BadDayz.com

1

Cambridge, England

20h00 GMT, 11 October 2009

2006—2007—2008—2009—2010—2011—2012

He swung into his chair after returning home from work, switched on the computer, checked his e-mails then logged in and waited quietly in the receding light of a brisk Cambridgeshire autumnal evening. The anticipation infused a sense of fragrance in his nostrils. The perfume of iron trapped in haemoglobin. He licked his lips. Conrad, on the other side of the world, saw that Gabriel had logged in and immediately started typing.

Cdesign02: OK, I’m ready.

Gabriel: Nervous?

Cdesign02: A little.

Gabriel: Have you chosen a finger yet?

Cdesign02: Not yet.

Gabriel: And the hammer?

A protracted pause

Gabriel: Did you find the hammer?

Cdesign02: Yes.

Gabriel: Is he right-handed?

Cdesign02: I don’t know.

Gabriel: Go ask him, I’ll wait.

The room he waited in was a back bedroom in a modest house on an ordinary street. The ceiling light was switched off. The hue from the computer screen coloured his skin an unnatural, Pictish blue in the gloom. To his right was an open door and behind him the gloom of a cloudy evening peered in through the closed window. The reflection in the glass distorted his broad shoulders, sandy hair and the simple lines of the wooden campaign table and chair.

And so it begins, he thought to himself, stretching back comfortably against the chair. He picked at the small bloodstain on his trousers then studied his fingertips gently tapping the opening movement of Carmina Burana playing in his mind. His eyes closed as he surrendered to the swell of the music rising inside him. The tempo built slowly at first but it came on inexorably, mercilessly, harder and faster until he was swept away by it, buoyed by the release of dopamine and endorphin in his brain. ‘O Fortuna’ always played in his mind when he started the process with a new patient and always produced a maelstrom of excitement that he could never explain. He revelled in it now, riding the pleasure coursing through his veins. His head lolled against the knot of his tie until, finally, the tenor crescendo crashed over him and released him. He opened his eyes, sated and dissociated, breathless, until his mind stilled and a contented sigh rippled through the calm in the room.

A clash of protesting crockery and cutlery rang out from the next room, breaking the spell. The smell of food wafted in, reminding him how hungry he was.

‘Dinner’s ready,’ a woman’s voice called from the kitchen.

‘I’ll be there in a minute.’

‘Yours is on the counter, I’ve got the knives and forks,’ she said as she walked past the open door with a plate of food.

‘I’m almost done,’ he said without looking up. ‘I’ve just got to finish this thought.’

‘It’ll get cold,’ her voice trailed behind her as she moved down the passage.

‘Just two more minutes.’

He looked down at the screen and saw the answer:

Cdesign02: He’s right-handed.

Reading the words, he imagined Conrad’s exhilaration. The thought of him hurrying back from the penitent was pleasing. Enthusiasm and passion were essential ingredients.

Gabriel: Did you get the extra cable ties?

Cdesign02: Yes.

Gabriel: I would suggest the forefinger of his right hand. Stretch it out and tie it to the armrest.

Cdesign02: OK, back in a minute.

He tapped idly on the space bar, drained by the intensity of Carl Orff’s opening cantata, waiting patiently as he had done many times before. His thoughts drifted as he watched the tendons of his fingers gliding beneath the skin.

Cdesign02: Done it.

Gabriel: Have you told him yet?

No response.

Gabriel: Always tell him first.

Still no response.

Gabriel: We spoke about this.

Cdesign02: I know.

Gabriel: Knowing what’s going to happen is the mind-fuck part for him. Let it sink in, don’t rush it.

Cdesign02: I know.

Gabriel: Make him squirm, he needs to squirm.

Cdesign02: Ok.

Gabriel: Do the tip or the whole finger, it’s up to you, but only do one.

Cdesign02: I know.

Gabriel: It gets messy so don’t freak out if you get blood and gunk on your face. Remember to be safe. He’s probably got AIDS so keep your mouth tightly shut.

Cdesign02: OK.

Gabriel: When the blood and the noise start, you’ll feel the adrenalin kick in so be ready for it. Stay in control and stick to the plan. Remember this is all about you. Don’t get carried away and accidently kill him.

Cdesign02: OK.

Gabriel: Don’t stop until it’s done. If you hesitate, he’ll see weakness. You both need to know that you have the power now and you mean what you say.

Cdesign02: I know.

Gabriel: Keep going until the bone disintegrates then clamp the arteries. The screaming may put you off in the beginning but I guarantee it will stop. They all stop squealing pretty quickly and start the begging. He’ll offer you anything and everything to let him go. Ignore what he says. They all make promises they can’t keep and they all cry puerile tears. Ignore the tears. He’s not crying for her, he’s crying for himself. Penitence takes more time.

Cdesign02: I’m ready.

Gabriel: Go ahead, Carpe diem my friend.

He leant further back in his chair and stared at the screen. His eyes drifted back to the first joint of his index finger gently draped over the mouse. He ran his fingers through his hair, nodded in approval and closed his eyes to imagine Conrad at work on the other side of the world.

Conrad rose from his computer. It was nine o’clock on a chilly spring evening in Johannesburg, and goose pimples prickled his tanned skin. Walking across the mezzanine and descending the stairs into the living room, he gathered his keys from the kitchen worktop, taking care not to mark the polished surface. He unlocked the front door and followed the shingled driveway to the garage’s side entrance. Remus, an old lemon and white pointer dog, loped across the lawn to meet him. Conrad stroked his head as they stepped into the garage. The fluorescent bulbs hummed into life and he collected the hammer from the workbench. The old wooden handle had a warm patina, polished by hours of work in skilled hands.

‘Come on, boy,’ Conrad called to Remus as he flicked the light switch off.

He locked the garage door and returned to the house.

‘Wait here,’ he said and left the dog outside.

Conrad walked through the living room to the open-plan kitchen. He returned the keys to the granite worktop then retrieved a single key hanging beside a Saint Christopher pendant on a gold chain around his neck. The chain and the pendant were a gift from his mother; the key was a gift to himself. His hand trembled slightly as he ran his fingers through his dark brown hair. A forced sigh and an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders steadied his nerve. Clenching the key he crossed the room and stepped through the sliding doors at the rear onto the wooden patio. The night air was crisp and still beneath the branches of the oak tree growing from the centre of the entertainment area. A few long strides carried him across the decking to the storeroom at the far corner of the back garden. He paused, cricked his head from side to side to release the tension, then unlocked the door and stepped inside.

A stocky young black man sat alone in a chair in the centre of the brightly lit room. Conrad had tied him to the chair with a web of white plastic cable ties and pushed a golf ball into his mouth before gagging him with brown tape. Beads of perspiration glistened on the black skin and the wet stains on his shirt testified to his efforts to free himself. A close-cropped peppercorn hairstyle, full cheeks and Levi jeans spoke of easy living. Bloodshot eyes hinted at solvent abuse.

‘Jabulani, my friend,’ Conrad spoke softly as he locked the door. ‘Tonight’s the night.’

The black youth spewed incoherent rage beneath the tape gagging his mouth.

‘Good. Good,’ Conrad acknowledged Jabulani’s anger. ‘Hang on to that, you’re going to need it.’

Jabulani’s belligerence changed to fear when he saw the large claw hammer clenched in his captor’s hand. A flicker of confusion creased the skin between his eyebrows as he watched him place the hammer carefully on the chest of drawers. Conrad’s back obscured the drawers as he rummaged through them, looking for the small cable ties.

Conrad sniffed as he straightened his tall tri-athlete frame, pushed the drawers closed and turned to face Jabulani. He walked up to him and held the plastic ties in his teeth as he adjusted Jabulani’s extended right index finger. He added two more ties to bind it tightly to the metal arm of the chair then stood back to review his work.

He stepped to his right, rolled up the sleeves of a blue plaid shirt, casually tucked the shirt tails into the waistband of his khaki chinos then picked up the hammer.

‘You see this hammer?’ he asked the young man furiously straining against the cable ties.

‘Focus, Jabulani!’ he said sternly. ‘Focus on what we’re doing.’

Jabulani sat still with rigid vitriol. He sucked air through his flaring nostrils and flicked his head sideways to discard the beads of sweat running down his face.

‘This was my father’s hammer, Jabulani. It was her father’s hammer. This hammer is going to help you pay what you owe.’

Jabulani fell silent. Something about the lean man’s chiselled face looked vaguely familiar. Latin-Caucasian, green eyes, elegant nose, angular cheekbones, high brow, dark hair.

‘Every day I’m going to come to you with this hammer, Jabulani,’ he said softly as he advanced on his captive. ‘Every day I’m going to use it to smash one of your fingers. This will go on and on and on until you have none left.’

Jabulani remonstrated unintelligibly beneath his gag.

‘When you have no fingers left, Jabulani, I’ll start on your toes, then your knees, then your elbows, then your ankles, then your wrists and on and on and on. We’re going to spend a lot of time together from now on, my friend. You will live the pain you caused everyone.’

Jabulani cocked his head and glared back defiantly.

Conrad gently stroked the knuckle restrained between the two tightly strung cable ties. He smiled and raised Jabulani’s chin to look deep into his dark eyes.

‘Do you remember my sister?’ he asked, drawing a photograph out of his pocket and thrusting it in front of Jabulani’s face. He waited for an answer.

Jabulani stared at the photo, his eyes blank.

‘You don’t remember her, do you?’ Holding the hammer clenched in his elegant fingers, he pushed a lock of hair off his forehead with the back of his hand.

Jabulani grunted.

‘Well, I remember her and I remember what you did to her.’

He raised the hammer in front of Jabulani’s eyes and said, ‘Let me help you remember.’

Conrad grimaced and narrowed his eyes as he smashed the hammer down onto Jabulani’s finger, to avoid the blood that sprayed like water from a lump of wet clay.

Jabulani bayed with pain. His eyes bulged with nausea as he instinctively craned his head down to look at his broken finger.

Conrad jerked Jabulani’s head back up and glared at him.

‘Do you remember her now?’ he asked and then smashed the hammer against the finger again.

He pressed the hammer against the joint and rocked it backwards and forwards to intensify the agony.

Pain emptied Jabulani’s bladder and stained the front of his jeans dark blue.

‘Don’t piss on me, you bastard,’ Conrad growled at him, ‘and don’t even think of passing out.’

Jabulani moaned.

‘Here it comes again.’ Conrad exaggerated the upstroke of the hammer before pounding the smashed finger.

He smiled at Jabulani’s bulging eyes and asked, ‘You like to have fun with people, don’t you? Are you having fun now?’

Jabulani suddenly realised who Conrad was as he recalled the woman in the photograph. Her facial features and willowy frame were the feminine version of his tormentor.

Jabulani and his friends had gang-raped Conrad’s twin sister, Elizabeth, eighteen months ago. They broke into her flat, kept her tied up over the weekend and took turns, raping her repeatedly. It was a completely indiscriminate event, she was a random victim. There was no motive, just something to do, something to amuse themselves for the weekend. Before leaving that Sunday night they beat her, tortured her, then stabbed her to death with a screwdriver.

Conrad stared into Jabulani’s eyes, imagining what it must have been like for her, staring into the same black eyes as she was being raped. The image tore at him with tooth and claw until he cried out like a wounded animal. Tears flooded down his cheeks.

‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ Conrad shouted out, trying to decant his pain.

Sobbing and bellowed profanities echoed around the white walls as he rained blow after blow onto Jabulani’s hands and wrists. Self control was relinquished and rational thought abandoned. He smashed down again and again and again, hypnotised by the sight and sound of the bones and skin disintegrating. Blood splashed his face and spurted across his arms and chest. Blasphemy issued from his mouth in a torrent of hate and fury. He flung the hammer across the room and flailed at Jabulani’s face with nails and fists until exhaustion finally ended the assault. His arms hung like lead weights as he buckled under the effort to breathe, clinging to Jabulani’s shirtsleeve to steady himself. His breath rasped in Jabulani’s face and he swayed drunkenly, fighting to stay on his feet.

The smell of iron permeated the room, tinctured with something sickly sweet.

Conrad sunk to his knees and retched violently. He placed a hand on the cold floor to steady himself and retched over and over until he vomited up a pool of yellow, stinging bile. Several more dry heaves racked his body until the nausea ebbed. He cleared his throat and spat a mouthful of yellow-tinged sticky saliva onto the floor. A soft groan issued from deep within as he kept his eyes closed, waiting for the moment to pass. Rationality slowly restored itself and he breathed deliberately, slowly and deeply, to calm his mind. Minutes passed. The intense exertion and terrible violence had worked. It had released some of his pain and anger. He felt the burden lift from his shoulders. Catharsis washed over him just as Gabriel had promised it would. For the first time in eighteen long months, he felt at peace.

Jabulani’s gag had contained his agonised shrieks and screams. Snot streamed from his nose and tears poured from his eyes. The hopeless reality dawned on him that no one knew where he was, that no one would come to help him.

Conrad opened his eyes slowly. He stood up and stooped over Jabulani. He leaned in closer and hissed the words of the Old Testament, his lips millimetres from his penitent’s face.

‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,’ he whispered and then spat into Jabulani’s eyes.

Conrad lurched from the room, pausing to lock the padlock on the outside of the door. He swayed as he made his way back into the house and up the stairs to the mezzanine. He fell into the chair and banged out the words, ‘It’s done,’ then hit the send key. He stared blankly at the screen for several moments before bursting into tears and beating his fists against his head. ‘What have I done?’ he implored the ceiling. ‘God help me, what have I done?’ He fled, sobbing as he ran to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him and flinging himself onto his bed.

Smiling to himself twelve thousand kilometres away, Gabriel tried to imagine the events in his mind, as he had done with every new student. He would only get the full details in a few days time. They all took a while to chew over what they had done, where they were, where they were going, and to fully commit to the programme.

Gabriel: Record everything in your journal and his log then send them to me.

He waited a few moments but there was no response. This was not unusual at this point.

Gabriel: You’re going to feel a bit freaked out for a while. That’s normal, it’s part of the process.

He paused to choose his next words carefully.

Gabriel: Starting is always the hardest part but we’ve taken the first step together. One day soon all the pain will be gone. Together we are going to get your life back.

Your friend,

Gabriel.

Gabriel’s index finger clicked the mouse several times as his hand fanned it across the table top. He clicked ‘save’ then logged out and closed the windows on his computer one by one until the monitor was a lifeless black eye. He cleared his throat and rose from his chair.

While walking to the kitchen he tucked his tie between the buttons of his white cotton shirt, collected his plate of food, and headed for the living room. They smiled at each other as he entered the room and she pressed the mute button on the remote control. He sat down next to her and kissed her firmly on the lips.

Busy day? she nodded at the fine spray of blood specks on his rolled up sleeve.

‘Same old same old,’ he said, taking a hungry bite from the grilled sausage skewered on his fork.

She smiled back at him.

He chewed hungrily and swallowed before asking, ‘So how was your day?’

2

London, England

11h00 GMT, 13 November 2010

2006—2007—2008—2009—2010—2011—2012

‘Mr John McConnell,’ Sally said as she held out her hand to what looked like a tramp. He was wearing worn-out Nike trainers, stained navy-blue Kappa tracksuit bottoms and an old white T-shirt. His ruddy complexion and unkempt greasy hair contrasted a clean-shaved jawline.

‘Chief Inspector Sally Emmet,’ John said as he shook her right hand. His hands were large, chapped and callused and his handshake was unnecessarily firm. She gripped the doorknob tightly with her left hand to avoid losing her balance.

‘Come in, please.’ She waved him into the room with her right hand.

The metropolitan police CID offices were crowded, cramped and untidy. Regulation grey office furniture was barely visible under piles of files and papers. Sally Emmet was an immaculately groomed large woman, just over six feet tall, who had captained the Oxford University coxless eight rowing team for three consecutive years. Bouffant hair, rosy cheeks and kind facial features hinted at Yorkshire origins but impeccable elocution suggested relocation to the southern counties in early childhood. Her athletic frame had disappeared under a matronly layer of excess weight, the consequence of too many hours at high-level meetings and too little time in the gym. Her feminine bulk strained against the fine tweed of her bespoke blazer and skirt but she still looked more than a match for most men in a straight fight.

‘Please, take a seat.’ Chief Inspector Emmet motioned with an open hand to the chair facing her desk. Her practised smile revealed perfect white teeth and the faint creases at the corners of her mouth betrayed her age. The authority of her coiffed silver hair contrasted beautifully against the youthful fullness of her face and radiant skin.

He stared at her until she smiled, blinked and lowered her eyes to the refuge of her desk.

‘Please,’ she repeated, gesturing again. The knuckles of her left hand clenched white over the burnished brass of the door handle.

John had the taut physique of a boxer and the menacing air of a backstreet thug. The muscles in his hairless forearms bulged beneath his pale Scottish skin as he jammed his fists into his pockets. He stood recalcitrant in the doorway with a predatory posture, lowered head and stooped shoulders. John rocked gently from side to side and surveyed the room, refusing to be hurried. His eyes scanned across the furniture from the mountains of meticulously ordered files to the photo frames on her desk. The smallest one was of Sally laughing with a younger version of herself, possibly a daughter or a younger sister, in a rickshaw in India. Beside it were several other family pictures and the largest frame held a photograph of a Jack Russell terrier. John’s eyes circled across to the filing cabinets and finally came to bear on her white knuckles, still clenching the door handle.

She looked down at her hand and immediately relaxed her grip, straightening her back in an attempt to regain the assured posture of authority. They were of equal height but in his presence she looked small, delicate and vulnerable. The tension between them made the office suffocating and claustrophobic.

‘OK,’ he relented and stepped into the room.

John sat down heavily in the plastic chair facing the desk and watched her move around to her upholstered chair on the other side. He was surprised that a woman of her size could move with such grace and poise. The buttons of her blazer strained against her ample bosom as she sat down. She smiled again, refusing to rise to the condescension in the curl of his lips or the dangerous glint in his cerulean eyes. He ran a hand through his messy dark brown hair, wrinkled his nose and sniffed to adjust his black plastic-rimmed glasses.

‘I’ll get straight to the point,’ Sally said as she smoothed the lapels of her jacket.

In a deliberate movement, John picked a piece of dirt off his T-shirt to mirror her behaviour. He examined it closely before flicking it away.

Sally pretended not to notice. ‘As you know, we monitor the internet here as part of the ongoing international counterterrorism programme, all the usual things. Amongst the trillions of international internet gigabytes we’ve vetted since 1990, we found a website called BadDayz.com. That was about a year ago. My team dismissed it as a crackpot site but something about it bothers me. Although we can track all the mainstream traffic going into and out of the site, there is clear evidence that there’s a chat room we can’t access. None of our IT guys can get in to it. That rings loud alarm bells in my head. No government in the world, irrespective of how much time, money and resources they have, can guarantee the security of their internet presence. This website can do what no one else can. They’re either very smart or very well funded; either way, it can’t be a good thing.’

John fixated on her hands. No wedding ring. Even her fingers were fat. He disapproved of fat. Fat people were a testament to ill-discipline and poor impulse control. Sally tracked his eye movements as she spoke.

‘Seemingly, it has no political agenda, no affiliates or associations with any other organisations and no pecuniary incentives.’ She moved her hands onto her lap, out of view.

‘And?’ John grunted and took to studying the ceiling lights.

‘It’s a bit like Facebook or Twitter for a niche market. On the surface it’s a chat room and support group for people to talk about things that piss them off, nothing special and probably a good idea, but we dug a little deeper,’ Sally explained. ‘Some of the punters rant about revenge and what they want to do to get back at the people who pissed them off – most likely just bluster. A small minority even describe some pretty sick, graphic fantasies about maiming or killing them. That’s the bit we know; it’s what we don’t know that bothers me. It’s the info or intel going in and out of that room on some sort of sub-system database that we can’t find that’s the problem. I know we’re on to something here but I don’t know what it is. It might be some sort of terrorist recruitment site but I don’t know for whom, by whom or for what. That’s why you’re here.’

John shrugged his eyebrows and twisted his mouth in displeasure before saying, ‘I don’t see how I can help you.’

‘What?’

‘You talk to me like I’m some sort of fucking idiot!’ John exploded. ‘You’re obsessed with Jihadists and extremists and the end of the world! It sounds more like a bunch of pimply-faced screw-ups bitching and moaning about their pathetic little lives. So what if some of them have sick fantasies? The only surprise here is that you’re too stupid to find them.’

‘What?’ Sally asked incredulously.

‘What? What? What?’ John mocked her. ‘What, what, what, yourself. If that’s all you’ve got, I’m out of here! Thanks for wasting my time!’

John stood up and turned to leave.

‘John, wait a minute!’ Sally snapped irritably. ‘People are dying and you don’t care?’

‘No one cared when I was dying.’

‘John, come on, there’s something going on here and we have to figure it out. We’ll pay you very well for your time. If it turns out to be nothing, then just take the money and that’s the end of it. If it turns into something big, I’ll give you all the credit. Come on, John, it can only boost your reputation.’

‘I don’t need money and I don’t care what people think about me.’

‘Then do it for yourself. Just to prove you can when we can’t.’

‘You don’t really think you can manipulate me with that crap? Save your high school psychology bollocks for someone else. Watch my lips: I don’t give a shit.’

John turned his back and stepped up to the door. He wrenched the handle and stalked out of the office without looking back.

‘John!’ Sally shouted after him. ‘John, listen to me! No more bullshit. He’s got hands everywhere, all over the world, and no one can catch him. The FBI, the CIA, MI5 – everyone’s tried. All we know for sure is he’s killing hundreds of people over the internet, all over the world, and he’s getting away with it.’

‘He?’ John asked without turning to face her. ‘How do you know it’s a he?’

‘We’re pretty sure it’s just one guy controlling everything.’

‘Get one of your ICO geeks to find him.’

‘I am ICO,’ Sally exclaimed. ‘I run the bloody Information Commissioner’s Office and none of us can find him!’

‘Try the NSA, I hear they’re good,’ John suggested sarcastically.

‘We’ve tried them, and the IAO, and we got nothing.’

‘Well, that proves you don’t know a fucking thing. The NSA is the IAO!’

‘John, come in and close the door.’ Sally beckoned with her hand as she spoke. ‘Please, just give me one more minute of your time and then you can leave and I’ll never bother you again.’

John nodded and stepped back into her office.

‘Please close the door – it’s classified.’

John pushed the door closed.

‘Look, I know the IAO was never disbanded, despite what the Americans say. The NSA is a smokescreen to hide it. I also know that you wrote a lot of the software for them. I can only assume that you’ve pissed them off and they’ve cut you out of the loop, otherwise they would have caught this guy by now.’

‘You’re guessing,’ John said impatiently, ‘and you’re wasting my time again.’

‘We’ve profiled this guy. We know a lot about him but we’ve hit a wall. The NSA, the IAO, CIA, FBI, Interpol, the Russians, the Israelis – no one can track him.’

‘So?’

‘MI6 and the FBI will guarantee your safety and the safety of your family. This will be the biggest computer hack in the world, John. Hacking the Pentagon is a piece of piss compared to this.’

John stared impassively at Sally and wrinkled his nose to adjust his glasses. His hands lay idly in his lap.

‘What do you say?’

‘You fucking amateurs.’ John’s face flushed red as his temper flared. ‘It’s not enough to monitor bloody emails. You’ve got to get off your fat arses and do some work.’

He sneered as he dropped his eyes and stared at Sally’s ample thighs with a judgemental shake of his head.

‘Everyone leaves tracks, every day,’ John enunciated slowly and meticulously. ‘You can find anyone and anything if you’re prepared to sift enough shit. You need to filter professional agencies, websites, blogs, firewalls, cookie-killer software, supermarket tills, garage bills, magazine subscriptions, porn sites, everything and anything. You need event probability algorithms to figure out what he’ll do next based on what he’s already done. A basic schoolboy Bayesian network analysis would connect the facts, if you bothered to do one. Even a simple bloody Markov model would join the dots. If you could be arsed to connect enough of this guy’s footprints to build even the simplest neural algorithm, you could drive straight to his house and pick him up. It’s not rocket science.’

‘Are you saying you’ll help us?’

John stepped around his chair and sat down. ‘Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t. Anyway, how do you know it’s a man, not a woman?’

‘Here’s his file,’ Sally said as she lifted a heavy file off the desk and handed it to him.

John leant back in his chair and made no attempt to take it.

‘And my file too,’ John demanded.

Sally sighed and opened the drawer on the right side of her desk. She drew out a far thinner folder and placed both files on the desk in front of him.

‘I’m disappointed,’ John remarked as he held the file