Not Dead Yet

always the fear that the baby might have something seriously wrong. You never knew. Tests gave you some reassurance, but they couldn’t tell you everything. He just hoped their child would be healthy. They would do their very best to be good parents.
    He looked down again at Venner’s face. What did your father think about you, in those months before you were born? Was he around? Did he even know your mother was pregnant? Is he alive? If he is, do you think he’s proud of you? Proud of having fathered a revolting monster who traded in pornography and murder for profit?
    How would he feel if he had a son who did that? Would he be angry? Would he feel he had failed as a parent? Would he write him off as evil, beyond redemption?
    ‘Evil’ was a word that always bothered him. It was an easy word to apply to terrible things human beings did to one other. Roy had no doubt in his mind that there were some people, like Venner, who did things that were totally and utterly evil for financial gain, just to line his pockets and his fat gut and to put a Breitling watch on his fat wrist. But many others who did bad things were victims of poor parenting or fractured society or religious zeal. That wasn’t to say you could forgive them for their crimes, but if you could understand what led them to commit them, then you were at least doing something to try to make the world a better place.
    That was Roy Grace’s own personal philosophy. He believed that everyone who was born into a decent life had one price to pay forthat. No one person was ever going to change the world, but all of us should try to ensure we leave the world a slightly better place than when we came into it. That, above all else, was what he strove to do with his life.

63
    ‘The time is 6.30 p.m., Thursday, the ninth of June. This is the twelfth briefing of Operation Icon ,’ Roy Grace announced. ‘I’m pleased to welcome Haydn Kelly to our team.’ He indicated to the smiling man seated opposite him in the Conference Room of the Major Incident Suite. Kelly was in his mid-forties, sturdily built, with brown hair cropped short, and a tanned, amiable face. He was conservatively but elegantly dressed in a smart navy suit, cream shirt and a red patterned tie.
    Grace looked around his assembled team, which had now grown to twenty-six people, including the MIR-1 Office Manager – Detective Sergeant Lance Skelton – two indexers and two crime analysts. ‘Okay, a bit of housekeeping before we start.’ He broke out into a broad smile. ‘I’m very happy to tell you all that the mole who has been blighting our major enquiries for most of the past year has been outed.’
    He instantly had the rapt attention of the entire room, broken only for a moment by a sudden burst of ringtone from a mobile phone. A blushing DC Emma Reeves hastily silenced it.
    ‘I’m very pleased and relieved to tell you that it is not anyone within the police service. It is none other than our good friend, Kevin Spinella from the Argus .’
    ‘Spinella?’ DS Guy Batchelor said, astonished. ‘How, chief – I mean – I thought the mole was feeding him? What did he do?’
    ‘He hacked my phone.’ Grace held his BlackBerry up for all to see. ‘He did it electronically. He installed some form of data logger software. It made a recording of every single phone call I received or made, and all texts, and immediately sent them electronically to his own phone.’
    Several of the team were frowning. ‘But how did he get access to your BlackBerry, to install it, boss?’ Nick Nicholl asked.
    ‘He didn’t need to,’ Grace replied. ‘Ray Packham at the HighTech Crime Unit said that all he would have needed to do was to stand within a few feet of me. I keep the Bluetooth option switched on all the time. He could have simply uploaded it from his phone to mine in a matter of seconds.’
    ‘But that little toerag’s a newspaper reporter, not a tekkie boffin, boss,’ DC Exton said.
    ‘He would have needed a tekkie friend,’ Grace said. ‘I imagine we’ll find whoever that is. At this moment Spinella’s in custody and his phone’s being taken apart. But I need the High Tech Crime Unit to check all your phones – and my strong advice is to keep your Bluetooth switched off all the time you don’t need it.’
    ‘So, do we know how far this goes up the chain of command at the Argus , sir?’ Dave Green asked.
    ‘I spoke to the editor, Michael Beard, earlier. He sounded very genuinely