He pinched the bridge of his nose and stared at the dashboard for a long time. He thought about the shotgun in the boot of the car, wondered if his impulsive move to take it had been a mistake that would destroy Kate’s trust in him even further. Finally, he turned to look at her. ‘Okay. I’m going to tell you the truth now. I’m sorry I didn’t before, but when you hear it, you’ll understand why. But first I need a drink – and so will you.’
They pushed open the saloon door of the pub, which was empty apart from a few young blokes in football shirts, and a couple of old men restlessly toying with their cigarette packets at the bar, looking as if they couldn’t wait to get outside to smoke the next one. A middle-aged barmaid leaned on the bar and showed off a crêpey tanned cleavage as she pulled Paul’s pint.
They sat opposite one another at a wobbly table next to the cigarette machine. Kate, who had been calling Miranda whilst Paul was at the bar, put down Paul’s mobile and took a huge gulp of her vodka tonic.
‘How is he?’
‘He’s fine. It took Miranda a while to drag him away from the PlayStation to talk to me. He seems to be having a great time. Not missing his mum as much as she misses him.’
She watched Paul sip his bitter, and sensed that he was struggling with the urge to down the whole pint in one.
‘Go on then,’ Kate said. ‘Tell me why you threw my mobile out of the window rather than letting me call the police.’
It was a few moments before Paul could summon up the courage to speak.
‘Don’t you ever wonder why you never knew Stephen had a twin brother? Because I bet he never mentioned me, did he?’
Kate shook her head. She had often wondered.
‘I’ll tell you why he didn’t talk about me when you were both at the CRU.’
She waited.
‘Because I was in prison. That’s where I was when he sent me that letter.’
Kate pushed herself back in her seat, almost toppling over backwards. ‘Prison? What . . . what for?’
Paul leaned forward and tried to touch her knee but she pulled away. ‘I didn’t murder anyone, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not a rapist or a mugger.’
‘What then?’
‘Hacking.’
‘Computer crime?’ She relaxed a little. She was still shocked, but there was something about computer crime that didn’t seem as harmful as other crimes. As long as you weren’t selling child pornography or creating viruses that destroyed people’s computers or stole their personal details . . . although, she thought, perhaps that was exactly what he had done.
‘What did you do?’
‘I robbed a bank.’
‘Oh.’ She refused his outstretched hand.
‘I was twenty. Stephen was already working at the CRU. I was living in a bedsit in London and had an incredibly dull job, working in the IT department of a sixth-form college in Southwark. But during the evenings I had a whole different identity. I was a hacker called Shadowfax – I know, it’s embarrassing, but I was a Lord of the Rings fan. I was obsessed with the challenge of getting into places where I wasn’t supposed to go. There was a small group of us – we used to chat on Usenet, which was a kind of precursor to the internet. There was a guy called Dark Fox – I know, I know – who was renowned as the top hacker in the UK. Actually, he was a cracker, which is what the true hackers, who weren’t criminals, call people who use their hacking skills maliciously.’
‘And you weren’t a cracker?’
‘No. Just a hacker.’
They both laughed at the ridiculousness of what they were saying. But then Kate stopped laughing. ‘Except you robbed a bank.’
Paul sighed. ‘It was a dare, another challenge. Dark Fox had been boasting about how he’d got into Midland Bank’s system and wiped out his overdraft. Everyone was hugely impressed by this. It took an enormous amount of skill to get into a bank’s system. Except I wasn’t that impressed. Why just wipe out your overdraft? Why not make yourself rich?’
‘Because if your bank balance suddenly shoots up, the bank might notice?’
‘Yes. Well, of course, I thought of that, so I came up with a scheme. I would invent a new identity, a fake account under a made-up name. I used the hints and information that Dark Fox had revealed and used my own skills – and I was bloody good – to get into the bank’s system, set up this bogus account and credit it with £10,000. Not an enormous amount, but I thought I’d start low.’
‘And I expect £10,000 was a lot to you back then.’
‘Yeah. It’s a lot now.’
‘Let me get you another pint,’ Kate said, noticing the forlorn way he was staring at the now-empty glass. She returned a minute later with refills of their drinks.
‘Thanks. Okay, so, the first part of the plan worked. I got in, set up the account, credited ten grand. The next bit was the genius bit, I thought. I got the system to send me a cash card along with a pin number assigned to this bogus account. I set up a PO Box and collected the card from there, strolled down to the local Midland and took out my first grand.’ He grinned. ‘It was so exciting. I could hardly believe it had worked. That evening I went online and started telling all my hacker buddies about what I’d done. Suddenly I was their hero. Even Dark Fox said he was impressed.’
‘But you got caught.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What happened?’
‘It turned out Dark Fox was an undercover cop. It must have been one of the first cases of computer entrapment. They traced me to the PO Box and that was it. I was arrested and charged for theft. Sent to prison for five years, though I was out in three.’
Kate took Paul’s hand again. He hadn’t hurt anyone. The money was a drop in the ocean of the bank’s vast profits – it wasn’t like he’d taken it from some little old lady’s account.
‘I still don’t get it, though,’ she said. ‘You were convicted of a computer crime. You did your time, as they say. Why did that stop you from wanting to call the police about Mrs Bainbridge?’
‘I haven’t finished yet. It gets . . . a lot worse. I feel scared to tell you, Kate. I’m worried that it will make you hate me.’
‘I need to know, Paul.’
‘I don’t know . . .’
She stood up. ‘If you don’t tell me I’m going to walk up to the bar, ask to use their phone, and call the police right now. I mean it.’
The men at the bar were watching Kate, their hands momentarily stilling their cigarette packets as they witnessed the rising tension. Paul gestured for her to sit. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you.’
He hesitated. ‘They put me in a cell with a bloke called Tony Plumber. He was a bit older than me and a lot harder. This was his second time inside.’
‘What was he in for?’
‘Tony was a traditionalist. He’d robbed a bank the old fashioned way, with a stocking on his head, and a sawn-off shotgun. He thought it was hilarious that he’d been stuck in a cell with some nancy who’d tried to rob a bank with a computer. “What you should have done,” he said, “was take the computer into the bank and whack the cashier over the head with it. You want to try robbing the proper way.’’’
It was then that Kate realised where this story was going.