Dead Tomorrow

records.’
    ‘By who?’
    ‘It is an investigating judge. The warrant is–how is it you say– in camera ?’
    ‘Yes–without the other party knowing.’
    ‘Exactly. And you know now in the LKA we have good technology for computer surveillance. I understand we have duplicates of all computer activity, including laptop away from the office, of Frau Hartmann and her colleagues. We have implanted a servlet.’
    Grace knew all about servlets from his colleagues, Ray Packham and Phil Taylor in the High-Tech Crime Unit. You could install one simply by sending a suspect an email, provided he or she opened it. Then all activity on the suspect’s computer would be automatically copied back to you.
    ‘Brilliant!’ he said. ‘Would you let me see them?’
    ‘I would not be permitted to send them to you, despite the EU cooperation treaty–it will be a long process of bureaucracy.’
    ‘Any way of short-circuiting that?’
    ‘For my friend Roy Grace?’
    ‘Yes, for him!’
    ‘If you are coming over–perhaps I could leave copies of them by accident–on a restaurant table? But they are for information only, you understand? You must not reveal their source, and you will not be able to use the information in evidence. Is that OK?’
    ‘That is morethan OK, Marcel!’
    Grace thanked him and hung up with a real lift of excitement.

68
    Subcomisar RaduConstantinescu had a swanky office in Police Station No. 15 in Bucharest–at least, swanky by Romanian police standards. The four-storey building had been put up in 1920, according to an engraved plaque on the wall, and did not appear to have been dusted or redecorated since. The staircases were bare stone and the floors covered in cracked linoleum. The pastel-green walls were chipped and scored, with plaster crumbling from some of the cracks. It always reminded Ian Tilling of his old school in Maidenhead.
    Constantinescu’s room was large, dark and dingy, and shrouded in a permanent blue-grey fug of cigarette smoke. It was starkly furnished, with a wooden desk that was bland and old, but almost as big as his ego, and a conference table of indeterminate vintage, surrounded by mismatched chairs. Proudly displayed, high up, beneath the nicotine-stained ceiling, were the policeman’s hunting trophies–the mounted heads of bears, wolves, lynxes, deer, chamois and foxes. Framed certificates and photographs of Constantinescu rubbing shoulders with various dignitaries filled a little of the wall space, along with a couple of photographs of him in hunting kit, kneeling by a dead boar in one and holding up the horned head of a stag in the other.
    The Subcomisar sat behind his desk, dressed in black trousers, a white shirt with braided epaulettes, and a slack green tie. He busied himself for a moment, lighting a fresh cigarette from the stub of the previous one, which he then crushed out, ineffectually, in a huge overflowing crystal ashtray. Several screwed-up balls of paper, which had clearly missed the waste bin, littered the floor around the desk.
    Constantinescuwas forty-five years old, short and wiry, with a gaunt face, jet-black hair and piercing dark eyes with dark, heavy rings beneath them. Ian Tilling had got to know him when the officer had started to visit Casa Ioana on a regular basis.
    ‘So my friend, Mr Ian Tilling, Member of the British Empire for services to the homeless of Romania!’ Constantinescu said, through a fresh cloud of noxiously sweet blue smoke. ‘Yes? You have met your queen, no?’
    ‘Yes, when I got my gong.’
    ‘Gong?’
    ‘Slang,’ Tilling said. ‘It’s English slang for a medal.’
    Constantinescu’s eyes widened. ‘ Gong !’ he said. ‘Gong! Very good. Maybe we should drink! To celebrate?’
    ‘It was a few months ago.’
    The police officer reached under his desk and produced a bottle of Famous Grouse whisky and two shot glasses. He filled them both with a clear liquid and handed one to Tilling.
    ‘ Spaga !’ he said, indicating shamelessly that he had been given the whisky as a bribe. ‘Good whisky, yes? Special?’
    Tilling did not want to disillusion him that it was a basic blended whisky. ‘Special!’ he agreed.
    ‘To your– gong !’
    Reluctantly, but understanding the protocol, Ian Tilling drained his glass, the alcohol hitting him almost instantly on his empty stomach, sending his head reeling.
    The police officerset his empty glass down. ‘So, how can I help my important friend? All the more important now that