few people walking dogs. Don was always talking about getting a dog. Some big loping Labrador like the one he had when he was a kid. Louise quite liked the idea. Or at least she had no strong objections. Her husband knew about dogs and he would be the one to walk the animal, feed, water and clean up after it. She had noticed all the dog walkers carried plastic bags. She smiled, maybe they should get a cat.
The run was damp but uneventful. In some ways it was quite pretty. The countryside was green and wooded and sparsely populated with a few sheep and cows. Further down, when she reached the river, she could see the yellow fields of oil seed rape. Growing a product that was on the way out. That was Caneston all over. The city was old, it reeked of age. The Romans, The Vikings, The Knights Templar who gave this place its name. She ran past a large, empty house. It looked spooky, or would if she believed in such things. With the boarded up windows and broken, weed infested yard.
Further down she passed the farm. She could see some vehicles parked up. The road was slightly wider here, but she didn’t see anyone else. Either on foot or driving.
Eventually she encountered more houses. Urban houses. Small, connected, with neat little gardens and neat but old cars parked in a line outside.
She ran under the railway bridge. The flood defences were more noticeable here. The high sloping banks had given way to modern military green metal barriers. Their bases set in thick waterproof rubber seals.
The rain had formed a large, deep, pond in the base of the underpass. Louise continued right to the edge then leapt. Her right foot came down solidly on a brick that someone had tossed into the middle of the pond. Then she was airborne again, landing safely and dryly on the other side.
She powered up the steep slope to the path. The bridge and main road was in plain sight now. She reached it in a minute or so and began her return trip down the pavement near the road.
She felt fit and energized and ready to face the day.
She also knew why she had returned home and what she needed to do now she was here.
Chapter Five
Hazel Vernon placed Sid Fuller’s laptop computer on her desk and slowly opened the lid to look at the screen.
“Nice, isn’t it?” said Detective Constable Ruth Bergan, “I considered getting Erica that model.” Erica Bergan was Ruth’s teenage daughter and Hazel’s unofficial niece. Ruth had come over to the crime squad the same time as Hazel. But while Hazel’s background had been in the vice squad, and that hadn’t been a great career move. Ruth Bergan had been poached from the fraud squad. Apparently they had not been too enthusiastic to lose her.
“Is it?” Hazel owned a desktop PC, on which she checked her emails and did some online shopping and banking. The more intricate aspects of the machine escaped her.
“It’s very well specified.” Ruth said patiently, she knew full well the extent of Hazel’s ignorance of computers. Though she preferred to think of it as an indifference to rather than an ignorance of. So she refrained from going into too much detail. “This is a top of the range machine. Was Fuller into computers?”
“He was into women mostly.” Hazel said. “What’s that?” She poked her finger at a small lens like object in the top of the screen.
“That’s the webcam.” Ruth said. “Those things at the side are the speakers and that there is a built in microphone.”
“So you don’t need a headset?”
“Well no, though you could add one I expect. You use the direction keys to move the webcam, but you can buy a separate call control that plugs into the usb port. Those things there….”
“I know what a usb port is.” Hazel said.
“Yes, but you don’t know what it means.” Ruth smiled brightly. “I’ve got it plugged into the net for you. Do you need any more help?”
“I can manage.” Hazel said, “Thanks.” She hadn’t known Ruth for long, perhaps eight months, but women had quickly become friends. Ruth was 42 and cheerfully motherly. Hazel wouldn’t have picked her for the position of a crime squad detective, but wunderkind Detective Superintendent William Church had a slightly annoying habit of knowing who was the best at doing what. Hazel pushed the red on switch, the only coloured key on the board.
“If you do need any help, I’ll be doing some really tedious paperwork.” Ruth said. “I’ll be more than happy to come and help.”
Hazel watched the rotating stylized silver IE of the International Electromatics company as the machine booted up, and the briefer screen to inform her it was using Freemartin 1.7 operating system then she was at the desktop screen.
Rather surprisingly Sid had chosen to use what looked like a computer generated image of the old Luna One spaceship that had taken the first men to the moon back in 1965 as the backdrop to his desktop. There were very few icons on the screen. But then Hazel had very few icons on her computer screen.
She sat back, thinking. Really she hadn’t known Sid Fuller all that well. She didn’t know what his favourite food was, or what beer he drank. Or even if he was skilled with a computer. He’d just been a man who told her things about people who were more criminal than he was.
Maybe he was really interested in the early days of the space program. Before the big private companies took over. Perhaps he liked history.
Hazel smiled. She had his computer, and these days, that was the same as having a person’s whole life laid out before you.
She clicked on the internet icon and waited.
Up came the log in screen. Sid was like Hazel herself, and far too many people in the word. He had ticked box that enabled the machine to remember his password.
She clicked “connect.”
The machine logged on a whole lot faster than her computer could
Ruth, of course, had been right. Top of the range. Hazel was tempted to find out the specifications. Except she had no idea how to. And was well aware if she did know how to she wouldn’t understand what they meant.
She was confronted with a screen that was not unlike the one on her computer. She looked at the top. The….taskbar…
Email. Sid had four emails waiting.
Hazel clicked on the virtual button.
Quickly the machine went to his emails. Sid was on automatic sign in. Which was a great relief. For Hazel, not for Ruth with her paperwork.
Two of the emails were not useful. Hazel opened them, but they were merely adverts for online retailers. One for health foods. The other was for an electronics dealer. Apparently Sid had purchased from them before and the companies were hoping for more business with “amazing deal” adverts.
She clicked on another email.
Apparently whoever sent it hadn’t heard from Sid in a few days and was very keen to see him.
KDFox was the address. The emailer called herself Karen.
Karen
