‘Thanks for calling, Mr Deverill.’ His voice is deep and dour. ‘I appreciate it.’
‘Your name’s familiar. Didn’t you investigate the murder? Caira Kennedy’s, I mean.’
‘I was, Iam, part of the investigation team, but we’ve not met before. It was my colleagues who interviewed you and such.’
Miles sticks a finger in his left ear to block out a tannoy announcement. ‘So, let me get this right. You investigated me, helped to prepare a case against me, and now you’re investigatingthese audio files on my behalf. Isn’t that sort of a conflict of interest?’
A short silence, then in a weary voice: ‘No, not at all. You’ve been eliminated as a suspect, and no one on the team holds any kind of animosity or resentment towards you for being acquitted.’ The detective goes into a long-winded explanation of the situation: the investigation is still active, they had a duty to keep all lines of inquiry open, even during the trial, and the emails Miles received were passed to the investigation team as a potential strand of inquiry. Miles is only half listening; he wants the detective to skip to the voice notes. They’ve been bugging him, and the more he’s listened to them the surer he’s become that it’s her. It’s an amazing thing, the human voice: everyone is born with a speaking tone so distinctive it can be distinguished from eight billion others. You could go ten years without speaking to someone, and that person could call you up out of the blue and you’d know it was them the second they came on the line. So, after more than a week of playing it over and over, he’s certain: the voice is Caira’s.
Finally, the detective gets to the point. ‘So, these emails you received. We’ve analysed the recording.’
‘Okay.’
‘It was created using a voice-cloning tool. Sadly, in these days of artificial intelligence, these kinds of’ – he pauses, looking for the right word – ‘servicesare readily available, and scammers are using them more and more. All you need to be able to recreate someone’s voice is a minute of audio of that person speaking, and there are recordings of Caira’s voice publicly available.’
‘So, you think it’s a scam? Like, they’re going to try and get money out of me?’ Miles experiences a warm rush of relief as he says it; he doesn’t care about money, never has.
‘We should keep an open mind about that. At this stage it’s not clear what the motive is, but they’ve gone to some effort and planning to do it, so I would suggest you be extra vigilant—’
‘Do you know who sent it?’
‘I was getting to that.’ The detective’s words are rifled off quickly, with a barely detectable trace of annoyance. ‘We traced the IP address—’
‘Excuse me, sir.’ Miles snaps his head in the direction of the female voice interrupting his call. A uniformed woman, flanked by a restless beagle, glares at him stiff-faced. ‘Did you pack this bag yourself?’
‘Sorry, hold on one second.’ Miles mutes his phone and faces her. ‘Yeah, I packed it.’
‘Have you got any food with you?’
He looks at her blankly, his phone pressed to his side. ‘New Zealand takes its biosecurity very seriously, sir. Any food, animal products, nuts, seeds, any organic matter of any kind?’
‘No.’
The dog has a good sniff of his legs and bag, and the woman gives Miles a weary nod. Miles unmutes his phone. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes,’ Lewin says.
‘So, you traced the sender? Do you know who it is?’
‘As I was saying, we traced the IP address and found the first email was sent from a computer at the Central Library in Bristol. Whoever sent the email, it would appear that they’ve gone out of their way to hide their identity.’
‘But don’t they keep records of who’s using the computers? They must have to sign in. Surely you know who was using it.’
Another short silence. ‘Ordinarily, we would, yes. This person signed into the library as a guest. Let me ask you, does the name Alex Burnfield mean anything to you?’
Miles shuts his eyes, trying to fully engage the weary machinery in his brain.Burnfield. Something about that name rings familiar. Could it be someone he’s worked with? Has he read that name somewhere? It’s a distinctive surname – he would remember it, surely. ‘No ... I ... I’m not sure. I don’t think I know anyone by that name.’
‘Okay. To be honest, that’s not a complete surprise. It seems to be some kind of alias, a false identity. The library requires guests to provide ID and proof of address, and, in this case, they appear to have been fraudulently provided – they forged a utility bill, and the address given was for an empty building. And there doesn’t appear to be anyone by the name of Alex Burnfield living in this region. There is someone of that name living in Scotland, but we’re satisfied they have nothing to do with it. We do have one other lead we are looking into.’
A shiver of dread courses through him. All that effort, and for what? Just to freak him out. Whoever did it must be completely insane or dangerous, or both. An image pops into his head of a menacing, shadowy figure sat at a computer like in one of those anti-piracy adverts. ‘Do you at least know what they looked like?’
‘No. The librarian who signed them in was a volunteer, we’ve spoken to her, but she can’t remember anything specific. And the CCTV was no help either.’
‘Right.’
The line goes quiet. Now, it would seem, is his opportunity to ask questions, but his mind has gone blank. George, Elis, Reubyn and Polly stand gathered around their bags, staring at him. A generic voice comes over the tannoy, a warning about unattended luggage. It triggers a thought. ‘The voice-cloning software, who provides that? You could contact the company and ask them which of their customers uploaded Caira’s voice.’
‘It’s not as straightforward as that,’ the detective says, sounding impatient. ‘There isn’t just one company that provides that service. Getting data out of them isn’t as easy as you might think.’
