Idiot, I thought. I am an idiot.
Magic bent down and licked her own bottom.
I turned and looked at the door of 6A. Murky grey like all the others, a brassy handle and a couple of locks. Had I, somehow, dreamt the whole thing? Could I be as wrong as she said I was?
Magic looked up at me as if to say, ‘Can we go?’
We moved off towards the stairs and something shiny caught my eye at the edge of the door of 6A. I moved as quietly as I could towards it, trying to stay out of view of the peephole.
It was tape. A small piece of sticky tape near the top of the door. One end was stuck to the door, the other to the doorframe.
Huh, I thought. Why would an elderly couple place a piece of sticky tape on the door? I had seen police use this in a Crime Smashers story called ‘Underworld Rats’. The officer stuck a small piece of tape on the door so that she could tell if someone had entered her apartment while she was out. But would the Hills, a nice, elderly couple travelling in their caravan, do that?
Probably not.
A police officer would, though. One with a secret.
TWENTY-SEVEN
CODECRACKER
I sat on the floor, my back against the wall of the dark room, my face lit up by the phone screen. It was 11.17 pm. Magic was lying on her side next to me, doggy-dreaming – growling and yipping, her paws twitching. The door of my hiding space in the wall was on the ground next to her. I had built it during the day, using two timber boards from the wall behind the wardrobe to connect the four boards that I’d removed from the lounge room wall. I’d re-used the rusty nails to run one length of timber across the top of the four boards and another along the bottom. There was no hammer in the flat, so I’d bashed the nails in with the handle of Harry’s hunting knife. The job was far from perfect but I felt ready. I sure hoped Harry didn’t mind me ripping his apartment to pieces.
I had locked the front door deadlocks. I had practised getting myself and Magic into the wall. Magic hated it but I could get us inside, fully concealed, in thirty seconds if the man came back here.
He won’t, I told myself.
He will, I replied.
I thought about the knife in the cupboard, but I left it there. I didn’t know how to handle it. He could use it against me. I thought of all those news stories about kids in America playing with their parents’ weapons and hurting themselves or a friend or a family member. I hated those stories.
My phone pinged.
Sorry Sam. Busy night.
Still awake? What do you
need to tell me?
My skin tingled all over. She would come get me, could be here by 1.15 am.
Can you come get me now?
I’m in trouble
I hit ‘send’ and the screen immediately went black. I pressed the home button but nothing happened.
I hit the power button. Nothing. The battery was dead. How, in all that waiting, had I not plugged the phone in? I tried not to think the word ‘idiot’ again but it was difficult.
Did the message go? Did she get it?
I checked the wall for power points. There were none near my hiding spot, so I took Harry’s laptop and my phone charger cord out of my backpack. I flipped the laptop open and tried to plug the cord into the side of the computer but my hand was shaking. She’ll be waiting now, worrying. Or not. Did it go? I used both hands to guide the plug into the slot. I watched the black phone screen, urging it to life, my face bathed in blue laptop glow. The computer screen read:
Please Enter Your Password
I want to, I thought. I had already tried a bunch of passwords earlier. The cursor winked at me, daring me to try something else.
I shook the phone but that didn’t seem to help.
Please Enter Your Password
Who is my father? I wondered. Born 23 September 1954. Crime reporter. Cranky. Not a big talker. A bit reluctant to have me stay with him these past thirteen years. Secretive. Not that tech savvy.
I had read something online about the easy passwords people choose, especially older people who aren’t that good with technology. Even smart older people. While I waited for the phone screen to come alive I tried a few passwords that I could remember from the list and a few that seemed like Harry:
123456
password
12345
12345678
123456789
football
boxing
Magic1
browndog
letmein
abc123
111111
crime
Crime
krime
crimereporter
123123
Trustno1
Nothing.
Phone still dead. If Mum received my message she would be panicking now.
I tried Harry’s birthdate again.
230954
Nothing.
Out of desperation, I tried my own birthdate.
060504
A little blue circle started to spin in the centre of the screen. A fan whirred at the back of the machine.
There is no way he used my birthdate.
But a warm feeling rose in my chest. This morning my father said he loved me. Tonight I discovered he uses my birthdate as his password. I wouldn’t have thought that he even knew my birthday.
‘Father Loves Son and Uses Birthdate as Laptop Code.’ For most kids this would not be headline news. I tried to push the warm feeling away but I couldn’t.
My mum had done pretty much everything for me my whole life. Harry had done pretty much nothing, apart from once sending me a pile of old comic books. Knowing my birthdate did not suddenly make him World’s Greatest Dad. And it was probably a stupid code, really, for someone so worried about cyber-security that he’d often leave his phone at home. But it felt good. I couldn’t help it. It meant that he thought about me sometimes, maybe even every time he punched in that code. It meant that I mattered to him. I sent out a prayer that he was okay, wherever he was. Even if he was out drinking again.
The blue circle stopped spinning and the laptop screen came alive. The image filling the screen was divided evenly into four black-and-white rectangles. I stared at them, my eyes flicking between the four until I realised what they were and the hairs on my neck stood on end.
The window in the top-left quarter of the screen looked like a wide security-camera shot of the inside of Harry’s apartment. The kind of image you see on the news or in a movie when a petrol station or convenience store is robbed. I looked carefully at the grainy picture and I thought I could see the side of my own head at the bottom-right. I waved my hand in the air and watched my hand rise on-screen. I pulled my hand down and it disappeared from view. My heartbeat quickened. I turned to look up into the corner of the room where the camera must have been, but I couldn’t see anything.
Why would he have surveillance inside his own apartment?
I turned back to the screen and waved my hand again, then struggled to my feet. I picked up my crutches and moved to the corner of the room, using the light of the laptop screen to make out where the camera must be.
I thought of a horror movie I’d seen during one of my sleepless nights at home a few months back. In the movie, the phone kept ringing and the owner would pick up, only to hear heavy breathing. It happened again and again until police were brought in. They tapped the phone and the lady was asked to keep the caller on the line so that they could tell where the call was coming from. She did, and they got a reading on it. The call was coming from inside the house.