The Ardmore Inheritance by Rob Wyllie (best value ebook reader TXT) 📗

The first one he was turning his attention to had come in from Greater Manchester Police. We think it's probably some sad geeky teenager. Take a quick look, see if there's anything to worry about. That was the terse instruction that got Frank onto what would become known, obviously, as the Geordie case. And when Jill Smart had fleshed out the detail, he could see why they were so keen to get it all wrapped up and locked away out of sight.

He found Eleanor at her adopted desk, and surprisingly for once, the forensic officer wasn't on the phone to her on-off boyfriend.

'How's Lloyd?' he asked guilelessly.

'He's a pig.'

Resisting the temptation to ask for further explanation, he shrugged and said, 'Aye, all men are. Comes with the territory. Anyway, work to do, let's get on.'

Generally speaking, there would be a bout of tense negotiation required before she consented to do even the most trivial of tasks, principally because Eleanor Campbell was a stickler for doing things by the book. Meaning in practical terms she always wanted to see a bloody case number, whereas Frank would go to any length to avoid having to attach that bureaucratic limpet to anything he was working on. The reason being that once an investigation got a case number, it became visible to the brass, who had a nasty habit of asking awkward questions, like why are we spending so much on this stupid case, and worst of all, when are we going to solve it?

But this time he didn't have to worry about any of that, because Eleanor was fully on board with the project.

'You got it then I hear? You got DCS Barker's phone?'

'I got it,' she said, 'at least I got WPC Green to get it for me. She hates him way more than I do.'

'Aye, not surprising that, because she has to work with the arse five days a week. But anyway, nice work wee Eleanor. So anyway, just run it past me again, what are we going to do?'

She gave him a look of mock disgust. 'I've explained two-factor authentication to you a million times.'

'Three times I think you'll find, if we're being strictly accurate, and that was quite a while ago to be fair. But that's what this guy Geordie's doing, do you think? The two-factor stuff?'

'Defo. That's why he breaks in and steals their phones. And by the way it might not be a guy, in like a man.'

'You mean it could be like a woman?' He found it hard to resist a spot of gentle mockery of the way she spoke, and he knew he usually didn't have to worry about causing offence because generally she never noticed. Evidently she assumed that everyone spoke that way, even oldies like him. But she hadn't missed it this time.

'Are you taking the piss?'

'No no,' he said hurriedly. 'When I say this guy Geordie, I mean it in a strictly gender-neutral sense of course.' Gender neutral. That was a phrase he'd learnt on a course, and he'd found it went down well with millennials like her.

It seemed to satisfy her. 'Cool. So how did we get on to this dude in the first place?'

That was a question he wasn't fully at liberty to answer. Because it was an Assistant Chief Constable, the high-profile high-flying Katherine Frost of the Greater Manchester Police, who in desperation had brought it to the attention of Jill Smart after learning of Department 12B from one of her DCIs. 'This will ruin my entire career and reputation if it gets out, you must understand that,' she had said to Jill, 'I need to know I can count on you. On your absolute discretion and that of your team.' And afterwards he could see why she was so exercised about it. Because if like her you were on a career fast-track, with every prospect of making Chief Constable before you were fifty, but you also liked to be chained to your bed by the wrists whilst being orally pleasured by another woman, and you liked to take a video as a souvenir too, then you would, quite naturally, insist on discretion. So Smart had given her the assurances she needed before passing it on, smirking, to Frank Stewart, who had laughed uncontrollably and promised to guard the secret with his life. But he had to tell Eleanor something.

'It came from the Manchester boys, or to be more accurate, a Manchester girl. Seems as if our guy Geordie broke into the pad of one of their top brass and has been indulging in a spot of blackmail ever since. Highly embarrassing for the officer in question.'

'Sweet.'

Frank chuckled. 'Aye, you could say that. So obviously the mission is to catch this hacker guy before he does any more damage.'

Having been tipped off by the Manchester affair, Frank had put out some feelers courtesy of his good mate DI Pete Burnside, and found out that Geordie had also been active across London and the South East for at least a year, and always with the same MO. Break into someone's pad, nick a phone or a computer and then leave a signature example of his graffiti artwork on a wall or in some cases, on the front door. The guy was talented, there was no doubt about it, although he'd read a critic in the Guardian complaining that most of his work was highly derivative and he'd blatantly copied the style of his obvious inspiration Banksy. Which had made Frank laugh, because it wasn't as if the street artist was some sort of modern-day Robin Hood. He was nothing more than a common criminal and with an ego the size of St Paul's Cathedral to boot, an ego that Frank predicted would surely be his downfall. It had to take five minutes minimum to do one of these paintings and that made it odds-on that one day he'd be