MIRANDA SPEAKS OF A BRAVE NEW WORLD

The Grimley Smith managers looked at each other nervously. ‘What is it?’ asked Dawson. ‘He’s a big lad,’ came the reply, ‘and I’m sure he can kick off.’ ‘Well, we’ll address that issue when we come to it,’ said Dawson, mustering as much authority as he could.

But when the tall, imposing man walked into the office, he looked shocked rather than angry. He asked the detective who he was and what he was doing there, with a hint of disdain. Dawson explained why he had been called into GSA and asked the man directly what all the documentation signified. With unexpected nonchalance, the man explained that it was part of a report he was compiling for one of the managers in the room. There was a moment’s silence before the manager piped up defiantly, ‘No, it isn’t!’ ‘Right,’ said Dawson, ‘put your hands out, sir.’ And he nodded to his colleague: ‘Put the cuffs on him!’

Far from ‘kicking off’, as the managers had feared, the man remained quite calm, if a touch bewildered, throughout. Two hours after seeing the Command and Control report, Dawson had a suspect under arrest in a police cell. But now he had to build a case quickly. If he was unable to come up with prima-facie evidence of conspiracy or fraud within three days, he would have to let his man go, and that would be the end of it.

Dawson returned to Grimley Smith with an officer from the high- tech recovery unit and the two of them got to work with Darryl Leaning. As Darryl had predicted, the portable disks were packed with hundreds of thousands of documents, most crammed full with details of hacked credit cards and bank accounts. But there were also email exchanges, one of which related to a Yahoo! newsgroup, which was prosaically called [email protected]. The postings and various messages from this group amounted less to an online tutorial and more to a university degree in how to perpetrate fraud on the Internet.

Dawson next drove to the flat on Plimsoll Way in neighbouring Hull, where the suspect lived. The address was on an estate, seemingly part of a dockside regeneration scheme that was showing the first signs of wear. Grimy water marks stained the cream stone façade, which was pockmarked by rust emerging from the rendering. It was an apt phys- ical symbol of New Labour’s Britain – shiny and bright on the outside, but unable any longer to prevent the rotten interior from punching through the surface.