Again and again I found people who seemed perfect—right age, right height as far as I could tell; some of them even looked like me—but when I clicked through, their feed showed them safely in the UK. And then I found her. Keeleybab2001, Sunsmile call center operator. Not holiday snaps—but something better: a photo of a baby covered in small red spots. The caption showed a horrified blue-faced scream emoji, and read “Poor lil bubs has chickenpops!!!”
I clicked through. Keeley Winston. Fortunately, she also had a Facebook profile with very slack privacy settings, and a quick scan of it gave me her date of birth, current whereabouts (Milton Keynes), and where she’d been to school (also Milton Keynes).
All I needed now was her phone number. Luckily, I was just getting started.
I took a long gulp of tea as I scrolled down Keeley’s Facebook friends list, then picked a random contact called Katie who had commented on a fair number of Keeley’s posts. It was the work of five minutes to set up a Twitter account using Katie’s name and profile pic. Finding my next target was a little harder. I needed a mutual Facebook friend of both Katie and Keeley—whose Twitter DMs were open. Keeley’s Facebook friends weren’t much for Twitter, and I hit a blank wall again and again—until finally finding Gemma, PR manager for Wilkinstone’s Travel. DMs open with the line “Hit me up for travel tips, tweeps!”
I clicked the little envelope and began composing my DM.
“Hey Gemma, organising a little cheer-up for Keeley—did you know poor little bubs has got the pox?!—but lost her number for the courier. Can you resend? Don’t want to spoil the surprise Kx”
The message came back seconds later.
“Hi Katie, that is so nice!!! 0744 956 7652. Can I paypal you something for it?”
“No, all good,” I wrote back. “Ur the best!”
Then I shut down Twitter and opened up Photoshop.
* * *
SOME TWO HOURS LATER I left the print shop in Hastings with Keeley Winston’s brand-new Sunsmile employee pass in my pocket. It wasn’t the best bit of forgery I’d ever done—printing the mockup directly on one of the card blanks in my rucksack would have been more convincing, but the print shop didn’t have the facility to do that, so I’d had to make do with printing on shiny paper and then gluing the paper to the card. When I’d finished it looked okay—not good enough to withstand any kind of close scrutiny, but okay. But to be honest, if I got as far as being properly suspected, I was toast anyway. I was hoping to get away with just a casual glance—and at a casual glance it looked identical to Brian’s, only with Keeley’s name and my photo in place of his.
When I looked at my phone, I saw it was ten past ten. I had two options—and both had risks attached. I could try to phish Keeley’s computer password now, or I could wait until I was actually inside Sunsmile Insurance.
If I tried now, I would be going to Milton Keynes safe in the knowledge that I had the information I needed to see the job through.
But I didn’t have the equipment required to spoof a number, and a call from a random unknown mobile was much less convincing than one coming from her own company. If Keeley didn’t rise to the bait, I would have to start again from scratch—find someone else away from the office today, get their number, fake their ID. And I was running out of time.
The problem was that the alternative was, in some ways, even riskier—to wait until I was actually inside Sunsmile, and try for the final piece of the puzzle then. If I failed at that point, if Keeley saw through my bluff, then I was sunk. More than sunk, in fact—if Keeley realized what I was trying to do, there was a good chance someone would be waiting for me at the Sunsmile reception with a team of security, as I tried to leave the building.
Yes, the second option was riskier—much riskier. But it also had a higher chance of succeeding. And so it was the one I was going to take.
* * *
I GOT OFF THE TRAIN at Milton Keynes at just past one p.m. I had left Noemie’s camel coat balled up in the train toilets, and now I was wearing what I hoped was call center–appropriate clothing—dark blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and a dark jacket. I felt keyed up, sick with nerves, and the dressing beneath my rib was throbbing in time with my thudding heart, but aside from that I felt… well, I felt better than I had in days, to be honest. I felt like I was back in my comfort zone, on a job—a job that I couldn’t afford to fail, to be sure, but how many times before had I felt like that? This was a pen test—just like any other. And I was very, very good at my job.
I was maybe five minutes away from the Sunsmile building when my phone beeped. It was a Signal message from Hel.
“Hey, are you okay? Didn’t hear from you yesterday,” she’d written. I felt a wash of serotonin, mixed with the strong feeling that this wasn’t the time or place to have a heart-to-heart with Hel.
“I’m okay,” I typed back. “Had a close shave last night—haven’t really slept—but I’m on the track of something big. Might be the first bit of good news for days.”
“WHAT?!” Her answer came through immediately, vibrating with excitement.
“I have a lead,” I typed. “On the insurance policy. I can’t talk now. I’ll message as soon as I’m out.”
“Wait, are you there right now??!!?!” Hel typed back, with an uncharacteristic number of exclamation marks.
“Yep,” I replied.
Hel responded with a single shocked-face emoji. Then, “Be careful! Keep me posted. Over and out.”
I shut down the app. Then I turned the corner—and the Sunsmile complex was sprawling in front of me.
* * *
THE BUILDING WAS EVEN BIGGER than it had looked from the photos on Instagram, and I felt a prickle of intimidation as I walked up to the glass door, but I pushed it open with what I hoped looked like confident familiarity. People were coming back from lunch, and I’d been crossing my fingers for the kind of glass security barriers that swung open or slid back like lift doors—they were fantastically easy to tailgate through. But unfortunately, Sunsmile had gone old school with metal turnstiles, the kind they’d had at the municipal swimming pool when I was a kid.
They were also annoyingly effective, and there was no way I could squeeze through with another employee without getting done for sexual harassment. I was going to have to blag it.
I walked up to the barrier with as much confidence as I could muster and didn’t break stride as I swiped my plastic card on the reader. The jolt as the turnstile failed to unlock jarred my rib so hard I had to suppress a gasp, and the metallic clang was audible over at the reception desk. What I wanted to do was wince and press my hand to my throbbing side, but instead I looked down at the swipe card I was holding, keeping my expression mild and puzzled.
Then I tried again, this time pushing the barrier more cautiously with my hand. A small queue was building up behind me, people coming back from lunch, diverting past me with sighs to the other turnstiles as they realized what had happened.
“Mine went blank the other day,” one of the girls said. “You’ll have to get Derek to swipe you through.”
Derek. If I’d had time to send up a silent prayer of thanks to a God I didn’t believe in, I would have done.
“Derek!” I called across now, to the security guard standing behind the front desk. He looked up, his expression inquiring and helpful. “Derek, I’m so sorry—I don’t know what’s happened. My pass isn’t working. Can you beep me through?”
I held it up, deliberately not moving from the turnstile. Don’t let him get too close.
“It’s… Keeley?” I said, putting just the smallest touch of chagrin that he hadn’t recognized me into my voice. “Keeley Winston, from the call center?”
Derek peered closer, squinting at the ID from his position behind the desk, and then up at my face. I felt my heart quicken. Now was the moment. If he did actually know Keeley, I was utterly, utterly screwed.
And then he grinned.
“Sorry about that, Keeley,” he said, and pressed something under the desk. “Don’t keep it too close to your credit cards, yeah?”
“Oh, shoot. I didn’t know that.” I made a face, miming regret at my own stupidity. “Thanks, Derek.”
And then the turnstile unlocked, and I was through.
* * *
I WALKED CONFIDENTLY FOR THE first few minutes, following the crowd of people, and then allowed myself to fall back from the cohort who had come through reception with me, waiting for a new group of lunchtime returnees to catch up. When I was satisfied that no one near me was part of the cohort I had come through the turnstiles with, I tapped a nice-looking girl on the arm.
“I’m so sorry, I’m an IT contractor and I’m supposed to be working on someone’s machine in the call center, but I’ve got totally lost. Can you point me in the right direction? The person I’m looking for is Keeley Winston.”
The girl laughed, but not unkindly.
“Oh God, yeah, it’s a bit of a maze, isn’t it? The call center is third floor, over in C wing. Take that lift over there. I’m afraid I’m not sure where her desk is, but someone up there will be able to point you in the right direction.”