Captcha Thief (Amy Lane Mysteries) by Rosie Claverton Page A

search, the trawling of dark corners for something about gangs and the art trade. Nothing yet, but she now had another reason to delve into the deep web to find their hiding places. She ghosted into a few IRC channels, hoping to get lucky, but nothing beyond the usual trade in drugs and women caught her eye. She sent out a few more feelers into the darkness, hoping for a vibration down the line to lead her in the right direction.
    ‘We’re going to catch a late film,’ Cerys said, Owain following like a lapdog.
    ‘See you tomorrow,’ Amy said, averting her eyes from their joined hands and the smudge of pale pink lip gloss at the corner of Owain’s mouth.
    When she was alone, the need to work fuelled her on. The need to think about anything apart from Jason and that woman. Owain and Cerys. Other people’s happiness.
    She made coffee and tackled another day of footage. She’d hit the last twenty-four hours now, and found nineteen suspicious people who warranted further investigation.
    The girl was back, she noted, the checker of frames and statue bases. She was wearing a school uniform this time and Amy tried to make out the logo on her jumper. What was a secondary school student doing mixed up in an art heist?
    Amy followed her to the exit, trying to get a good angle on the jumper, when a man stepped in front of her. Amy vaguely recognised him, froze the footage, and flicked through her gallery of suspects. He was one of the sitters in front of ‘The Blue Lady’.
    Amy watched their interaction. The girl was grinning, practically dancing from foot to foot, as the man looked increasingly irate. He reached for her arm, then withdrew, looking about him anxiously.
A barely controlled temper and a guilty conscience.
    The girl used the opportunity to give him the slip, and he fumed impotently in the centre of the hall. Then he went back upstairs to the gallery and made for the bench in front of ‘The Blue Lady’. Except someone was already sitting there, the middle-aged woman from before.
    However, instead of replacing her, he sat down beside her and studied ‘The Blue Lady’ as before. They did not acknowledge each other until she accidently swung her handbag into his leg, and he said something sharp to her. She ignored him and walked away.
    Amy watched their exchange again, but she couldn’t see any notes or code pass between them. They were successfully ignoring each other, as strangers in public places were wont to do, until he’d snapped at her.
    Nothing about this canvassing operation made sense. A teenage girl in the crew, operatives openly confronting each other, lingering on the changeover without any exchange of information yet drawing attention to themselves.
    How did such bungled surveillance lead to such a successful heist?

Chapter 13
River deep, mountain high
    The bike was like a temperamental stallion – barely tamed, constantly trying to kick out and wanting to show off exactly how fast he could run.
    Jason felt Frieda laughing against him as he understeered again and clipped an overgrown hedgerow. They were in the middle of Snowdonia National Park, now less than an hour from Bangor, and the exhilaration of the journey was morphing into the nerves of reaching their destination. One hotel room or two? One bed or two? And how exactly did he feel about those options?
    And what the hell was he thinking? He’d agreed to accompany a woman he barely knew on a trip across the country to investigate a crime by … what? Asking questions? Surveillance? Breaking heads? He’d had a lot of time to think on this journey, and he was no closer to figuring out what he was doing here.
    As they neared Mount Snowdon – not that he could tell much of anything in the dark – Jason was forced to slow down. The midnight air was cold and thick with a descending mist, the bike’s driving lights only illuminating a few short yards ahead. Jason crawled through the fog, the bike barely topping thirty miles an hour in the