Trisha made them all a cup of tea, and Anna went into her office and turned to the transcripts of Hawley’s original interviews.
His story had been consistent. He’d voluntarily allowed them to examine his computers. The browsing history sourced from his internet service provider was unremarkable. They’d found no evidence of anything remotely paedophile-related, which was always a consideration in cases like these. Like 75% of other men in his age group, and 40% of women, he’d visited pornography sites, streamed but not stored downloads. Anna stayed up to speed on all that thanks to regular talks from the internet crime guys. A generation of kids had grown up thinking it was completely normal to watch hardcore sex on their phones. A decade ago it had been much more difficult to find, and internet access was restricted to a single PC in a parent’s study. Technology abolished all that. Almost 30% of twelve-year-old boys had seen some sort of pornography. Kids were as likely to find it by accident as deliberately: it had become that ubiquitous. Anna had seen her own fair share and she was no angel. Fifty Shades had done a lot to open the lid on that one. Statistically, ‘well-endowed stripper’ and ‘girl on girl’ came up tops as the commonest search terms during Prosecco-fuelled hen nights. Hawley’s habit, though probably humiliating when confronted with it, did not throw up anything the dirty squad wanted to know about.
There were cuttings in the file, too. Headlines relating to the local press’s unsubtle approach to Rosie’s death. Though the tabloids had not taken up the story, one local newspaper had been far less reticent.
Rosie murder suspect arrested
A man held by police over the abduction of Rosie Dawson is known to have worked at a local hospital where he regularly came into contact with children. Sources last night confirmed that for the three months leading up to Rosie’s abduction, the health professional had worked shifts in the hospital’s A and E department. A police source confirmed that he was still being held in connection with the case, so far with no charge.
It read as an innocuous enough statement, laden with innuendo, yet lurid enough to cause Hawley significant personal and professional pain, and for the editor to receive a warning from the Attorney General’s office.
There was no figure more reviled than a man who murdered children. The tabloids had a string of words that were a pick-and-mix of revulsion: ‘beast’, ‘paedo’, ‘monster’, ‘pervert’. The broadsheets and public broadcasters shied away from the more lurid and prejudicial choice of language; nevertheless, even they had gravitated towards words like ‘predator’ designed specifically to feed parents’ fears. The inevitable press frenzy only fuelled the panic and anger the general public felt.
Luckily for Hawley, his quick release meant that the national newspapers lost interest before his story took hold. The mudslinging had all been local.
Anna frequently pondered this pattern of reporting. The more heinous the crime, the more words were written about it. Murder remained king in the media. No doubt the more serious the crime, the more need there was to inform people, but the resultant skews, for someone in a job like hers, were enormous. And dealing with the press in the heat of such crimes piled on the strain, as she’d learned only too well in previous cases. Common crime was ignored, rare crime given the most attention. It didn’t reflect reality. And of course, it was only right and proper that children were warned of stranger danger, yet statistically, the risk of a child drowning in a swimming pool was three times greater than that of being abducted. But drownings were for the sympathy paragraph at the bottom of page four, not a page one headline.
The police had held Hawley for only twenty-four hours both times they’d had him in for questioning, but it was enough for the Post to have their little scoop of dirt and splash it over the mid-week edition. He’d been young and unprepared. She wondered how he’d begun to cope with trying to get back to normality after something like that. The truth was he had not, judging by what she read about his stagnating career.
Nineteen
The technician turned out to be a civilian data forensic investigator who’d been in a meeting talking to someone from Zephyr, the Regional Organised Crime Unit. Anna wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but Szandra Varga came as a pleasant surprise. Stocky, dark hair, efficient, she listened carefully as Khosa outlined what she had and then used Khosa’s computer to log on while the DC watched.
Five minutes later she was on the Europol website having traced the image from the reference in the Belgian police’s email. The dreadful scene appeared again.
‘I see,’ she said, still typing. Her accent was subtle, somewhere east of France, extending the vowels but not interfering in the slightest with her diction.
‘What do you see?’ Khosa asked.
‘First of all, it’s a png file. That means there would be no EXIF data.’
No one spoke. Varga looked up. ‘Whoever posted this file made it into a png image.’
Still no one said anything.
‘OK,’ said Varga, clearly used to technophobes. ‘When you take a photo with your phone or a camera, it is usually saved as a jpeg file. Joint photographic experts group. That is a format used to compress digital images. But if you have a GPS-enabled phone or camera, the file will include metadata like coordinates and the unique ID number of the device. Portable network graphics files, png, do not contain this metadata.’
‘If it had been a jpeg, we could have found out where it was taken?’
‘Possibly,’ said Varga.
‘So, he’s careful.’ Khosa nodded.
Woakes appeared and stood behind Holder, looking in over his shoulder at the screen.
‘What sort of website would have posted something like this?’ Holder asked.
Varga’s eyebrows went up. ‘Probably a forum or a discussion board. Perhaps a darknet marketplace.’
‘Darknet?’ Holder asked,
‘Also known as the Dark Web, yes.’
‘We know of it,’ Anna said.
‘OK.’ Varga’s go-to word. She swivelled around in her chair once again to address the squad. ‘Strictly speaking, a darknet is any network that needs specific software or tools to access it. It’s an encrypted network overlaid onto the normal internet and only accessible to those who have the tools. The Deep Web are the layers of the internet that normal search engines cannot access. It is the internet that is not within reach of most people. Hidden because of restricted access, such as a government site or a paid streaming service. The Dark Web, on the other hand, is a subset of the Deep Web that has been intentionally hidden. To access it you would need to use the darknet and its tools. In all three instances, the term ‘dark’ applies because it uses encryption to make users anonymous.’
‘How does it do that? I mean everyone has an IP address, don’t they?’ Anna said. ‘I mean you log on with your address.’
‘You cannot access the Dark Web through Google or Firefox. You need a special browser. A darknet browser such as Tor, The Onion Router, which has layers of privacy features already included. The smarter criminals also use a VPN or virtual private network to connect to public networks. Because of this, the Dark Web naturally attracts drug traffickers, illicit arms sellers and pornographic or paedophile activity. PPV you already know the meaning of. Probably there would be a link associated with the image, many further layers, and then somewhere to access more photographs, or, in this case, video, for a price.’
‘What about paying for that? Surely we can trace credit cards?’ Woakes asked.
Varga nodded. ‘Mostly these days it is cryptocurrency. Bitcoin, litecoin. There is no link to the buyer’s or seller’s identity. Though that is changing with blockchain evidence. Large amounts do leave a solid trail but small amounts are more difficult to track.’
The silence that followed let Varga know that she’d left her audience way behind.