In his late forties, mild-mannered and polite, Packham always dressed more corporately than the more-casual average tech guru. He was on the mend from a debilitating spinal condition that had caused him to take early retirement from the Sussex Police Digital Forensics Team. After years of crippling pain, he’d now been given a new, almost miraculous treatment, and on his doctor’s orders was walking five miles a day, recording them on his Fitbit.
He was revelling in his second career as an independent IT consultant, working with police forces and banking security advisors around the world, although tonight he was feeling a bit gloomy at the prospect of going back to an empty house. His wife, Jen, was on a Mediterranean cruise with her sister. It was one they should have been on together, but two days before departure an urgent job had come up from the City of London Economic Crimes Unit, currently his biggest paymaster, which he and Jen agreed he should not turn down.
‘FATSO!’
The blooming dog was nowhere to be seen in the rapidly deepening darkness. A few miles to the south he could see, intermittently, two pinpricks of light: a fishing boat or a container ship far out on the choppy water of the English Channel.
‘FATSO! HUDSON!’
He was wishing he’d worn a heavier coat tonight, the bitter wind freezing his nuts off. Suddenly the display of his phone lit up. An incoming call.
International was all the display revealed.
‘Ray Packham,’ he answered, tenting his head with his anorak to try to keep out the noise of the wind so he could hear.
There was a brief delay then he heard a very correct-sounding English voice. ‘Mr Packham? My name is Johnny Fordwater. I’ve been given your name by Detective Investigator Lanigan of the New York Police Department. An associate of his in the FBI — Bradley Warren — suggested you might be able to help me.’
‘Bradley Warren? I met him a few years ago at Quantico. He’s a good chap, how is he?’
‘I’ve not actually met him himself — he passed on the recommendation.’
‘Very good of him, I’d be happy to try. What can I do for you?’
Fordwater filled him in on his and Sorokin’s situation.
‘I’m sorry to hear this, Mr Fordwater.’
‘It’s Major, actually. Retired.’
‘Apologies, Major. Did I hear you say £400,000, Mr — Major — Fordwater?’
‘Correct — and change.’
Hudson came lumbering out of the gloom towards him.
‘Good boy!’ he praised.
‘Pardon?’
‘Sorry, I was talking to my dog!’
‘Ah. I’m getting a lot of roaring sounds, can hardly hear you — don’t think this is a very good line.’
‘I’m halfway up a hill and it’s blowing a hooley,’ Packham said. ‘Might be best if you call me in half an hour when I’m back home.’
‘Good plan.’
When he did call back, Johnny Fordwater related the whole story in detail. As he finished, from the sound of it Ray Packham was now scraping food into a dog bowl. There were several loud, deep barks. ‘Hudson, quiet!’ More clattering, then he said, ‘I’m afraid, Major Fordwater, yours is not a unique story. I have a whole caseload of similar tales. If you’re hoping I might be able to recover your money I’d like to save you any further time and costs right away. I’m sorry to tell you this bluntly, but there isn’t a hope in hell.’
‘I know that,’ the Englishman said, bleakly. ‘But myself and my chum, Matt Sorokin here, from the Hernando County Sheriff’s office in Florida, would like to use our experiences to at least warn others not to end up in the same situation as ourselves. And I... we...’ His voice tailed off.
‘Yes?’ Packham prompted.
‘We have a proposal we’d like to discuss with you. I’m flying back to London tonight. Can we meet — as soon as possible? Tomorrow morning, I could come straight to you from the airport.’
‘Are you sure you want to spend the money?’
‘Oh yes, very.’
44
Tuesday 9 October
The Elvis Presley track was coming to an end.
Radio Sussex presenter Danny Pike said, over the music, ‘From the King! The one and only Elvis Presley! “Can’t Help Falling in Love”. Great song, eh? But it comes today with a health warning. My next guest will be familiar to regular listeners of BBC Sussex, and we’ve all learned something positive from him — Brighton’s very own motivational speaker, Toby Seward. Me, I learned from him how to be motivated enough to wake up early in the morning. Then my son, Josh, was born and my wife and I didn’t need an alarm clock any more! But today Toby Seward is here to talk about something quite different. Thanks for coming along, Toby.’
‘My pleasure, thanks for having me on, Danny.’
‘Just to set the scene, Toby is a handsome fellow, forty-eight years old with nice hair and great teeth. He is so handsome in fact that his image has been used, without his knowledge or consent, to chat up no less than eleven different ladies who’ve signed up to internet dating agencies in search of a soulmate. He is in the studio with me to talk about the dangers of online dating. Sussex Police today released figures on internet crime, showing it to have reached epidemic status, and online dating is the biggest of all in this current crime wave. In Sussex alone, during the past twelve months, over forty residents have been scammed out of £30 million by people they had met online and fallen in love with. The smallest loss was £40,000 and the largest scam relieved one person of an incredible four million quid. Toby, you’ve recently had a pretty shocking experience. Would you like to tell our listeners about it? I should repeat, this comes with a health warning. So, Toby, you must have had lots of success internet dating?’
‘Thank you, Danny,’ Toby Seward said with a grin. ‘I’ve got no need at all to go internet dating now. My husband, Paul, and I are very happy — we did actually meet on a dating site some years ago. But since then I’ve had an experience I felt I needed to publicize because, as you rightly say, online romance does indeed come with a very serious warning.’
‘Tell us what happened to you, Toby.’
‘Sure. Well, it was about a fortnight ago I got a phone call out of the blue from a well-spoken lady called Suzy. It’s a call I will never ever forget. She asked if I was Toby Seward. When I said yes, she said, “I’m very sorry if this sounds strange, Mr Seward. My name is Suzy. You see, you don’t know me, but the thing is, I thought I knew you.”’
‘Wow!’ Pike interjected. ‘And you didn’t, right?’
‘I’d never heard of her, no. She went on to tell me that we’d been in love with each other for the past eight months, having met on a dating website.’
‘In love — but you hadn’t actually met, right?’
‘Right. She’d signed up to this agency, putting up a photograph of herself and her profile. She was the fifty-five-year-old widow of an antiques dealer, looking for a new life-partner. One of the replies she’d received was from a gentleman giving his name as Dr Norbert Petersen, a geologist from Norway working in Bahrain in petrochemicals. And he used my photograph!’
‘Your photograph? Where did he get it from?’
‘He must have pulled it off the internet. He also said he was fifty-eight, which is a bit insulting as I’m only forty-eight!’
‘I’d be a bit annoyed by that, too, I think! So how did she rumble this person?’
‘Well, it seems he strung her along for several months, all the time professing to be falling more and more in love with her.’
‘Although they hadn’t actually met?’