‘Right, chaps, listen in. This is a briefing for Operation FURNISS, on Tuesday 1 December.’

It was like Groundhog Day, Kelly thought. Every morning and every evening, the same group of people gathered in the same room. A lot of the team were looking tired, but Nick’s energy never wavered. It had been precisely two weeks since Tania Beckett’s body was found, and in that time he had been the first one in the office each morning; the last one to leave at night. Two weeks in which Operation FURNISS had gathered three murders, six sexual assaults, and more than a dozen reports of stalkings, attempted assaults and suspicious incidents, all relating to findtheone.com.

‘Those of you who worked on the Maidstone rape – well done. Tillman’s a nasty piece of work and your efforts have taken him off the streets.’ Nick looked for Kelly. ‘What’s the latest on his computer activity?’

‘Cyber Crime say he made no attempt to cover his tracks,’ Kelly said, looking at the notes she’d made from her earlier conversation with Andrew Robinson. ‘He downloaded the victim’s details and emailed them to himself; presumably so he could have them on his phone, which is where we found them.’

‘Has he bought any others?’

‘No. But he’s browsed a fair number. Cached files suggest he’s looked at the profiles of around fifteen women, but never purchased one before Kathryn Whitworth’s.’

‘Too expensive?’

‘I don’t think that’s an issue for him. He joined in September as a Silver member, paying with – get this – a company credit card.’

‘Nice.’

‘We found a welcome letter in his deleted files – exactly like the one we received when we set up a pseudonymous account, but with a different password. It seems the security settings for the website are changed periodically; like Harris told us, the phone number on the adverts is the code for the latest password.’

‘Which you were clever enough to figure out,’ Nick said.

‘Tillman’s lazy,’ Kelly said, thinking out loud. ‘He drives to work – he’d have to go out of his way to find most of the women listed on the site. I think he’s been lurking on the site; maybe even getting some sort of sexual kick out of it. When he saw Kathryn Whitworth’s profile was Maidstone-based, and he knew he was heading that way for a conference, he went for it.’

‘Put his index number through automatic number plate recognition. See if his car has been anywhere near Maidstone in the days leading up to the rape.’

Kelly wrote ANPR on her pad and underlined it, while Nick continued to brief the room.

‘During the analysis of Tillman’s computer, Cyber Crime found an encrypted section of his hard drive which contains one hundred and sixty-seven indecent images, the vast majority of which fall under Section 63 of the Possession of Extreme Pornographic Images Act. He’s not going anywhere in a hurry.’

Kelly had wanted to call Kathryn Whitworth herself to tell her they had charged Tillman with rape, and that he would be charged with the possession of indecent images. It was Lucinda who had stopped her.

‘Leave it to Kent’s Sexual Offences Investigation Team; they’re the ones who have a relationship with her.’

‘They don’t know anything about the case,’ Kelly had argued. ‘This way I can answer her questions. Reassure her.’

Lucinda had remained firm. ‘Kelly, stop trying to do everyone’s job. Kent SOIT will update the victim; you’ve got work to do here.’

Although the MIT detectives frequently made jokes at the expense of civvy staff, Lucinda’s skill and experience meant she was universally respected by the detectives who worked with her. Kelly was no exception. She had to trust that whoever updated Kathryn did so with compassion and understanding; there was a lengthy court process ahead of her and it wasn’t going to be an easy ride.

Nick was still briefing the others. ‘You may already be aware that yesterday Kelly and I brought in Luke Harris, another user of the website. Harris initially claimed Zoe Walker’s was the only profile he had downloaded, but he changed his tune in custody.’

Appalled to find himself arrested for attempted murder, Luke Harris had rolled over completely; handing over passwords for all his accounts, and admitting to having downloaded four other women listed on findtheone.com. In each case he’d employed the ‘white knight’ routine as an icebreaker, jostling each woman from the safety of a crowd, then stepping forward to make sure she was all right. The technique had brought him limited success; a grateful coffee and subsequent dinner date from one woman had swiftly petered out.

‘Harris maintained he had done nothing wrong,’ Nick told the team. ‘He claimed he never intended any harm to any of the women he followed, and that his aim throughout was simply to instigate a relationship.’

‘What’s wrong with using uniform dot com, like the rest of us?’ someone yelled. Nick waited for the laughter to die down.

‘Apparently dating sites “reek of desperation”,’ Nick said, repeating the words Harris had used. ‘Luke Harris prefers what he calls “the thrill of the chase”. I suspect he’ll find this option rather less thrilling from now on.’

Kelly’s phone rang. She looked at the screen, expecting to see Lexi’s name flash up, but it was Cathy Tanning. ‘A witness,’ she said to Nick, holding her phone up in explanation. ‘Excuse me.’ She accepted the call, walking out of the incident room towards her own desk.

‘Hi, Cathy, are you okay?’

‘I’m fine, thank you. I was calling to let you know I’m not in Epping any more.’

‘You’ve moved? That was sudden.’

‘Not really. I’ve been toying with the idea of getting out of London for ages. Then this place came up, and it’s Romford, so not a million miles away. I couldn’t relax in the flat, even after I changed the locks.’

‘When do you move?’

‘I’ve already gone. I was supposed to give a month’s notice, but the landlord wants to redecorate and put the place on the market, so he let me go early. It’s all worked out really well.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘Actually, that’s not the only reason I’m calling,’ Cathy said. She hesitated. ‘I want to withdraw my statement.’

‘Has someone been giving you grief? Did the Metro article cause problems for you? Because if you’ve been threatened—’

‘No, it’s nothing like that. I just want to put it behind me.’ She sighed. ‘I feel bad – I know you’ve been trying so hard to find out who took my keys, and you were great when I told you I thought someone had been in the house.’

‘We’re close to finding the person behind the website,’ Kelly interrupted. ‘When we charge them we’ll need your evidence.’

‘You’ve got other witnesses though, haven’t you? Other crimes? Those poor girls who were killed – those are the crimes that matter, not mine.’

‘They’re all important, Cathy. We wouldn’t investigate them if we didn’t believe that.’

‘Thank you. And if I thought my evidence would make all the difference, I’d give it, I promise. But it won’t, will it?’

Kelly didn’t answer.

‘I have a friend who gave evidence in a case last year,’ Cathy said. ‘She got hassled for months by the offender’s family. I don’t need that sort of aggravation. I’ve got a chance to make a fresh start, in a brand-new house no one else has the keys for. It was a scary thing to happen but I wasn’t hurt – I just want to forget about it.’

‘Can I at least let you know when we charge someone? In case you change your mind?’

There was a lengthy pause.

‘I guess so. But I won’t change my mind, Kelly. I know putting someone behind bars is important, but surely how I feel must count for something, too?’

It was always about the victims, Kelly thought, annoyed by the suggestion that it wasn’t. She had thought Cathy one of the more reliable witnesses in this case, and she was disappointed to be proved wrong. She opened her mouth to warn Cathy her refusal to give evidence could well result in her being treated as a hostile witness; held in contempt of court for failing to cooperate.

Then she stopped. Did the pursuit of justice ever justify treating a victim as though they were in the dock? Thoughts of Lexi arrived unbidden in her head. She took a deep breath before speaking.

‘The way victims feel is the only thing that matters. Thanks for letting me know, Cathy.’ Kelly ended the call, leaning against the wall and shutting her eyes; walking back to the incident room only when she was confident she had her emotions under control. Briefing had finished and the MIT office was once again buzzing with activity. She walked over to where Andrew Robinson was sitting next to Nick, and moved a chair from a nearby desk so she could join them.

‘Still following the money?’ Kelly asked, remembering the phrase the Cyber Crime DC had used at their last meeting.

‘We certainly are. I’ve tracked the credit card payments from the DI, from Gordon Tillman and from Luke Harris, all of which have been paid into a PayPal account – like this.’ Andrew took a blank sheet from the printer and wrote three names – RAMPELLO, TILLMAN, HARRIS. ‘The money goes from these three sources’ – he drew arrows from each of the names – ‘to here’ – Andrew sketched a box around the word ‘PayPal’ – ‘then continues to here.’ An arrow, and another box, this time around the words ‘Bank Account’.

‘And this account belongs to our offender. Right?’ Nick said.

‘Spot on.’

‘Can we get the details?’

‘Already got them.’ Andrew caught Kelly’s hopeful expression. ‘It’s a student account in the name of Mai Suo Li. I’ve got copies of the identification documents used to open it, and they’re all kosher; passport control confirms Mai Suo Li left the UK for China on July tenth this year and hasn’t returned.’

‘Could he be operating the site from China?’

‘It’s possible, but I can tell you now we won’t get anywhere with the Chinese authorities.’

It was making Kelly’s head hurt.

‘In the meantime I can tell you your offender uses a Samsung device to transfer funds from PayPal to the bank account. I can’t say whether it’s a phone, a tablet, or a laptop, but it’s a safe bet it’s something portable.’

‘How do you know?’ Kelly said.

‘Every time your phone is turned on it sends signals out as it searches for Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. If it was a home computer you’d expect a fixed location, but the results suggest a degree of thought into avoiding detection.’ Andrew handed a piece of paper to Nick, who moved his chair a fraction so Kelly could see it too. ‘If the Wi-Fi was switched on all the time I’d expect hundreds more locations, but as you can see, they’re few and far between. This suggests the device is being turned on only for specific purposes; almost certainly to transfer money from PayPal to the account. My guess is this is a dirty phone, not his regular one.’

Typed on to the sheet of paper was a list of locations. The top one was underlined.

Espress Oh!

‘What’s that?’

‘A coffee shop near Leicester Square, and our man’s preferred location for activity on his dirty phone. On three occasions in the last month he’s used their Wi-Fi to transfer money from PayPal to his bank account. You’ll find the dates and times below.’

‘Nice work,’ Nick said.

‘Now it’s down to old-fashioned policing methods, I’m afraid.’ Andrew looked pleased with himself, and rightly so. Kelly and the DI were on firmer ground now. A coffee shop in a busy place like Leicester Square would have CCTV, maybe even conscientious members of staff who would remember a particular customer on a particular day. If they could pull some decent stills from the footage they could get national coverage for a case as serious as this one.

‘Sir!’ The call came from the other side of the room. ‘Response are on their way to Crystal Palace. We’ve had an activation on Zoe Walker’s alarm.’

Nick was already grabbing his jacket. He looked at Kelly. ‘Let’s go.’