‘Not physically, no. I think there is something very powerful about internet flirtations. I remember the excitement when I first met Paul over the internet. There’s something both mystical and compelling about it.’
‘And dangerous?’
‘Exactly. Very. If you meet someone through friends, you have a frame of reference, you’ll know something about that person’s background by the fact that they’re a friend of a friend — that’s a kind of automatic vouching for them. When you meet a complete stranger online, it’s a very different situation.’
‘Don’t online dating agencies check out their clients carefully?’
‘I’m sure that some do, Danny, but there’s a limit to how far they can, and all the more so with the current data protection legislation in place.’
‘OK, so go on.’
‘Well, a few weeks ago, Norbert Petersen told Suzy that his grandmother was desperately ill and needed expensive hospital treatment. He explained that his wife, whom he was divorcing, had had their bank account frozen. Could she lend him £20,000 to help with the medical bills, which he promised to pay back as soon as the divorce was sorted and he could sell their home. Fortunately, Suzy is... was... a smart lady. She became suspicious at this point and did a reverse Google search.’
‘A what?’
‘She popped Norbert Petersen’s photograph into Google and basically did a search on it... it’s very simple. Through this she discovered that “Norbert Petersen” was one of a number of different names under which this same photograph of myself appeared across different dating sites.’
‘Blimey, so what happened?’
‘She confronted him, saying she believed she was being scammed and she was going to report it to the police. He came back at her with a story about his identity being taken by an internet scammer, which again she was smart enough not to believe. Then yesterday I heard the shocking news that she is dead and Sussex Police have begun an investigation. It begs the question of whether there is a connection.’
‘What do you know? What do you believe, Toby?’
‘I don’t know anything more than I read in the Argus. Two officers came to interview me, but they wouldn’t give me any details. All I can say is that from my conversation with her she was a very nice lady. I can’t think of any reason why someone would kill her other than to silence her.’
‘She was the widow of a very successful antiques dealer,’ Pike said. ‘Might it not be simply and tragically a burglary gone badly wrong?’
‘It might indeed be, but I don’t think it’s that.’
‘So what’s your theory, Toby?’
‘I’m speculating wildly here, Danny, but knowing how much money is at stake with internet fraud, I think it’s possible Suzy was killed to stop her investigating any further. She had also hinted to me the last time we spoke that she had found out something really damning about the person who’d been trying to scam her.’
‘What do you think that might have been, Toby?’
‘I don’t know. I suspect it was something to do with his past — about who he really is.’
‘And do you think that could have got her killed?’ Pike pressed.
‘It could have, yes.’
‘So the dark side of internet dating,’ Pike said. ‘Do you have any message for our listeners, Toby?’
‘I do, yes. I want people who go online looking for love to understand the potential dangers they’re exposing themselves to.’
‘So should people should stop online dating? Is that what you’d like to see, Toby?’
‘Not at all. But for anyone out there listening, who is either internet dating or contemplating it, please just be aware.’
45
Tuesday 9 October
They were aware. Very aware.
Only too aware.
‘Like, you should be aware, too, Toby Seward-sounds-like-Sewage,’ Jules de Copeland muttered back at the radio. ‘You know, going live on air and saying this shit.’ Tossing his cigarette butt out of his window, he glanced at his colleague in the passenger seat. Ogwang was playing a game on his phone, concentrating intently. ‘Right?’
‘Yeah.’
Ogwang glanced at his watch. His large, shiny, £15,000 Breitling Navitimer that was his pride and joy. And more swanky than Copeland’s smaller Vacheron Constantin.
The wipers squeak-clonked in front of them, shovelling away the pelting rain. ‘You’re not even listening to me, man. Local radio, that’s where you find what’s going on. That and the local paper, right? They’re your eyes and ears, yeah?’ Copeland pointed to his own eyes, then ears.
A gusting sou’westerly straight off the English Channel rocked the car. Copeland had rented the little black Hyundai deliberately, figuring they would look less conspicuous than in something bigger and flashier. But with his hulking frame making him look like he had been shoehorned into the small vehicle, his penchant for shiny clothes and his sidekick an angry bonsai version of himself, they were about as inconspicuous as two sharks in a toddler’s paddling pool.
Ogwang had recently picked up urban street language and had taken to using it. ‘I’m hearing you, bro, got you mega. Mr Toby Seward, OK, right? This dude’s dangerous. We should teach him a lesson.’
‘Like, not to go on radio and shoot off his big fat mouth?’
Ogwang stuck his tongue out, pinched the end of it between his forefinger and thumb, then made a chopping motion with his free hand. He looked at Copeland expectantly.
Copeland turned left away from Hove seafront as the lights changed, without replying. They headed up Grand Avenue, past tall apartment blocks. ‘Lotta rich people in them apartments,’ he said. ‘Lotta older folks, widows, widowers. Looking for love. Rich pickings, here, Eastbourne, Worthing. Rich and lonely, looking for love. This is the place to be.’
He was completely unaware of the small, grey Polo, four cars back, that steadfastly followed them.
‘Where we going, bro?’ Ogwang clicked his cheap lighter and moments later the interior of the car filled with ganja smoke. He glanced at his watch again, admiringly. He’d had it for over two years, but it still gave him a thrill.
‘Yeah? Well, I’ll tell you where we’re not going. Prison.’ Mimicking his friend’s street accent he said, ‘Now put that weed out before we gets our asses busted and we gone have to ’splain what we doing here.’
They were returning to base, their gated mansion on Brighton’s leafy, secluded Withdean Road, from a shopping trip. Ogwang took another drag on the joint, inhaled deeply and removed it from his mouth. He held it in front of his face, staring at it, as if weighing up his options. Copeland closed them off for him. He snatched it and tossed it out of the window.
‘That was good shit, man!’ Ogwang protested.
‘You get good shit by staying out of prison, dumbfuck. I made that bitch in Munich look like a suicide, until you gone crazy and cut her tongue off. Now here we have a suicide, they not gonna prove nothing.’
‘Gotta leave warnings,’ Ogwang said. ‘See? Gotta leave them, bro, else they talk. Gotta stop this Tony Sewage man talking. Dissing our agency.’
‘So we go frighten him, right?’
‘Right.’
‘But that’s all. We don’t hurt him, we don’t want the police coming for us.’
Ogwang slipped his hand inside his parka and closed his fingers around the wooden handle of his sheathed machete. He pulled it out a few inches and felt the cold steel of the blade. He sharpened it every day of his life, keeping the edge like a razor.
‘You hearing me?’ Copeland said. ‘I don’t think you’re hearing me.’
Ogwang tested the sharpness of his blade again and said nothing.