Deadlight by Graham Hurley

intelligence team. Bank accounts, building society books and credit card statements often flagged new paths in an investigation like this.
    ‘What about this computer?’ It was Paul Ingham. ‘Anything useful?’
    Faraday pushed his chair back from the table and told them what he knew. The computer guy at Netley hadalready been on with some preliminary findings from Coughlin’s cloned hard disk. It was a relatively old machine, no real decoding problems. They’d taken a preliminary look at his e-mails without turning up anything significant, but a number of conversations retrieved from chat rooms and newsgroups looked a great deal more promising. Coughlin’s nickname, it appeared, had been ‘Freckler’. More detailed analysis would follow.
    It was Brian Imber who asked the obvious question.
    ‘What kind of conversations?’
    Faraday flicked back through his notes.
    ‘Pretty nasty,’ he said at last. ‘Apparently there’s a protocol in these newsgroups but he appears to have ignored all that.’
    ‘Nasty how?’
    ‘Obscene. The man had sex on the brain.’
    ‘You’ve got details? Special friends he might have made?’
    ‘Not yet.’
    ‘It’s a thought, though, eh?’
    Faces brightened around the table. These men were far too busy to explore the delights of chat rooms for themselves but there was a collective awareness that the internet had added an extra layer of possibilities for anyone determined to make serious mischief. Hence the specialist Computer Crime Unit at Netley.
    Imber leaned forward. He had another question. They’d all been at last night’s briefing. They’d all heard what Corbett, the new guy, had to say. So what was the latest on this Davidson?
    Faraday gazed down at his pad. The truth was that he didn’t know, not until Corbett and Yates got back from London. He glanced at his watch, wondering why they hadn’t heard already.
    ‘It’s an active line of enquiry,’ he said woodenly. ‘And I’ll keep you posted.’
*
    Corbett was in his Nissan before he made the call to Dave Michaels. Yates stood at the kerbside, gazing down at him through the open car window. They’d left Davidson and Marie Elliott at number twelve. The two-hour interview had added absolutely nothing to Davidson’s first account of his movements on Monday night. He and Marie had been at it most of the evening. Afterwards, on and off, they’d gone to sleep. Next day, they’d driven to London. Their statements, all too brief, gave them absolutely no opportunity to pay a midnight visit to Niton Road.
    From the car, Corbett had finally managed to raise Dave Michaels. Briefly, he described the morning’s exchanges. When Michaels asked for an opinion, a gut feeling, he began to laugh.
    ‘Davidson’s talking bollocks,’ he said. ‘If he really expects me to believe a word of it, he’s even thicker than I think he is.’
    ‘And the girlfriend?’
    ‘In it up to her arse.’
    ‘So what do we have for evidence?’
    ‘Leave it to me, skip. I’ll bell you again later.’ Corbett grinned to himself and then put the mobile on the dashboard. Yates, watching, wondered whether he’d been somewhere else for the last two hours. He’d only heard one end of the conversation but that was more than enough.
    ‘How do you make that out, then?’ He nodded at the mobile.
    Corbett gazed up at him. Impatience verging on something close to contempt.
    ‘You’re telling me you believed that little twat?’ He offered Yates a cold smile, then reached for his ignition keys. ‘I’ve got a couple of calls to make. See you back at the nick.’
    Winter got the go-ahead from Cathy Lamb at noon.
    Banged up with Hartigan for most of the morning, she returned to Highland Road to find a note from Winter suggesting a search warrant on Shelley Geech’s flat. She lived in a block off Somers Road and he had reason to believe it might repay a visit. Face to face, pressed for a reason why, Winter talked vaguely about conversations with a