‘The encrypted data has been transferred to the GCHQ Decryption Bureau in Cheltenham,’ James began, as he took a seat next to Daniel and pulled a chocolate digestive from a pack. ‘Judging by the unencrypted data, two MacBooks were used around the print shop for designing leaflets, e-mailing and general office duties. The other two are more interesting. One had quite a lot of poster and brochure designs for Islamic groups, leading us to believe that the printworks were used to produce leaflets and banners used by extremist groups. There was also web design software and evidence that the computer had been used to design and update websites for extremist organisations.

‘The fourth laptop is a higher specification than the others. The login and e-mail details lead us to believe that it was used for similar purposes around the office. The hard drive has been partitioned and one partition set up with 512bit encryption key. There are several hundred megabytes of data in that partition and I suspect that this is the data Trey was so keen to get back.’

‘How long will it take to decrypt?’ Daniel asked.

Leon liked knowing more than his brother. ‘You can’t decrypt 512bit, Dumbo.’

James nodded. ‘A brute force decryption of the data on the hard drive would take decades, even using the fastest computers. But the key vulnerability of very complex encryption systems is that someone somewhere has to know what the encryption key is.’

Now John began speaking. ‘While James has been concentrating on the laptops, I’ve been doing more research into Trey Al-Zeid. Local community police have been interviewed. They backed Oli’s suggestion that Trey is involved in some sort of racket that makes threats and extorts money from local taxi companies, shops and landlords. What they’re less clear on is where this money goes.

‘There’s talk in the community that the money goes to support militant Islamic groups in North Africa and the Middle East. Others say this is all smoke and mirrors and that Trey is part of a regular organised-crime-style extortion racket.’

‘You’re much less likely to mess with your local extortion racket if you think they might have links to serious terrorists,’ James explained, before John continued.

‘Trey’s father owns one of the biggest taxi businesses in Birmingham and is believed to have something to do with the extortion racket, but the real kingpin is a man who everyone seems to call Uncle. He has been photographed at community events over the past few years, but he does a good job hiding his name.’

Leon nodded knowingly. ‘Oli said something to Trey about upsetting Uncle when he stole the laptops. So whatever info is on that laptop must give us a clue about who Uncle is and where the extortion money goes.’

James and John both nodded.