Chapter 11

Drew came up with a beautifully simplistic way of shaking off any tail that Mark and Felicity might have picked up. He parked his own car in the underground car park close to Glasgow's Sheriff Court and took a taxi back to the police station.

Mark and Flick left the apartment in the undamaged Porche and made the short journey across town to the station. Mark parked in the car park and they grabbed small bags from the tiny trunk before making their way inside.

Drew met the couple and led them along a series of corridors and down through the holding area in the station.

"Stay close behind me," he ordered, as they approached a re-inforced, heavy looking door.

A uniformed officer acknowledged Drew and turned a large key in the lock of the door, swinging it open to reveal an enclosed courtyard at the rear of the station.

An armoured security van was parked up with its rear doors open. This was one of the vehicles used to transfer prisoners between the station's cells and the court and it had the benefit that all of its windows were blacked out.

Drew, Mark and Flick quickly boarded the van and the doors were shut behind them with a clang. They took seats and braced themselves as the van moved through Glasgow City Centre traffic on its way to the Sheriff Court. The security doors at the court were opened in response to a radio message from the private guard who was riding shotgun beside the van's driver. The van pulled inside and the doors were quickly opened once more to allow the three of them to exit.

"I'm pretty sure no one was interested in following us," the driver told them.

Drew led the way over to his car and Mark and Flick stowed their bags before climbing into the rear seats and ducking down to keep out of sight. MacIntosh started the car and turned it towards the security door, passing through it and joining the heavy city centre traffic. A few minutes later he indicated that it was safe for Mark and Flick to show their faces.

"Okay you two, I think we've shaken off anybody who might have been following you. It's safe to relax now," he said.

"Are you really sure we had to go to all of this trouble Drew?" Mark asked.

"How many attempts have been made on your life in the past few weeks Mark?" the detective asked.

Drew's question had an immediate sobering effect on Mark and he decided the arrangements hadn't been over the top after all.

"Where are you taking us?" he asked.

"I thought the safest place would be the police college at Tulliallan," Drew replied, "the accommodation is a bit basic but at least we'll be surrounded by policemen and its unlikely even the Hamiltons would try anything there."

The drive took them onto the M8 then the A80/M80 and the M876 until they crossed the River Forth on the Kincardine Bridge. Turning left through the little village of Kincardine, Drew motored on a few more miles until they spotted a large sign announcing the Scottish Police College on their right hand side. He indicated and pulled the car across the road and into the driveway that led up to the college.

Drew had arranged rooms for them and he led the way upstairs in the accommodation block, indicating the room set aside for Mark and Felicity.

"Get yourself settled and then we can meet up and have a look at what you've got," he suggested.

Mark was too eager to begin to go through the church's accounts and his reply showed that.

"Just let us dump our bags and then we can get started. The sooner we find something to go on the better for all concerned don't you think?" he asked.

"Speak for yourself MacGhee, I could certainly use a shower," Flick complained.

"Fine, Drew and I can make a start then and you can join us once you've freshened up," Mark replied.

It was clear that Felicity wasn't too pleased at this suggestion but she could see how determined Mark was to immediately start going through the material he had brought with him. She sighed and shrugged but didn't argue.

"I've managed to book one of the study rooms just down the hall. When you're ready just come and join us," Drew added.

Mark opened the door to the room allocated to himself and Flick. As Drew had indicated, the room was fairly basic student accommodation but it would do. He dropped his bag on the double bed and opened it, pulling the thick brown envelope of papers out and then rejoined Drew in the corridor. Flick shook her head at the impatience of the two men and closed the door on them, intent on having a nice relaxing shower.

Drew led the way down the corridor to the study room. It was pretty basic too with a desk, a table and four chairs and stand sporting a large A1 sized flip-chart. At least the desk had a PC sitting on it and Mark decided that would be useful, but only if it was connected to the Internet.

"Okay, how are we going to work this?" he asked.

"Why don't you let me see what we've got to look at?" Drew answered.

Mark opened the envelope and withdrew the sheaf of account statements that were inside. He laid them down on the table and both he and Drew took seats.

"I suggest we split these between us and start going through them. We're looking for any names - individuals or companies - that we can try and get a lead on. Here's some scrap paper and a pen, just jot down anything that you think is worth following up on," Drew suggested.

Mark split the pile of statements into two piles and pushed one across the table to Drew. He pulled the other pile in front of himself and immediately began scanning the itemised entries on the first sheet.

It was quickly apparent that most of the transactions going through the church's accounts were deposits, which made withdrawals really stand out. Mark tried to stop himself from jumping to the lines showing the withdrawals and instead work systematically through the statement line by line.

He began to jot down names almost at once and then paused. The statement he was looking at was headed up to show that it was for the month of June and he quickly leafed through his pile to identify how many pages made up that month's account.

"Jesus! There are nineteen pages to one month's accounts. The Church of Cyberscience certainly seems to be extremely active," he said aloud.

Drew merely grunted in response, his head buried in his own pile of statements.

Mark decided to follow a hunch and he set the nineteen pages of the June account to one side and quickly started scanning the first few pages of the July account, cross-referencing the entries to those for the previous month. His pulse quickened when he saw that the names associated with the payments being made to the church exactly repeated for each month.

"Drew, the same names seem to appear each month and the payment amounts are the same each time. It looks like we have a large number of people subscribing or making donations on a regular basis. I'm going to see if I can get a lead on any of the names I've come up with so far," he said.

"The log-on name and password should be in the desk drawer," Drew replied without looking up.

Mark booted-up the computer and opened the drawer, finding a small piece of card with the information that Drew had suggested would be there. He already had over twenty names on his piece of scrap paper and he began entering them into google to see what he could find.

Drew stopped what he was doing and crossed to peer over Mark's shoulder. He glanced at Mark's hand-written list of names and cross-referenced it with the list he had been making himself. He saw immediately that Mark was right, the same names appeared on both lists suggesting that each monthly account logged payments from the same sources.

"Okay, we run the risk of just covering the same ground," he said, "you stick to the names on the first ten pages of each month's statements and I'll look at the names on the rest. I'll see if I can get access to another computer so we can both search at the same time," he offered.

Mark was already engrossed in trying to track down the names on his list and he only grunted to indicate that he had heard Drew's suggestion.

When Flick entered the study room just over an hour later she found Mark hunched over the PC at the desk and Drew typing away with one finger of each hand on a laptop at the table. She almost giggled at the intense looks on the faces of both men, they were sooo serious and focused on the job at hand.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

Her question seemed to startle both men and they realised for the first time that she had actually joined them. Mark pushed back from the desk and stood up to stretch his arms above his head, trying to get the stiffness out of his shoulders.

"To be honest, I'm not really sure," he answered her.

"Well have you found anything?" she asked.

"There are lots of names here and the church is certainly raking the money in every month but I'm not getting much by way of information on any of the names from the Internet. There's not enough information here really and for every name I search. I'm getting either nothing or multiple possibilities. How about you Drew?" Mark asked.

"Pretty much the same thing. The names all look to be private individuals and that seems a bit odd. The church doesn't seem to be doing any business with organisations, just individuals. One thing I have noticed though, all the names I've looked at so far have come back with the same as Mark - either nothing or multiple possibilities. I've tried to do a basic match on the possibilities and there is maybe a common thread running through them," Drew said.

"What?" both Mark and Flick asked with some excitement.

"It might be nothing but you get to see patterns in things in my line of business. All of the possibles include people who seem to be doing very well in their chosen professions - you know, rising young stars, fast-track promotions, best in class - that kind of thing."

"But wouldn't people need to have done something noteworthy to even rate a mention on the Internet?" Flick asked.

"You'd be surprised at the kind of detail that gets onto the Internet. Even a minor article in a local newspaper would be enough," replied Drew, "anyway, my point is that there might be some commonality between the names."

"I don't think we're going to get very far doing this. What we need is some greater certainty that we're identifying the people making these payments - not just guesswork," said Mark.

"I think I know just the person to go through this in fine detail. She's already done some really good work for me on the schools thing," replied Drew," I'm sure WPC Wilson would relish another chance to impress and to be honest I don't fancy wading through anymore of this stuff. No offence Mark, but it is kinda boring!"

Mark's own excitement and enthusiasm had certainly dampened down as he had typed in search after search into google and come up with very little. The prospect of somebody else doing all the donkeywork held sudden appeal.

"Would she be able to use official channels? If so, wouldn't that give us a much better chance of identifying these characters anyway?" he asked.

"She will and you're right. If I'd realised what we would find in this stuff I would probably have just kept you at the station and used her. I need to get this stuff back there as soon as possible," Drew answered.

Kenny didn't bother with another shower, but instead made his way back to the computer room once he awoke from his nap. He was pretty sure that his new version of the programme would have taken effect and that he was now safe to look at the trigger phrase without it affecting him.