The situation is taken from “29 Seconds” by TM Logan. So, without further ado, here it goes:

A had spiked B’s drink with a particularly potent cocktail of the drugs GHB and Rohypnol – provided by G along with the surveillance equipment – that rendered him unconscious within thirty minutes and shredded his short-term memory. Combined with alcohol, the combination of drugs was known to erase memories several hours before it was even taken. And within twelve hours of ingestion, all traces disappeared from the victim’s system. The dosage had to be exactly right, using precise details of size and weight – calculations made possible using the dimensions of B’s tailor-made ceremonial academic regalia.

With her target unconscious, A had opened the package from the ‘courier’, removed a throwaway phone to summon C back to the house, and then let him in. Also inside the package was D’s old boiler suit and two pairs of rubber gloves. While A got changed and began to erase all physical traces of her presence in the house, the young hacker had gone to work. And while E and her dad believed the plan was all about catching B on tape – hence the covert recording equipment – the real reason for A’s visit went deeper. Much deeper. They had to be shielded from this real reason. And her efforts to record B had to be convincing enough so that he wouldn’t realise it was all a decoy.

Because when he turned on his PC the next day, a self-replicating virus corrupted every single file – including his new book – and crashed the machine. On Monday, the technicians at PC World trying to fix it made a grim discovery: more than 9,000 child pornography images in the computer’s hard drive. A call to the police had brought simultaneous Tuesday morning raids to his house and office, where they had discovered thousands more images on his work computer and still more on an external hard drive concealed in his study at home, with date stamps going back fifteen years. A second external hard drive, concealed beneath his desk at work by F, contained thousands more. Associated email traffic linked the professor with a notorious paedophile ring – and suggested that a recent falling-out over payment had led to his kidnapping two weeks previously.

A knew there was a risk B might remember some of what had happened between them, and that he would have his suspicions. But there was no physical evidence of her ever being at his house – and she had a rock-solid alibi. She had been caught on CCTV going into work, and her mobile phone had connected to the university Wi-Fi. She had sent a text from work to her dad. Logged into her work computer at 7.34 that evening and stayed there for the best part of an hour. She had been caught on CCTV again on the way home – when she stopped to use the cashpoint.

A had done all these things on Saturday evening – her electronic footprint proved it.

Or at least, someone who looked like her had done so: another slim brunette in her early thirties. Same height and hair colour, with A’s clothes, bag, hat and sunglasses. Driving her car. Someone else who fitted B’s very particular type to a T.

C had even dealt with the recording from the CCTV camera over B’s front door. He had deleted the sequence showing A’s arrival – and his own dressed as a courier ten minutes later – and replaced it with an unremarkable hour from the previous evening. Leaving nothing to suggest anyone had visited on Saturday evening.

Topics: books, literature, fiction, law enforcement, crime