Snared (20 page)

Chapter Sixty

V
icky sat in Brian Morton’s living room. The magnolia walls were bare, the curtains drawn, a naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling the only source of light. “Mr Morton, do you know anything about a group near Redford called Phorever Love?”

“I don’t know what that is.” Brian shook his head. “John!”

His brother stayed looking at the TV.

Considine loitered in the window overlooking the street. “You sure about that, Brian?”

Brian’s breathing quickened. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You sure?”

Brian’s face reddened. “I’m sure. I’ve never heard of Redmond.”

“Redford.”

“Where is it?”

“Near Forfar.”

Brian slammed a fist against his scooter. “Do I look like I can get there?”

Considine shrugged. “You get a decent battery life on those things, don’t you?”

“I know absolutely nothing about this Love Forever group.”

“Phorever Love.”

Brian ran a hand through his hair, now soaking with sweat. “I still don’t know anything about them.”

Vicky crossed her legs and smoothed down her skirt. “See, members of the group posted on the same forum you did — xbeast.”

“So?”

“They’d a campaign against a place near Barry called Hunter’s Farm.”

“And?”

“Do you watch the news, Brian?”

Brian shook his head. “The only time the telly’s on in here is when he’s around.”

Vicky glanced at John, still watching the news. “Well, Hunter’s Farm just happened to have a similar attack to that perpetrated against Rachel Hay and Paul Joyce. If you’ll recall, you took great delight in what happened to them.”

Brian tightened his grip on the arm supports. “Whoever did this hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“We beg to differ. Kidnapping’s against the law.”

Brian pounded the scooter again. “I don’t know anything about it!”

Vicky uncrossed her legs and got to her feet. “Come on, Constable, we’ll need to get Mr Morton here down to the station.”

John looked over from the TV. “This isn’t good for Brian’s heart.”

Vicky smiled at him. “Then it’s in his interests to answer the questions.”

“If he says he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know.”

“I’m not saying your brother did anything.”

“Seems like it.”

“We just want to know if he’s got any leads on that message board.”

“Why?”

“He’s an active participant on there. I can quite happily believe he’s not involved in this, but I want to know if there’s any help he can give us to find these people.”

Brian slammed his fist on the scooter again. “I’m not going to help you. Whoever’s doing this is a hero.”

John held up his hands. “He doesn’t mean that. Brian’s heart’s in the right place. He’s just interested in helping the animals. That’s right, isn’t it, Brian?”

“I just want people to stop being nasty to animals.”

Vicky nodded. “We all do.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why not? I buy free-range chicken and eggs.”

Brian glowered at her. “You’re not doing anything about it, though, are you?”

Considine crouched in front of the scooter. “Brian, we’re looking into this forum in a lot of detail. We’ve got an IT analyst
working
full-time on this. If you’ve been a naughty boy on there, it’s in your interest to tell us now. Okay?”

John tilted his head at Vicky. “Can I have a private word, please?”

She nodded and followed him into the kitchen. Ten empty cheesecake and gateaux boxes sat on the counter, giving off a sickly sweet aroma. “Tell me he doesn’t eat these.”

“It’s like I told you the other day. He lives off them. That lot’s just this morning.” John started putting the boxes in the recycling. “It’s all he’ll eat since Mum died. She used to look after him and managed to feed him decent stuff. I had to move back up from Essex but I’ve just not got the patience she had, or the time. Does that make me a bad person?”

Vicky leaned back against the counter, the chipped wood digging into the palms of her hands. “I’m not sure.”

“He has tantrums like he’s a kid.”

“I can relate to that.” Vicky frowned. “There’s nothing wrong with him, is there?”

“It’s just obesity.” John held up the last cheesecake box. “You should see him destroy one of these. It’s like that
Man Vs Food
programme
.”

Vicky folded her arms. “I assume you didn’t call me in here to tell me about your brother’s eating habits?”

“No.” John stuffed the last box in the recycling bin, the lid not quite shutting. “See, the other thing is his stress. He gets really bad. You saw what he was like in there. His heart isn’t great. Our old man died from a heart attack.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He was an arsehole. It’s no great loss.” John pushed his glasses up his nose. “To save us both hassle, is there anything I can do to help? I don’t want my brother dying. As much of a nightmare as he is, he’s all I’ve got left.”

Vicky stood up straight. “This is a serious matter, Mr
Morton
, as I’m sure you can imagine. People have been abducted and
tortured
in some cases. There are now three cases.”

John’s forehead creased. “Said two on the TV.”

“We’ve found another.”

John threw his arms in the air. “Look, I don’t give a shit about all this animal crap. I
do
give a shit about my brother. I almost had to take him into the hospital on Friday night after you let him go. I managed to get his breathing and heart rate back under control.”

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think he knows something.”

“I get that.” John licked his lips as he stared at the door back to the living room. “How about I speak to him for you?”

“How about I just take him down the station?”

“I told you, it’s not going to be good for his heart.”

“I think your brother knows something.”

“If it’ll get you lot out of his face, I’ll ask him.”

Raised voices came from the living room, sounding like Brian screaming at Considine.

John waved his hand at the door. “See, this is what I have to put up with. His blood sugar level’s always collapsing because of the bloody cakes he eats.”

“You could stop feeding him them.”

John raised his shoulders. “You’re welcome to look after him.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Thought so.”

Vicky rested her hands against the countertop — the last thing she needed was a coronary on her hands. “Right, fine. You speak to him and see what he can help us with.”

John nodded. “Sorry about this but it’s just not good for him.”

Vicky handed him her business card. “In case you’ve lost the last one.”

Chapter Sixty-One

V
icky held open the front door to the station. “What did you ask him to make him scream like that?”

Considine shrugged as he entered the station. “Nothing. I swear.”

“Didn’t sound like nothing.”

“He was just rambling at me.” Considine swiped through the security door, the lock clunking as it released. “Just kept talking to himself, like I wasn’t even there. Mad stuff about not going back to the police station. He was just building himself up into a froth.”

“Great.”

“Thought he was going to keel over there and then.”

Vicky opened the door to the stairwell and started climbing the stairs, her fingers kneading her neck as their words echoed around the tight space. “I can’t figure out how he fits into this.”

“From the witness statements, all we’ve got is three people at most.” Considine accelerated the last few steps to hold the door open. “One bloke, one woman and someone of indiscriminate
gender
. Brian doesn’t fit the profile of any of them.”

Vicky waited in the corridor outside their office space — two male detectives from another team were chatting further down. “So you think he’s not linked to this?”

“IT support is all I can think.”

“He’s a terror group’s helpdesk?”

Considine laughed. “No. He’s doing all this stuff online for them. It’s a big part of what they’re up to, isn’t it?”

Vicky peered through the open door, clocking Zoë tapping at her laptop. “Let’s see what young Zoë’s got so far.” She went and stood over her, hand on hip. “What progress have you made with Brian Morton?”

Zoë swallowed. “Been flat out, ma’am. Not had a chance to look into it too much.”

“What have you been flat out on?”

Zoë flicked her eyebrow up at Considine before focusing on her laptop again. “First, I was just confirming I could get nothing from the emails to the journalists.”

“And?”

“Well, I can’t. Anita Skinner’s site got taken down. The Met are trying to purge it from Google’s search results, but they’re not exactly playing ball.”

Vicky looked around, the nerve in her neck tightening. “Has anyone else published the email?”

“I’m afraid so. I just found this.” Zoë tapped her screen,
flicking
through the poison pen letters and a screen grab from the video. “Some WikiLeaks clone published the notes.”

“Who posted them there?”

“I’m just getting onto that.”

“Was it Anita Skinner?”

“Definitely not. I installed some friendly malware on her
laptop
. If she so much as goes near the dark net or the files she got sent, I’ll know about it.”

“Is that legal?”

“It’s not strictly illegal.”

“I’m getting more impressed with you by the day.” Vicky craned round to look at Considine, massaging down the knot in her neck, now reduced to a dull ache. “Tell Forrester about this, please.”

“Me?”

“Please.” Vicky crouched alongside Zoë. “What was the second thing?”

“Right. Well, I’ve been doing some more digging into the user names on xbeast. It’s the first step in trying to prove who’s posted that video.”

“And?”

“I’ve got another user who posted some comments in support of the actions. They were posted last night so I didn’t spot them till now.”

“Show me.”

“Here.” Zoë flipped to another screen and turned her laptop to show a page of indented text. “For the video, they’ve posted
‘why are the police looking into us? we’ve not committed a crime. dog breeding is a crime
.
’
”

“They said ‘us’.”

“I spotted that, too.” Zoë switched to another document. “For that battery hen farm attack, they’ve posted
‘we should have
firebombed
it with them inside
.
’
”

“Is this someone taking credit for it?”

“Doesn’t really look like it to me.” Zoë shrugged.

Vicky nodded. “I’d expect them to be more overt. Publishing somewhere a bit more public.”

“Could be like in football.” Considine lifted up his coffee mug, dark grey with orange lines, the black Dundee United lion rampant in front of an orange and white harlequin diamond. “When I’m talking about watching United, I’d say ‘we played well today’, even though I’m nowhere near the pitch. The royal ‘we’.”

Vicky shook her head. “The royal ‘we’ means referring to a single person as a plural, like the Queen does. It’s shorthand for ‘God and I’. The divine right of kings and all that. I did it at uni.”

“And to think I had to pick you up on the correct use of ‘fewer’.” Considine smirked. “Whatever. You still get my point, though
, right?”

Vicky tugged at her ponytail — it made sense. “Anything else?”

Zoë stared at the screen. “I’ve been through their post history. The same user posted in October, when that cat bin woman got done —
‘shame she got found’
.”

“Who is it?”

Zoë shrugged. “I’ll be a couple of hours getting an IP address, if we’re lucky.”

“Is it Brian Morton?”

“I don’t know.”

Vicky stood up, knees creaking. “This is your highest priority.”

“Understood.” Zoë nodded. “Oh, Mac was looking for you. Wanted you to help interview someone.”

Chapter Sixty-Two

W
e have no connections to that group.” Muirhead let his arms go, his cufflinks rattling off the interview room table. “I do wish you’d stop hounding my wife and me.”

“And I wish you’d stop posting things on parts of the internet we’re monitoring for terrorist activity.” MacDonald left the room, storming off down the corridor.

Vicky had to jog to catch up, weaving between a couple of uniforms coming the other way. “Did you get what you wanted, Euan?”

“Maybe.” MacDonald shrugged. “Thanks for stepping in, by the way. DC Woods got called home.”

“Oh. I hadn’t heard. Nothing serious, I hope?”

“Son was coughing. Got sent home from nursery.”

Vicky grimaced — Bella better not have caught anything from Cameron at the weekend. “Do you think the Muirheads are involved?”

“An hour each with them and we’ve got nothing. Deny, deny, deny.” MacDonald stopped by the door to their office space, his blue eyes darting about. “Whether they’re involved? Not sure. Sandy Muirhead fits the profile of the male perpetrator.”

“Isn’t he a bit short?”

“Maybe, but we’ve got really flaky descriptions. They could be anyone.”

“His hands are quite small. Nobody’s mentioned that.”

“They’ve not seen the hands, as far as I can tell. They’ve been wearing gloves. Easy to pad out.”

“Did you get anything from the interview with his wife before?”

“Nothing. Again it was just denial.” MacDonald drummed his fingers on the doorframe. “How did it go with Brian Morton?”

“We got nowhere. He was going ballistic at Considine. Looked like he was going to have a heart attack.”

“Where have you left it?”

“His brother’s going to have a word with him.”

“You think he’s trustworthy?”

Vicky gave a half-smile. “I have problems with trust at the best of times.”

“And at the worst?”

“Let’s just wait and see what he comes back with.”

MacDonald frowned, leaning against the door. “What’s that Brian boy’s story, anyway? He’s huge.”

“He’s morbidly obese. He just lives off frozen desserts.”

“Christ.”

“I honestly don’t know where he fits in.” Vicky nibbled at her lip before stepping forward to avoid an officer hurtling down the corridor, getting within a foot of MacDonald. “Did you get anywhere with the Wildlife guys?”

MacDonald shook his head. “Called them between interviews. Going to be tomorrow before the lad on the inside speaks to his handler to confirm the tale.”

“Right. I’ll wait till he gets back to you, then.”

“All we can do.” MacDonald led them back to their desks.

“Ma’am.” Zoë pulled out an earphone. “I’ve got an IP address back on that new profile.”

“Who is it?”

Zoë held up her notepad. “Woman called Marianne Smith?”

Vicky gritted her teeth. “The gardener at the James Hutton Institute.”