She had little doubt now. And she was sure of two things. First, Stefan Kalinowksi had been lying when he’d said he hadn’t used online dating. And second, she had to go back to the office and make a call.
CHAPTER 26
Narey and Giannandrea were on one side of the screen. Salgado and O’Neill were five thousand miles away on the other. It was a rainy midnight in Glasgow, a scorching four in the afternoon in LA.
It was three hours after Narey’s chat with Tony, three hours since she knew she had to speak to the Americans. She’d got a taxi to the station, picking up Giannandrea en route. If they waited till morning, then it would be halfway through the night in the US. And time wasn’t something they had much off.
‘Evening, Rachel. Or is it morning?’
‘It’s evening, Cally. Very very late evening.’
‘You’ve got something?
‘I think so. I’ve spoken to the sister of one of the victims on Garland’s list. Brianna Holden’s sister. She admitted to me that Brianna was meeting another man the night she was killed. Someone she’d met through online dating. The woman who survived the attack, Emily Dornan, had been using a dating site at the time. Another case that could be connected, the murder of a woman named Irene Dow, she too was using internet dating.’
‘Okay, this wouldn’t be miles away from what we’re thinking but it’s good to get flesh on the bones. Go on, Rachel.’
‘He’s catfishing. Marr and Garland are catfishing.’
‘Fake online identities?’
‘It’s the only thing that makes any sense. We’ve always suspected something like that. We knew Jamie wasn’t real. We knew his connection with Eloise was too good to be true. So many coincidences in what she liked and he liked. He had to be scamming her. He was a catfish and she jumped on the hook.’
‘Okay, hold on,’ Salgado interrupted. ‘I’m not saying I disagree with any of this, but I can’t say I really know what the whole catfishing thing is. I know the phrase, but someone explain to me, please. Slowly.’
‘Catfishing is where someone creates a false online presence,’ O’Neill informed him. ‘Fake name, fake photograph, fake age, maybe a fake job. Any and all of those. The object of the game is to scam someone. Sometimes for money, sometimes for sex, sometimes to make themselves feel good, sometimes just to be a troll, sometimes just to be hateful.
‘So, you’re online. Maybe in a chat room, maybe on a dating site. You get talking to someone, think they’re a good-looking, blonde, twenty-five-year-old nurse with a figure like Beyoncé. Turns out she is a pot-bellied bald guy in his vest, dreaming about when he was forty.
‘Maybe you tell her things you wouldn’t tell her if she wasn’t so hot. Maybe you send her money. Maybe you send compromising photos of you that could get you into trouble with your wife or your boss.’
‘And maybe you arrange to meet them.’
‘Exactly.’
Salgado huffed. ‘Come on, surely most people aren’t stupid enough to fall for a scam like that?’
Narey flinched as she saw O’Neill turn to face her partner, eyes blazing and her expression twisted.
‘It’s not about being stupid. It’s about being human.’ Her voice sounded like a different person, as if it were coming from a different place. ‘People – ordinary, decent people – make the mistake of thinking everyone’s as honest and open as they are. It’s their curse and what trips them every single time. Not everyone is as lucky as you, Salgado. You’re married and you love your wife, you’re content in your job and your relationships. You don’t want for much in life other than more flash suits and the Lakers to win the finals. Not everyone’s that lucky.’
‘Now wait—’
‘No, you wait. You need to hear this. Other people have gaps in their lives. The way the world is today, they don’t always have time to find those things other than by looking online. So, they might be looking for love or friends, just someone to talk to or someone who’ll listen. What they find is someone looking to take advantage of them. They go in with their hearts open and their eyes closed. Should they be more careful? Of course. Is it their fault? No way.’
Narey noticed Salgado had the sense not to interrupt again and got the distinct impression he’d been bitten before. O’Neill on a crusade was, clearly, a fierce warrior.
‘A friend of mine made the mistake of going online looking for someone to talk to, maybe someone she could be with. After a while, after some nasty experiences, she got talking to someone who seemed to understand, someone nice. She opened up, told this person who she really was and who she wanted to be. She spilled her guts and it felt good. Until it didn’t. Until the other person revealed herself as a fake, as a man rather than the woman he’d pretended to be. This guy, this sad excuse for a man, posted all over her Facebook, her Twitter and her Instagram that she was a lesbian. She’d barely come to this conclusion herself and hadn’t acted on it, yet here was the world finding out, including her parents. She was humiliated, frightened, embarrassed, furious and briefly suicidal. The guy thought it was funny. He’d caught a fish and nothing else mattered.’
Salgado opened his mouth, but she shut it again with a wave of her hand.
‘People aren’t stupid, Salgado. They’re human. When they are victims of this sort of thing, it crushes them. It makes them feel stupid, used, violated and humiliated. It makes them doubt anyone is real and trust evaporates.’
She finally let him speak.
‘I have two daughters. This terrifies me.’
‘Good. It should. Pull the plug on their computers and never let them talk to anyone.’
‘Done. It starts today.’
O’Neill breathed and turned to face the screen again.
‘You sure this is what Garland and Marr have been doing, Rachel?’
‘Yes. The names and profiles on the list that are in italics – Danny Cook, Greg Hurst, Ben Greaves, Alice Harper, Kelly Stein, Jamie Stark – they are the fake profiles used to chat to potential victims. Marr and Garland have all the details of each written down so they can stay in character and fool whoever they’re talking to. The profiles probably change on likes and dislikes to match the target. And that’s what the people they talk to are. Targets.’
‘So how do you think they do it?’
‘It’s pretty simple. Far too simple. I’m sure what they do is find someone to go after then scour other social media sites to scrape up all the information they can about them. They look until they find their likes and dislikes and mimic them. They start talking to them with a profile and photograph that fits what the target wants, tell them exactly what they want to hear and they’re in under their skin.’
‘It’s that easy to find what people like?’ asked Salgado.
‘Unfortunately, yes. What are you on online? Twitter, Facebook? Instagram?’
‘All three,’ Salgado replied.
‘And what do you say about yourself in your profiles?’
‘Nothing. Name and that’s it. And I never accept requests from anyone I don’t know in real life.’
‘And that’s how it should be, but most people aren’t that smart or that careful. Eloise Gray wasn’t. Her Facebook profile listed favourite bands, favourite movies, that she liked hillwalking, liked dogs, everything. Jamie – whether it was Marr or Garland – has seen this, used it and presented himself to her as the perfect man, the perfect match. She fell for it and fell for him. And it cost her her life.’