Death Message Read Online Free
in the early hours, Thorne could never decide which was easier to live with.
' Jai alai ,' Holland said. 'I'll remember that.'
'How's it going with the phone companies?' Thorne sounded hopeful, but knew that unless the man they were dealing with was particularly dim, the hope would be dashed pretty bloody quickly.
'It's a T-Mobile number,' Holland said.
'Prepay, right?'
'Right. They traced the number to an unregistered pay-as-you-go handset, which the user would have dumped as soon as he'd sent you the picture. Or maybe he's kept the handset and just chucked away the SIM card.'
Either way, there was probably nothing further to be gained in that direction. As the market for mobile phones had expanded and diversified, tracking their use had become an ever-more problematic line of investigation. Prepay SIMs and top-up cards could be picked up almost anywhere; people bought handsets with built-in call packages from vending machines; and even those phones registered to a specific company could be unlocked for ten pounds at stalls on any street market. Provided those employing the phones for criminal purposes took the most basic precautions, it was rarely the technology itself that got them nicked.
The only way it could work against them was in the tracing of cell-sites - the location of the masts that provided the signal used to make a call in the first place. Once a cell-site had been pinpointed, it could narrow down the area from where the call was made to half a dozen streets, and if the same sites were used repeatedly, suspects might be more easily tracked down, or eliminated from enquiries. It was a time-consuming business, however, as well as expensive.
When Thorne asked the question, Holland explained that, on this occasion, the DCI had refused to authorise a cell-site request. Thorne's response was predictably blunt, but he could hardly argue. With the phone companies charging anywhere up to a thousand pounds to process and provide the information, he knew he'd need more than the picture of a corpse as leverage.
'What about where he bought it?' Thorne asked. If they could trace the handset to a particular area, or even a specific store, their man might have been caught somewhere on CCTV. If mobile phones were making life trickier, the closed-circuit television camera was quickly becoming the copper's best friend. As a citizen of the most observed nation in Europe, with one camera to every fourteen people, the average Londoner was captured on video up to three hundred times a day.
'It's a Carphone Warehouse phone,' Holland said.
'Is that good news?'
'Take a guess. According to this geeky DC at the Telephone Unit, their merchandise can never be traced further than the warehouse it was shipped out from. If our man had got it somewhere else, we might have been in with a shout, but all the retailers have different ways of keeping records.'
'Fuck . . .'
'I reckon he just landed on his feet in terms of where he bought his kit. I don't see how he could have known any of that. Not unless he works for a phone company, or he's one of the anoraks I've spent all morning talking to.'
'Thanks, Dave.'
'I'll keep trying,' Holland said. 'We might get lucky.'
Thorne nodded, but was already thinking about other things. About the nature of the message he'd been sent. He knew what it was, but not what it meant.
Was it a warning? An invitation? A challenge?
Thinking that, if the powers-that-be ever wanted to change that motto of theirs, he had the perfect replacement. One that gave a far more accurate picture of the job. Thorne imagined the scrap of headed notepaper on the desk in front of him with that tired, blue logo erased from the top. Pictured a future where all Metropolitan Police promotional material came emblazoned with a new catchphrase.
We might get lucky.
THREE
'Everyone's got one of these.' The shop assistant pressed the gleaming sliver into Thorne's palm. 'You see the celebs with 'em in Heat and Loaded and all
' Jai alai ,' Holland said. 'I'll remember that.'
'How's it going with the phone companies?' Thorne sounded hopeful, but knew that unless the man they were dealing with was particularly dim, the hope would be dashed pretty bloody quickly.
'It's a T-Mobile number,' Holland said.
'Prepay, right?'
'Right. They traced the number to an unregistered pay-as-you-go handset, which the user would have dumped as soon as he'd sent you the picture. Or maybe he's kept the handset and just chucked away the SIM card.'
Either way, there was probably nothing further to be gained in that direction. As the market for mobile phones had expanded and diversified, tracking their use had become an ever-more problematic line of investigation. Prepay SIMs and top-up cards could be picked up almost anywhere; people bought handsets with built-in call packages from vending machines; and even those phones registered to a specific company could be unlocked for ten pounds at stalls on any street market. Provided those employing the phones for criminal purposes took the most basic precautions, it was rarely the technology itself that got them nicked.
The only way it could work against them was in the tracing of cell-sites - the location of the masts that provided the signal used to make a call in the first place. Once a cell-site had been pinpointed, it could narrow down the area from where the call was made to half a dozen streets, and if the same sites were used repeatedly, suspects might be more easily tracked down, or eliminated from enquiries. It was a time-consuming business, however, as well as expensive.
When Thorne asked the question, Holland explained that, on this occasion, the DCI had refused to authorise a cell-site request. Thorne's response was predictably blunt, but he could hardly argue. With the phone companies charging anywhere up to a thousand pounds to process and provide the information, he knew he'd need more than the picture of a corpse as leverage.
'What about where he bought it?' Thorne asked. If they could trace the handset to a particular area, or even a specific store, their man might have been caught somewhere on CCTV. If mobile phones were making life trickier, the closed-circuit television camera was quickly becoming the copper's best friend. As a citizen of the most observed nation in Europe, with one camera to every fourteen people, the average Londoner was captured on video up to three hundred times a day.
'It's a Carphone Warehouse phone,' Holland said.
'Is that good news?'
'Take a guess. According to this geeky DC at the Telephone Unit, their merchandise can never be traced further than the warehouse it was shipped out from. If our man had got it somewhere else, we might have been in with a shout, but all the retailers have different ways of keeping records.'
'Fuck . . .'
'I reckon he just landed on his feet in terms of where he bought his kit. I don't see how he could have known any of that. Not unless he works for a phone company, or he's one of the anoraks I've spent all morning talking to.'
'Thanks, Dave.'
'I'll keep trying,' Holland said. 'We might get lucky.'
Thorne nodded, but was already thinking about other things. About the nature of the message he'd been sent. He knew what it was, but not what it meant.
Was it a warning? An invitation? A challenge?
Thinking that, if the powers-that-be ever wanted to change that motto of theirs, he had the perfect replacement. One that gave a far more accurate picture of the job. Thorne imagined the scrap of headed notepaper on the desk in front of him with that tired, blue logo erased from the top. Pictured a future where all Metropolitan Police promotional material came emblazoned with a new catchphrase.
We might get lucky.
THREE
'Everyone's got one of these.' The shop assistant pressed the gleaming sliver into Thorne's palm. 'You see the celebs with 'em in Heat and Loaded and all
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