This is what Tom saw when he looked out through the lens of Steve''s webcam into scenes around Steve''s home: A Shih Tzu called Millie, a little scruff of a thing. Steve took her onto his lap and scratched her scalp while he scrolled the screen and the dog closed her eyes in bliss. Woman''s voice off camera: Look how she loves that. The birthday girl gets all the treats. Steve: You jealous? Off camera: Millie''s forty-nine in doggy years. Let her soak up whatever you can give her. Tom worked it out. The dog was seven.
Tom had seen the couple''s two kids run past in the background. The oldest, Amy, looked about five. The boy was Colin and was around three. So, first Steve and his wife got broody and made do with a puppy, the way couples do, and after that practice run they had their girl and then their boy. Now all they needed was a nanny to make their family complete. So they got one. The access codes for Steve''s phone and laptop were both the same and the kind you crack with first guesses, but now Tom stayed tuned for personal information that only Steve would know. He needed intimate touches to form credible passwords for new accounts in Steve''s name.
Drip by drip, Steve supplied those needs. He had a pet name for the dog. He lifted her up so her back legs dangled and murmured the name into her ear. Soft, but not so soft a regular microphone couldn''t pick it up. Millikins. Steve in his new online persona was the sentimental sort, Tom decided, who would take a pet name, turn letters to numbers, and be smug about having a coded password he could remember. One like M1ll1k1n5. His wife''s name was Karen.
Steve''s secret name for her was Hots. Not much to work on there. h0T5. Steve was the type who would add his wife''s pet name to her date of birth, Tom thought, and think himself smart because he had made up a unique yet memorable password. Tom would find Karen''s date of birth through the regular channels. He would do the same with the kids''. Through the lens of Steve''s webcam Tom inspected what he could see of the room. This was a home office that doubled as a guest bedroom.
A signed Miró print of red-and-blue squares in an overlarge silver frame hung over the bed. Below it, a visual joke to reflect the picture, square red-and-blue cushions were stacked against the headboard. So far as Tom could tell from overhearing quick asides, the couple''s marriage was hanging together OK on the sex front. Steve didn''t sleep in this room, nor did Karen, but Steve kept odd hours so he made use of the guest room''s en suite bathroom when he was up and about in the night. The screensaver on Steve''s laptop was a photo from a couple of years ago. Two little kids, one taller than the other, stood bare-bottom naked and stared out at a broad and calm sea. A small dog sat beside them and Tom recognized it as Millie. It was funny, the way people gave the game away with their choice of screensaver.
The pictures showed what they loved. Sometimes that gave Tom all the clues he needed. This was the case with Steve. Tom''s instinct to mix the names and birthdates of Steve''s kids and dog was spot on. That''s what Steve had in fact done to make four of his own passwords. Tom had no time to think of that now, though. Noises off camera: The whirr of the extractor fan. The water rush of the shower.
The jerk back to silence. The shower had stopped. Tom didn''t want to give Steve time to dry. He needed him wet. He worked the keyboard. The screensaver of kids, dog and sea disappeared and a car advert popped up in its place. It was for a Jaguar F-type convertible. On the screen of Steve''s laptop the volume control slid to max.
The cursor zoomed in on the full-screen button and the image of the red sports car in heather-decked Scottish mountains snapped tall and wide. The cursor clicked PLAY. Sitting in his room in Daventry, Tom switched the view on his screen to a live relay from Steve''s webcam. The electro-beat soundtrack of the Jaguar ad pulsed through his headphones.