The Dark Web Murders

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Monday, 20th August. Evening 

"Are you enjoying the movie, Jim?" Margaret asked, her expression innocent. 

Sheehan started slightly, glancing at his wife in the armchair opposite him. "Uh, yeah, it's okay."

 "So what do you think happened to Julie's boyfriend?" 

"Julie?" 

Margaret smiled. "You've no idea what this is about, have you?"

Jim grinned sheepishly. "My mind must have wandered." 

Margaret switched off the television. "All right. What is it? Your brow has been so furrowed this past half hour, I think those wrinkles are going to become permanent." 

Jim smiled again. "Ah, the usual. Some stuff came in today and it has set the old brain running. Stewart discovered that the killer is writing blogs on the Dark Web about the murders, very detailed stuff that only the killer could know." 

"The Dark Web?" 

"Aye! Dangerous place. It's like Google, but it's the haunt of all sorts of depraved and shady types doing criminal and other deals that can't be detected in the normal way." He smiled at her. "No place for an innocent like you." 

"Humph! So what was Stewart doing there?" 

"Something she heard made her think she might find some stuff thereabout our suspects. Instead, she found our murderer." 

"Good grief!" 

"Well, she found our murderer, blowing and bumming about his exploits, but he's anonymous because of the encrypted nature of the Dark Web and, according to Stewart, he's going to stay anonymous." 

"Did he leave any clues?" 

"Sort of. We had a conference call from Professor Greenwald during our debrief today. Our killer is a narcissistic psychopath." 

"Of course he is. I'll bet Sergeant McCullough appreciated that little gem," Margaret said, grinning." 

"He did, yeah! We had already worked out that our killer is short,extremely well educated and probably very clever. Four of our key suspects fit that profile. He's also quite mad. He writes about the killings in the style a nineteenth-century novelist, philosophising about justice and vengeance and stuff like that. He wants to boast about what he does, but he also wants to convince his readers that he is not guilty of anything. Crazy stuff. Nigel says he craves adulation, and he's acting out a scenario in his mind that somehow replays something that happened to someone he had feelings for." 

"Didn't know psychopaths had feelings." 

"New research says they can, under certain circumstances. So, that's about where the team is in its thinking." 

"But not you?" 

"Ah, no, I'm no further on than the rest of them. It's just that when I read the first blog, it immediately triggered a memory. Well, not a memory,because I don't know what it was, but it was some kind of connection, a sentence or a phrase, maybe even a word. Something in that blog just jumped out at my subconscious." He blew a frustrated breath through tight lips. "But I just can't reach it." 

"A memory from where?" 

"That's the point. I don't know. I have a strong feeling that the connection was to one of the interviews I conducted, or maybe even to something one of the team said." 

"Like what?" 

"Dunno. I've tried to go back over all the interviews in my mind, but nothing jumps out at me." He grimaced. "But I know there's a connection between one of them and the first blog, and it's killing me that I just can't get it." 

"Don't think about it and maybe it'll suddenly come to you." 

"Aye, right. It's the same with that schoolteacher's face. I know I saw it somewhere. But where? I mean, I know I've never spoken to or met the guy. I have absolutely no recollection of his voice. But his face ... it's driving me nuts." He bent forward and rubbed his hands through his hair."But what's most annoying, this has all triggered off something else that I heard at one of my interviews, and I know, totally know, it's important. But I can't get that either. It's all smoke. I sorta sense it, but the minute I try to touch it, it floats away." 

Margaret smiled. "How many times have I heard this? Your inner brain makes connections that nobody else's ever makes, but even your own surface brain is initially left lagging behind." She smiled again. "But it'll catch up; it always does." 

"Aye, right. But right now, my brain's all over the place, second guessing itself." He reached for the TV remote control. "To tell the truth,"he added, before switching the television back on, "the team is bulling to see what's in that locked safe. They think they'll find all the answers there.Me, I'm not so sure. I'm beginning to get the uneasy feeling that we might be looking at this from the wrong perspective." He gave her a defeated grin."But what other perspective is there?" He switched the television on."What's that you were saying about Julie?"