Buried Secrets: The Freeman Files Series: Book 11 by Ted Tayler (highly recommended books txt) 📗

said Blessing. “I joined the police in 2015 and worked at Royal Leamington Spa. My team worked on a case that brought them to the Midlands in June. The next thing I knew, DS Mercer offered me a job. It was so lucky. My father got offered a new post at Bath University. My parents wanted to accept, but they were concerned about me living alone in Warwick or Leamington. Now they live just outside Bath, and I’ve got digs at a farm near Worton.”

“So, you’ve only been in the county for a month? Have you made any new friends?”

Blessing laughed.

“My little car broke down when I moved here. A tall, handsome police officer from Malmesbury called Dave stopped to help. We’ve seen one another a handful of times. It’s early days, but we get on well.”

“They’re a friendly bunch in Wiltshire,” said Divya. “I’ve never felt threatened, not as I did in London. You couldn’t move for people in the city. Out here in the countryside, you’ve got room to breathe. It must be great living on a farm.”

“It can be quiet,” said Blessing. “The work I do with the Crime Review Team keeps my mind occupied throughout the day. My oasis of calm in the orchard behind the farmhouse is the perfect spot to unwind.”

The room soon filled with Divya’s fellow computer geeks and Blessing realised they weren’t all as normal as her new companion. Several were eccentric, both in dress and behaviour. The room fell quiet again after several minutes.

“It’s always like that,” said Divya, “a mad five minutes, and then everyone gets switched onto their screens. The list of search routines never seems to get any smaller. Talking of which, shall we see what we can do to help your team with their latest case?”

“I wish I understood more what you can do for us,” said Blessing.

“I’ll try to explain what I’m doing in layperson’s terms, Blessing,” said Divya. “Metadata contained in images and other files can give away more information than the average user thinks. Say I was a hacker, and I tricked you into sending a photo containing GPS coordinates; I could work out where you lived or worked simply by extracting the Exif data hidden inside the image file.”

“You’ve lost me already,” said Blessing.

“Exchangeable image file format data is information that accompanies image files,” explained Divya. “Look at this example on my screen. There are dozens of fields that can be filled in or left blank.”

“We know that the photographs that I sent you were taken while the victim, Alan Duncan, served in the Royal Navy. He joined in 1993 and left in 2004. However, looking at him in the photos we have, I don’t believe he’s left us anything earlier than the turn of the century. Alan was thirty when he moved back to Corsham. He’s in his mid-twenties in what appears to be the earliest picture we have.”

“That group shot taken in the Valley of the Kings, Luxor,” said Divya. “Yes, I would agree. I’ve put your photos in date order based purely on how he and his colleagues aged. We can check that later.”

“You mentioned hackers,” said Blessing. “What they do is illegal. How is it we can access so much data from photos or files? Aren’t we breaking the law?”

“There’s a fine line, Blessing,” said Divya, “but when people publish photos and images, then it’s available for what they term open-source intelligence. I can use what’s visible in the picture itself, plus the metadata about when the photo got taken. Sometimes the data includes the device used and the precise geolocation of the image.”

“I thought I read somewhere that many social media platforms stripped out metadata from files,” said Blessing. “I’m paranoid with what I post online.”

“Me too,” grinned Divya, “but then I know how dangerous it is not to take advantage of every scrap of security available. If a user doesn’t know what data gets kept in a particular file format, they won’t understand the risk they’re exposed to by making a specific item public. We take advantage of that here in the Hub when pursuing a criminal case where suspects have left the data held on a file entirely intact.”

“None of these photos has ever appeared online as far as we know,” said Blessing. “Alan Duncan sent them home to his parents to show them what a great time he was having in the Royal Navy.”

“They do look a cheerful bunch, don’t they?” said Divya. “Right, let’s make a start.”

The time flew by, and Blessing realised it was lunchtime before she knew it. Several techies left the room, and a buzz of conversation made it difficult to concentrate.

“Do you want to take a break?” asked Divya.

“My landlady never lets me leave the farm without eating breakfast,” said Blessing. “Every day, when I’m ready to leave for work, she hands me a lunchbox. I left it in the car.”

“Gosh,” said Divya, “you’re spoiled, aren’t you? I grab a sandwich at the nearest deli if I’m lucky. I’ll come with you to your car and then walk into the town centre. I’ll collect you on the way back. Shall we say thirty minutes?”

“That will be fine,” said Blessing. “I can see I’ve got a message from Luke on my phone. I’d better get that.”

“Luke? Is that another young man you’ve met since you moved here?”

“No, Luke’s part of the team. He’s gay and lives with his partner, Nicky, in Warminster.”

“What’s your boss like?” asked Divya as they returned to the ground floor and into the car park.

“Old-fashioned in some ways,” said Blessing. “He’s reluctant to use a facility such as this, but when he’s interviewing a witness, he’s got the knack of getting them to reveal something that progresses the case. The best thing is that he makes us feel like