Howie gets in about two minutes before the police courier arrives from Bristol. She hasn’t even taken off her coat when he hands over the Kintry and York files, taped up in a second-hand Jiffy bag.
Howie thanks him, lays the Jiffy bag on her messy desk.
The courier is a young PC with a heavy West Country accent. She offers him a cup of tea. He prefers one of the Cup a Soups he sees next to the water-spotted kettle. He’s been up all night and he’s hungry.
He drinks the soup. They chat about the case in very general terms. Then he rinses the cup, wishes her good luck and leaves.
Howie takes a coffee to her desk, slips on a pair of noise-reducing headphones, opens the Jiffy bag and digs out the files.
Luther’s barely through the heavy doors of the buzzing unit when Benny grabs his elbow and drags him into the office, Ian Reed’s dry cleaning still hanging there behind the door.
Benny’s twitchy, wide-eyed, washed-out.
Luther says, ‘Christ, Benny. How much sleep did you get?’
‘Not that much. It was niggling at me. It’s difficult to sleep when you know you could be doing something useful — in case things didn’t work out.’
‘Well, things didn’t work out.’
‘I heard that. You okay?’
‘Tickety-boo. What’ve you got?’
‘Facebook.’
‘I thought we’d done that.’
‘Well, yes and no,’ Benny’s rushing now, eager to tell him something. He reins himself in, takes a breath and says, ‘What’s the golden rule of social networking?’
Luther hangs up his coat. ‘Don’t do it?’
‘No. The golden rule is — only put up information or images you’re happy for everyone to see and are happy to put your name to. And the Lamberts seem to have done that, by and large.’
‘But?’
‘But the problem is, when I say happy for anyone to see, it really does mean anyone. The problem with social networking, the internet in general, is it’s easy for someone to pretend to be someone they’re not. For instance,’ he stands, ‘do you mind?’
Luther gets out of Benny’s way, lets him access the old beige computer with 15-inch monitor he’s got tottering on his desk — brought here when Traffic had a refit, got themselves some nice flatscreens.
Benny logs on to Facebook, taps a few keys.
Then Luther’s looking at his own Facebook page. Except Luther doesn’t have a Facebook page.
Benny says, ‘I set this up in your name last night.’
Luther looks at it. ‘How?’
‘Easy. I know your birthday, right? I know where you went to school, uni, blah blah blah. You can easily get these details online. What I didn’t have to hand was a photograph of you. But I happen to know you like David Bowie, right? And I know your favourite album.’
‘ Low.’
‘Right. So I dig up the cover image for Low. Use that as your profile picture. Anybody who knows you, sees it and thinks: Typical John Luther! Bowie fanatic! So nobody’s got any reason to think this isn’t you. Now all I have to do is look up a few old friends of yours. Again, that’s easily done because I know where you went to school. I send out a bunch of friend requests.’
‘Tell me you haven’t done that,’ says Luther.
‘No way. I value my ability to walk. But listen, the point is, I knocked up this page in ten minutes — for educational purposes only. Just to show you how easy it is, to be someone else online.’
‘Okay. Point made. Internet bad. So?’
‘So I combed through all the Lamberts’ online “friends”. Sarah Lambert’s got 250-odd, Tom Lambert’s got 70. He’s a very occasional user. So let’s put him to one side for the moment, come back to him if we need to. Let’s concentrate on Sarah. She’s got 253 friends: of those 253 friends, 185 post once a week or more. Of the remaining 68, most are occasional users. What happens a lot is, people start up a new account and go posting happy: what they had for breakfast, funny things the kids have said. But that loses its appeal pretty quickly, and their postings get fewer and fewer as the weeks go by. Some people sign up, make one or two postings, decide it’s not for them and are basically never seen again.’
‘How many of those we got?’
‘About half a dozen: Tony Barron, Malcolm Grundy, Charlotte Wilkie, Ruby Douglas, Lucy Gadd, Sophie Unsworth.’
Luther nods, feeling something now — something coming down the line at him.
‘I contacted them all this morning,’ Benny says.
‘What do you mean? Officially?’
‘No chance. I rang round, pretending to be from a charity. Phoned their workplaces. That kind of thing.’
‘You’re in the wrong job, mate. So how’d it play?’
‘Tony Barron, Malcolm Grundy, Charlotte Wilkie, Lucy Gadd, Sophie Unsworth — all of them check out — or seem to at a first pass. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to do a bit more due diligence on them, belt and braces.’
‘All right, consider it done. But the last name?’
‘Ruby Douglas.’
‘Who’s Ruby Douglas?’
‘Ruby Douglas went to the same prep school as Sarah Lambert. Moved away when she was thirteen. So you’re talking about a very loose, very old acquaintance — if you can even call her that. Someone Mrs Lambert may remember, but hasn’t actually seen for more than twenty-five years.’
‘Okay.’
‘This “Ruby Douglas” joined Facebook three years ago, befriended the Lamberts and a few others the same day. Then didn’t make one post. Not a single post, until-’
‘Until?’
‘Until Mrs Lambert announced she was pregnant.’
Luther’s heart is loud in his chest now.
He says, ‘Let me see the post.’
Sarah Lambert:
We’ve been on tenterhooks for weeks and weeks, dying to tell you. Tom and I are pregnant! Four months gone!
‘There are fifty-nine comments and thirty-eight “likes”. One of those “likes” was posted by Ruby Douglas. That’s the only posting she ever made. To anyone. Ever.’
At length, Luther says, ‘You tried to contact her? Ruby Douglas?’
‘Oh yeah. No deal.’
‘We don’t think this is actually her, do we?’
‘Not a chance.’
‘So we’re saying Pete Black stalked the Lamberts on Facebook?’
‘It’s so easily done,’ Benny says. ‘Seriously. People have no idea of the kind of person who’s out there, watching them.’
Luther’s sense of triumph fades. He sits. Thinks about it. ‘So the announcement of the pregnancy is what got them killed? He was waiting for it.’
Benny says nothing. Knows there’s nothing to say.
‘Can we trace the user back?’ Luther says. ‘‘‘Ruby Douglas”, find him that way?’
‘Whoever it was used a free webmail address to sign up. Not traceable. Posted from different public ISPs.’
‘The ISPs any use?’
‘One of them’s a public Wi-Fi hotspot. The other’s a cafe in East London.’
‘The chances of getting security camera footage?’
‘After all these months? Pretty small.’
‘Worth a try, though. I’ll get someone on it.’
But there’s more. He can see it in Benny’s eyes.
He forces himself to sit still.
Benny says, ‘The thing about cyber-stalking, it’s not like the real-world equivalent. To someone like this, the internet is like a dessert trolley. He could be watching any number of people. I mean, he could be watching dozens of people. Or hundreds. He’d know when they were sick, when they’re well. When they were on holiday. When they’re at meetings, out of town. He’d know what their kids look like, what their pets are called, what they watch on TV. He might as well be in their house.’
Luther thinks of Pete Black, out there, omniscient, full of jealousy and hatred.
Waiting for the next child. And the child after that.
Then Teller comes to the door.
He says, ‘Boss?’
‘The day’s not getting better,’ she says.
She leads him to her office, where the news is playing on her computer.
On a rolling news channel, Maggie Reilly is being interviewed by a slim young Anglo-Indian woman in Armani and killer heels.