You must leave as few clues as possible. That''s the only rule. You have to talk to people sometimes; it''s inevitable. There are orders to be given, shipments to be arranged, people to be killed, etc., etc. You cannot exist in a vacuum, for goodness'' sake. You need to ring François Loubet? In an absolute emergency? You''ll get a phone with a voice-changer built-in. And, by the way, if it''s not an absolute emergency, you''ll regret ringing very soon.
But most communication is by message or email. High-end criminals are much like millennials in that way. Everything is encrypted, naturally, but what if the authorities break the code? It happens. A lot of very good criminals are in prison right now because a nerd with a laptop had too much time on their hands. So you must hide as well as you can. You can hide your IP address -- that is very easy. François Loubet''s emails go through a world tour of different locations before being sent. Even a nerd with a laptop would never be able to discover from where they were actually sent.
But everyone''s language leaves a unique signature. A particular use of words, a rhythm, a personality. Someone could read an email, and then read a postcard you sent in 2009 and know for a fact they were sent by the same person. Science, you see. So often the enemy of the honest criminal. That''s why ChatGPT has been such a godsend. After writing an email, a text, anything really, you can simply run the whole thing through ChatGPT and it instantly deletes your personality. It flattens you out, irons your creases, washes you away, quirk by quirk, until you disappear.
"ChatGPT, rewrite this email as a friendly English gentleman, please." That is always Loubet''s prompt. Handy, because if these emails were written in François Loubet''s own language, it would all become much more obvious. Too obvious. But, as it stands, you might find a thousand emails, but you would still have no way of knowing where François Loubet was and you would still have no way of knowing who François Loubet is. You would, of course, know what François Loubet does, but there would be precious little you could do about it. 3 "Cat, ginger, unapproachable. Haughty even, the little bugger.
Mason''s Lane. Contact attempted but rebuffed. 3:58 a.m." Steve puts his Dictaphone back in his pocket. He hears the sound of the ginger cat inexpertly scaling a back fence. It was not often he saw an unfamiliar cat on his walk. It was almost certainly nothing, but almost everything was almost certainly nothing, wasn''t it? And yet some things did eventually turn out to be something.
He once caught an armed robber because of a Twix wrapper in a blast furnace. One rarely knows the significance of things at the time, and it doesn''t cost a penny piece to note things down. Steve turns left on to the top of the High Street, and sees it stretch out like an unspooling gray ribbon before him, lit by the dim bulb of the moon. If you were to visit Axley -- and you should, you''d like it -- you might think you had found the perfect English village. A gently sloping High Street, looping around a touch at the bottom where it skirts the bank of the village pond. There are two pubs, The Brass Monkey and The Flagon, identical to the tourists but teeming with subtle and important differences to the locals. For example, one flies a Union Jack and the other the Ukrainian flag. There''s a butcher, a baker.
No candlestickmaker, but you will find a little gift shop selling scented candles and bookmarks. Striped awnings, bicycles leaned against shopfronts, chalkboards promising cream teas or tarot readings or dog treats. There is a church at the top of the village, and a small bookmakers at the bottom of the village, take your pick. Steve used to visit both, and now visits neither. And, all around, there is the New Forest. The forest is the whole point of the place. The village itself simply found itself a small clearing and settled in. There are walks and trails, the chirrup and buzz of wildlife, and the backpacks and rain macs of the tourists.
Stray New Forest ponies some days wander on to the main road and are accorded due reverence. It was their forest long before it was yours, and it will be theirs long afterward too. Axley simply shelters among the trees, curled into a little nutshell. When Steve first moved here -- 12 years ago, was it? Something like that, Debbie would remember, probably 15 the way time goes -- it hadn''t fooled him for a second. Steve hadn''t been hoodwinked by the hollyhocks and the cupcakes and the cheery "Good morning" greetings. Steve had seen secrets behind every pastel front door, seen corpses in every back alley and every time the church bells rang in the hour, Steve had heard the chimes of death. A crisp packet has blown into a hedge. Steve retrieves it and places it in a bin.
Monster Munch. They don''t sell Monster Munch in the local shop, so that will have been a tourist. No, Steve had refused to be fooled by Axley. Twentyfive years in the police force had taught him to always think the worst of everyone, and everything. Always expect the worst, and you''ll always be prepared. Never let anyone, or anything, take you by surprise. Ironic, given what soon happened. Steve stops by the window of the estate agent and peers through the glass.
If he was moving to the village today, he wouldn''t be able to afford it. The only way anyone can afford to buy a house these days is to have bought it 15 years ago. Steve had been wrong about Axley -- he''d be the first to admit it. There were no murderers lurking behind the doors, no mutilated corpses in blood-soaked alleys. And, thus, Steve had begun to relax. Steve had never relaxed as a child; his dad had made sure of that. School? Too bright to fit in but not bright enough to get out. Then joining the Metropolitan Police at the age of 18, seeing the worst that London had to offer, day after day.
Sometimes this included his own colleagues. Every day a fight. Steve takes out his Dictaphone once more. "Pale blue Volkswagen Passat, registration number PN17 DFQ, in car park of The Brass Monkey." Steve walks around the car. "Tax disc up to date." There is the wrapper from a Greggs in the footwell. Where is the nearest Greggs? Southampton? The services on the M27? He resumes his walk.
He will go as far as the pond, sit there for a while, then head back up. Of course he will -- that''s what Steve does every night. Axley had transformed Steve. Not all at once, but, smile by smile, favor by favor and scone by scone, the people and the place had taken down the wall that he had built up over so many years. Debbie had told him it would, and he hadn''t believed her. She had been born here, and, when Steve finally left the Met, she had persuaded him to make the move. She knew. Steve had worried there would be no excitement, no adrenaline, but Debbie had reassured him.
"If you get bored, we''re only 20 miles from Southampton, and there are plenty of murders there." But Steve didn''t miss the excitement, and he didn''t miss the adrenaline. Steve liked to stay in; he liked to cook for Debbie; he liked to hear birdsong; he found himself a solid pubquiz team. Good but improvable. A stray cat, a proper bruiser, came to visit them and refused to leave. After a week or two of snarling and bullying, from both Steve and the cat, they each let down their guard. And now you''ll find Steve, reading his paper in an old armchair, Trouble curled up on his lap, purring in his sleep. Two old rascals, safe and sound.
Debbie persuaded him to set up his agency. He was happy not working -- she was bringing in enough money from painting -- but she was right. He probably needed something to do, and probably needed to contribute something to the community. The name of his agency, "Steve Investigates," was his idea. He remembers a Sunday lunch when his boy, Adam, had come round with his wife, Amy. Amy is a bodyguard, works with billionaires and oligarchs, always on the other side of the world. Adam does something or other with money. Steve speaks to Amy more than he speaks to Adam.
She''s the one who rings; she''s the one who makes sure they visit if she''s in England on a job. Amy had told him to call the company "Maverick Steel International Investigations." Branding is very important in the world of private investigations, she had said, but Steve had countered that his name was Steve, and he investigates things, and if that wasn''t a brand, what was? Amy is working with Rosie D''Antonio, the author, somewhere or other in America. Steve will play it cool when he next talks to Amy, but he will want all the gossip. There''s always gossip when she''s protecting celebrities. Once Amy was working with a singer in a boy band, and he took heroin on an elephant. "Google America time difference," says Steve into his Dictaphone. Steve Investigates keeps him pleasantly busy and adequately afloat.
He has a few contacts with insurance companies. If you''ve ever claimed a year''s salary because of a bad back anywhere in the New Forest, Steve has probably sat outside your house at some point, perhaps followed you to the gym. It makes Steve happy to find that people are almost always telling the truth about these things. He''ll look into affairs if you really, really want him to. His only rule is that he won''t travel any distance. Steve doesn''t want to stray too far from Axley. He''ll drive up to Brockenhurst if.