site. There was a flat fee of £100.

‘So cheap?’ Cordy blurted out.

Bob snorted. ‘Yeah, looks like they want to offer value for money. It’s a wonder they don’t make it £99.99. They offer extras, for extra cash too.’

Fiona shot them both a stern look, but Anthony leaned over and whispered: ‘And there could be hundreds of customers all requesting similar . . . well, you know. And it’s not like anyone’s going to ask for a refund.’

Cordy’s throat filled with bile. She tried to choke it down, but the thought of all those predators, from all over the world, glued to the screen at just that second, waiting for it to begin, made her insides revolt. Waiting, just like she was. What did that make her? And meanwhile, on the other side of the camera, that little girl was waiting too. Maybe even waiting to find out if today was her turn to be abused.

Just as Cordy was convinced that she’d have to make an excuse and dash to the toilet, the dark box whirred into life.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Fiona’s face stiffen, and recognised the effort it was taking her not to turn away from the screen. It was Alice again. After the dart of recognition came a toxic anger that blurred her eyes and made her whole body tremble. Knowing she had a job to do, Cordy battled to channel her hot rage at what was being done to the girl into cool analysis. Ignoring the tears that were running down her cheeks she treated the webcam image like a grid system, and examined every coordinate in turn (left to right, top to bottom) with ruthless efficiency. She barely flinched when she found herself staring into Alice’s eyes. They stared back, as bleak and empty as black holes. No blinking. Cordy moved onto the next coordinate. It wasn’t until she’d reached the bottom left of the screen that she saw something.

Biting her lip, she scribbled a single word in her notebook and then shifted her eyes right and carried on.

The ‘show’ lasted nearly forty minutes. When the webcam was switched off it took them all a few beats to recover themselves. Bob was slouched in his chair, looking suddenly years older, and Anthony, usually so practical and upbeat, looked as though he was about to break down. When he caught Cordy looking at him he managed a watery smile.

Fiona was the first to recover. She stood up, snapped the screen off, and turned to face them.

‘All right. Thoughts, people.’

Anthony cleared his throat. ‘I think they’re getting worse – more extreme I mean.’

‘You mean rougher?’ Fiona asked.

‘Yes.’ His voice was a little unsteady. ‘It’s like they don’t even realise they’re hurting her.’

‘Agreed,’ Fiona said briskly. ‘And that fits with the trend we’ve been noting in Internet images – not just from this site. I think we can all agree that distributors are increasingly tending towards the very littlest victims, more violence, more extreme practices. Although, in this particular case, the perps could have been responding to one of the requests. Anything else?’

‘Looked like the older guy this time,’ Bob said. ‘Face obscured as usual, but I think we got a clear shot of his arm and hairline. I’ll run it through the database and see if there’re any matches.’

‘Good,’ said Fiona. ‘At least that’d be something. And hopefully we’ll be able to take a closer look at the video. Dr Hunter, any thoughts?’

‘Dormouse.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘There was a word written on the mirror,’ Cordy explained. ‘Bottom right. You could see it more clearly as the room heated up.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, I’d guess the other men you’ve identified were watching from the sidelines, and from the low ceilings it looks like quite a small space. Since they’re obviously interested in monetising the abuse, it’s likely that they were also filming for the DVD market. So certainly one monitoring the webcam, making sure it was all in shot. Maybe another one watching the other kids. Plenty of body heat to steam up the mirror.’

‘Anyone else see this?’ Fiona asked.

The two men shook their heads.

‘You can check it,’ said Cordy bluntly. ‘But it was there.’

‘Dormouse?’ Fiona checked. ‘Can’t say it makes a whole lot of sense to me. But the perps must have put it there for a reason.’

‘Maybe it’s some sick sort of joke?’ Bob suggested. ‘We already know this lot fancy themselves as clever fuckers.’

‘What’s the significance, then?’ Fiona asked.

‘It’s another Alice in Wonderland character,’ Cordy said. ‘Which fits. You know how Lewis Carroll has become a cult figure for paedophiles? All those pictures he took of Alice Liddell and those other children. Maybe he was just a sentimental Victorian, but that hasn’t stopped him being turned into a weird sort of figurehead.’

Anthony consulted his iPhone. ‘Yeah, there’s a dormouse at the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Well, that makes a sort of sense.’

Fiona nodded. ‘Great, well let’s get on line and throw it around. See if we get any bites.’

Bob turned the screen back on and brought up the favourites panel. ‘Where did the link go up again?’

‘Littlefriends,’ Anthony said. ‘You can use the Wonka screen name – I don’t think they’ve busted that one yet.’

Bob started typing furiously, and in a few seconds he turned, looking triumphant.

‘Bingo. We’ve been invited into a private chatroom. That took, what, less than a minute?’

‘Nice one, guys. We’re really getting the hang of their systems. We’ll shut these bastards down soon, I can feel it.’ Fiona stood up and motioned to Cordy to take her chair at the front. ‘Look, I’m afraid I’ve got to leave you lot to it. They’re coming in to do yet another audit next week.’

‘Shout if you need a hand,’ Anthony said, turning from the screen.

‘Thanks, DeLuca,’ Fiona said, giving him one of her rare smiles, ‘but I think I got it covered. And by the way, good work, Dr Hunter.’

Anthony elbowed Cordy playfully in the ribs, but her eyes were glued to the screen. The conversation was horribly mesmerising. The people in the chatroom obviously fancied themselves as connoisseurs. They were commenting on the clip as if it were a sports event, or an Oscar-nominated film: rating its best moments, debating whether Alice or another child, Lolita, got ‘more into it’, arguing over who had made what requests. For Cordy, so used to working to support victims of abuse, it was like falling down a rabbit hole, into a world where all perspectives were dangerously skewed and all the characters were terrifyingly deluded. And once again, she realised with a flash of horror, it’s like we’re one of them.

‘Get this,’ Bob said, jabbing at the screen.

One member was boasting about being a regular visitor at the cellar.

 

Big_Mark:        an if you wanna visit, don forget that i can sort u out

                            4 the rite price . . .

dragonwarrior:  whats the deal???

Big_Mark:        well theres a discount if you bring a little friend

 

‘Seen this guy before,’ Bob put in. ‘He’s a regular on the message boards.’

‘Reckon he’s local?’ Anthony asked.

‘Wait!’ Cordy said. ‘There was something about Kilburn, just after we signed in.’

Obediently Bob scrolled up, and they both spotted it at the same time:

 

king2000:      I reckon I know where this place is

                          it’s that house that’s always shuttered round the corner from Kilburn Tube, isn’t it?

Big_Mark:      nah mate

                          totally at the wrong end of the line ;)

 

‘So we reckon Docklands or East London?’ Bob asked. ‘Other end of the Jubilee line?’

Cordy nodded. ‘Guess that makes sense.’

‘Or he’s bluffing, and he doesn’t know shit,’ Anthony warned.

‘Can’t we just ask where the house is?’ Cordy said. ‘I mean, we’re in the chatroom, aren’t we?’

Bob made a face. ‘Doesn’t work like that, love.’

‘But if this Big Mark guy actually knows where this place is—’

‘Then there’s no way he’d tell the others,’ Anthony said. ‘Look, I know it’s frustrating but Sampson’s right. You can see how careful they all are. No names. No details. No explicit language. It’s all hints and codes and that kind of thing. If we start asking questions we’ll be thrown out straight away and we’ll just have all that work to do again building up a screen name they trust.’

‘And,’ Bob said, gesturing to the screen, ‘if they suspect there’s police involvement they’ll up security. Our best bet is for them to relax and get sloppy. Maybe it’s already happening – we’ve never got a codeword before.’

‘So we just stay silent and hope no one takes any notice of us?’ Cordy asked.

‘Safest that way,’ Anthony said, with an apologetic shrug.

When they scrolled back down, they saw that the chat had got progressively more graphic. What made it so sinister was the way the screen-names twisted ordinary words and made them do appalling things.

 

king2000:      So i found myself a sweet little girlfriend.

                          putting her through her paces

                          training her up

glkdogg:        gotta get me one of those

Big_Mark:      I’ll send you a link to this boyband fansite

                          girls are fuckin gagging for it on there

                          they look all innocent and shit but you know their typing one-handed

glkdogg:        send it over

Big_Mark:      keep watchin. Bet I can get some fresh meat for the next broadcast

                          some honey whos really beggin for it

                          but she wont have to beg for long

 

‘Jesus Christ,’ Anthony muttered. ‘Cordelia, you really don’t have to read this.’

‘I’m fine,’ she snapped, fishing out a stick of gum from her bag. The spearmint helped calm her stomach and she steeled herself to read on.

‘It’s like a bloody nest of cockroaches,’ Bob said.

‘Yeah,’ Cordy agreed. ‘Shame we can’t just stamp it out.’

Bob let out a mirthless laugh. ‘With you on that one, Princess.’

‘This Big Mark guy sounds like a bullshitter to me,’ Anthony put in, ‘but if he’s not . . .’

‘Then this is a decent lead. About time too,’ Bob said, leaning back on his seat.

Cordy lost track of how long they sat there in the darkened room, staring at the screen.

Eventually Bob turned to face the others and broke the silence. ‘Look, kids, it’s getting late. No point us all sitting around here. Why don’t you guys go home and get some kip and you can take over bright and early tomorrow?’

‘We can’t leave you to do it all yourself,’ Anthony protested. ‘That’s not fair.’

But Bob was insistent. ‘It’s fine. Look, the wife’s supposedly having this “book club” thing tonight.’ He said the words disdainfully. ‘So I’d be banished to the pub anyway. And to be honest, it’s easier if I just get on with it.’

‘If you’re sure . . .’ It was clear from Anthony’s voice that he was wavering.

‘Look, scram, both of you,’ said Bob. ‘See you in the morning.’

‘Do you want me to get you some food or something?’ Cordy offered, suddenly desperate to leave the stuffy little room and the afternoon of horrors behind her. ‘I could nip down to the canteen.’

‘No worries, love. I’ve still got some of the leftover curry in the fridge.’

‘Well, call me if there are any problems,’ Anthony said.

‘Right you are.’

With Anthony close behind her, Cordy stepped out of the dark little room into the welcome neon glare of the corridor.

‘Tough day,’ Anthony said, shifting his notebook from one arm to the other.

‘Yeah, I feel like going home and pulling out my toenails would be light relief after that,’ said Cordy grimly. ‘Come on, let’s have a cup of tea before we leave. Your missus won’t thank you for taking this shit home with you.’

‘OK.’ Anthony rolled his neck around and let out a sigh.

‘You know, Hunter, we’re lucky to have you here.’

For the first time in many hours she smiled. ‘You’d better believe it.’

Chapter 12

Just as the lift door closed, she heard a familiar voice yell: ‘Oy, wait a sec!’

Cordy jabbed at the ‘Open Door’ button but the lift was already moving up.

‘Sorry, Anthony,’ she said under her breath, and when she reached the fifth floor, where the Unit’s offices were located, she waited in the corridor for him to emerge.

Last night he had insisted on buying her a cup of tea from the posh Italian place round the corner, rather than chancing their luck at the police canteen.

‘Although you realise it’s sacrilege to go to Mariana’s and not drink espresso?’ He lowered his voice. ‘If anyone found out, they’d take my Italian passport for sure.’

Cordy laughed. ‘I didn’t know you had dual nationality.’

Anthony pulled himself up to his full height, making him a good six inches taller than her. ‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Dr Hunter.’

As usual, it was hard to tell if he was joking or flirting in earnest. Cordy decided that it was safest to assume that he was just mucking around.

They’d lingered in the café longer than Cordy had intended, and she’d ended up having to head straight to the clinic, rather than going home and getting changed out of her formal work clothes, which was her usual routine. Still, it’d been worth it. Anthony got her laughing with his scarily spot-on impressions of Fiona and Bob, even down to Bob’s hunched shoulders and Fiona’s habit of lifting her right eyebrow when she thought you were talking bullshit.

‘Ha! I’ve definitely seen that look before,’ Cordelia said, narrowly avoiding snorting tea all over the table. ‘Now I’m scared you’ve got one of me too.’

Anthony dipped his biscotti in his tea and gestured across with it. ‘Didn’t you realise that I had an ulterior motive for getting you here?’

‘You wanted to observe me at close quarters?’

‘Uh huh. And now I can add you to my repertoire.’

‘Great. Now I feel self-conscious,’ Cordy said, shielding her face with her hands. ‘Should have guessed. Don’t they say there’s no such thing as a free cup of tea?’

‘So that’ll be two pounds sixty, please.’

‘Daylight robbery.’

‘Don’t worry, I know some guys in that division too,’ Anthony said, giving her a grin that got the pretty young waitress rushing over to see if there was anything else she could do for them.

After they’d settled up, Anthony asked her how she was doing. ‘I hope you don’t mind me bringing it up, but you really seemed upset the other day. Is there anything I can help with? Short of setting a hitman on Sampson, I mean?’

Cordy laughed. She thought about fobbing him off again, but something about the way he held her gaze so steadily opened a door that Cordy usually kept firmly locked and bolted. ‘Well, you probably don’t want to hear about this . . .’

‘Try me.’

She lowered her voice. ‘It’s a little complicated and not . . . pleasant.’

‘I’m a smart guy and I deal with pretty terrible things every day,’ Anthony assured her. ‘I can handle it.’

‘Well, there’s a reason I got into child protection. A pretty personal reason . . .’ Haltingly, she explained about the years of abuse that she’d suffered at the hands of her Uncle Herbert, after her parents passed away in a car accident. ‘I mean, now I know it was actually a pretty standard story – there’s a family crisis and a predator moves in. We never knew why we’d never met our father’s younger brother before. We’d always just been told he lived far away. But suddenly, there he was – buying us ice creams and offering to have us to stay to give our grandmother a break.’

‘Us?’ Anthony asked, but Cordy carried straight on. It was one thing to share her story, quite another to offer up Jess’s to a man her sister had never even met.

‘Well, you can guess the rest. Once he’d won our trust the abuse started – gradually at first. Just some rocking on his lap to start with. We’d make jokes about his face getting red. But it got worse. A lot worse.’

On the table next to them a baby started to cry. Cordy took a deep breath. When she continued her voice was calmer, her tone matter-of-fact.

‘The first time he raped me, I was eleven years old. He told me that if I ever told anyone my grandmother would die too. That we’d live with him all the time, and he’d do it every single day. He said he’d killed my parents and got away with it. That no one would believe me. That he could kill me too, like that.’ She snapped her fingers.

‘Jesus, Hunter.’ Anthony leaned over as if to take her hand, but paused midway. ‘Sorry. No wonder you like your personal space.’

She laughed bleakly. ‘You noticed that?’

He nodded. ‘But I didn’t mean to interrupt you.’

‘Well, not much more to tell. My grandmother fell ill, and went into a nursing home. We . . . I went into a children’s home. Got labelled as a difficult kid. Couldn’t trust anyone. Screamed if one of my foster fathers got too close. Things started to get better when I was sent to an all-girls school . . .’ She stopped, and looked at her watch. ‘Shit. Didn’t realise how long I’d been rambling on. I really have to go. So sorry.’

He held the door for her as she rushed out of the café. Outside on the street she paused for a minute.

‘You’ll keep this to yourself, right?’ Cordy said, suddenly uncertain. ‘I mean, it’s not like it’s a big secret, it’s just that . . .’

‘It’s no one’s business but yours.’

‘Exactly.’

For a second they just stood there on the street, letting people stream past them, until they had to move out of the way for a woman with a pushchair and a load of shopping bags.

‘So I’d better . . .’ Cordy said, moving to go.

‘Yeah, course,’ Anthony said, but he didn’t move.

‘See you tomorrow.’

‘For the record,’ he said, his voice stopping her in her tracks, ‘I think you’re very brave. One of the bravest people I’ve ever met.’

At that she flashed him a genuine smile. ‘Thanks for letting me chew your ear off.’

‘Any time.’ He returned the smile. ‘Seriously. Any time.’

 

Despite what Cordy had seen and spoken of that afternoon, she was able to behave in front of her sister as if nothing was wrong, and had even managed a decent night’s sleep – give or take a few nightmares.

And now today . . . today she felt hopeful. The investigation was moving forward. By now Bob would have a pretty rounded profile on this Big_Mark guy, and who knew how many other familiar characters had shown up in the chatroom after she and Anthony had left?

When he finally emerged from the lift, Anthony, too, looked much more chipper than he had yesterday afternoon.

‘Thanks for holding the lift, Dr Hunter,’ he said with mock sternness.

‘Any time,’ Cordy shot back. She felt her stomach unclench. It wasn’t going to be awkward. Anthony wasn’t going to treat her like she was made of glass. ‘Now, if you’re done griping, maybe we could go and track down some criminals?’

‘Great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?’

‘Because you don’t have a PhD,’ she said, grinning.

‘Yeah, well maybe you can tell me which site you bought yours on and then there could be two doctors in the department.’

She narrowed her eyes ‘Shut it, you.’

As soon as they walked into the Ops Room, the banter died on their lips.

Bob was slumped over the middle table, looking grey and exhausted.

‘Bad night?’ Anthony asked, taking a seat next to him. ‘I take it the chatroom’s quiet now? Not even perverts are chatty at this time in the morning.’

‘I wouldn’t know, mate,’ Bob said, leaning his elbow on the table and propping up his head with his fist. ‘Bastards shut down the site not long after you guys buggered off.’

‘But they seemed to be in full swing when we left,’ said Cordy, her heart sinking.

Bob shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe they changed the password.’

‘You should have gone home,’ Anthony said. ‘You don’t look good.’

‘Well, I didn’t want to give up that easily,’ Bob said, ‘so I tried the “dormouse” thing on a load of other sites. Waste of fucking time. Up all night and all I got was a heap of aggro.’ He looked down at the table. ‘Sorry, but I think we’re going to have to put Wonka out to pasture. Don’t think I’ll be long behind him.’

Anthony gripped his shoulder. ‘What are you talking about? I’d have done exactly the same thing. Just bad luck, that’s all.’

‘Get off me, you poofter,’ Bob said, but he sounded too tired to care. ‘Guess there’s still that music website he was on about. Might be worth a trawl.’

‘Yeah, I’ll mention it to Reynolds.’

Cordelia was still hovering awkwardly behind them. She’d never seen Bob looking this wretched.

‘Can I get you guys a cup of tea? Sampson? One sugar is it?’

‘Better make it two,’ Bob said. ‘Ta, love.’

On the way to the kitchen, Cordy passed Fiona in the corridor.

‘I don’t know if you’ve debriefed him yet,’ she said, ‘but you should send Sampson home. He’s exhausted.’

‘Thank you, Dr Hunter, but when I need staff management tips, I’ll ask for them.’

Before Cordy could answer, the chief was striding towards the Ops Room, her high heels clicking on the lino floor.

When Cordy returned with a tray of mugs, Anthony was already collecting Bob’s things together and Tammy was phoning for a taxi.

‘You can’t go on the Tube like this,’ she insisted, when he’d protested that it was a waste of money. ‘You’d sleep past your stop and end up in the back of beyond.’

After he’d left, the others all took a seat round the middle table.

‘Right,’ said Fiona. ‘So it looks like the password changed –’ she looked down at her notes – ‘about two and a half hours after it was set up.’

They all nodded.

‘Maybe I’m being stupid,’ Tammy said, a little hesitantly, ‘but I don’t get it.’

‘What don’t you get?’ Fiona asked.

‘Well, you sent round that screen-grab of the mirror. Good spot by the way,’ she said, turning to Cordy.

‘Thanks.’

‘But why would they circulate the password like that? I mean, if they wanted to make it obvious, they could have posted it on the site or even had it written on a bit of cardboard. Why would they arse about with writing on a mirror, when people might not even notice it?’

‘You’ve got a point there,’ said Anthony.

Tammy flashed him a mega-watt smile. ‘And if they wanted to be subtle about it, or, you know, restrict who got in the chatroom . . .’

‘They’d have emailed around their associates,’ Fiona put in. ‘Yes, that has been worrying me as well.’

‘Well, I think the solution is obvious,’ Cordy said.

‘Really? Don’t keep us on tenterhooks then,’ the older woman drawled.

‘The men didn’t write it. Alice did.’

‘I’m sure that that would have been the last thing on her mind,’ Fiona said. ‘Come on, she’s just a little kid. She might not even know that word. Any other thoughts?’

But Cordy refused to be bulldozed. ‘I don’t think y. . .