‘I’m going to hack her computer. I’ll use Metasploit, it’s powerful, a product of Rapid 7. I’ll use it with WEB UI. I’ll run an individual exploit on her Pebbles On The Beach account. If that fails, I’ll try a basic penetration test. It should work. If she’s like millions of other people on the internet, her security system’s going to be completely inadequate.’

‘Will it take you long?’ asked Clay.

‘No,’ replied Poppy, sitting down and fixing her attention on the screen. Her fingers danced over the keyboard. ‘Won’t be long before you know who she’s been talking to and what’s been said. Same old, same old, bet you?’

58

4.00 am

‘Eve?’

Clay looked across the incident room at the sound of Poppy Waters’ voice. She caught Stone’s eye, and knew that something important had come up on Francesca Christie’s laptop.

As Clay walked over to them, Poppy said, ‘The Ghoul’s been masquerading as James Griffiths. That’s the fake identity he’s been hiding behind in hunting down Francesca Christie.’

Clay sat next to Poppy Waters and looked at the online endgame between Francesca Christie and The Ghoul.

‘I’ve taken it back to the point where James Griffiths’ other self, Thomas Saddler, who’s been as lovely as can be to Francesca, suddenly goes off the planet, leaving James with a completely free hand.’

Clay skimmed and scanned James Griffiths’ sugar-coated poison and quoted, ‘You deserve a man who worships the ground you walk on and how jealous I would be of that stranger even though I take my hat off to him.’

She recognised the way he teased Francesca out and how her desperation mounted with each passing message and her need not to be hurt rocketed.

‘It’s like…’ Clay touched the screen where the word hurt sat like an open wound itself in Francesca’s message. ‘It ignites the word hurt in his reply and sparks off the whole yarn about the dead wife and how he claimed he was single because he didn’t want to make emotional capital from his bereavement. Which is when he offered to phone her because that was the gentlemanly thing to do.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Stone. ‘It got results for him. Do you know what I’m reading into this? Like all good con men, when he’s typing this bullshit he believes it in his heart of hearts. When he’s spoken with them on the phone, he’s believed every single word he’s said, and it’s made him super plausible to the lonely and vulnerable women he’s targeted. But once he’s got them where he wants them, lined up for a date, the switch flicks inside him and he turns from Rudolph Valentino into The Ghoul.’

Clay looked back at the dead end on screen.

Francesca Christie’s mobile number: 07700 937374.