Ctrl-Alt-Delete

By Dave Lewis

When beautiful Jenny Morris uses Facebook to get her ex-boyfriend Hal Griffiths to stalk her she has no idea what a dangerous game she is playing - for someone else is watching from the murky shadows of cyberspace.

And when an horrific murder in a sleepy Welsh village stirs a seasoned reporter, a conceited detective and an overweight IT expert into action, they too always seem to be one step behind the mysterious killer - Hagar.

Against the backdrop of a tangled web of deviant sexual practices Hal must rescue his lover before the killer strikes again. In the wilds of the Brecon Beacons National Park an electrifying climax is played out when Hal is forced to confront his deadly rival.

Social and political commentary within a close-knit community has never been so honest. Pornography morphs into technology and we are forced to ask ourselves the question - will man’s lust for instant gratification ultimately be his undoing?

A full-throttle thriller effortlessly blending violence, eroticism and suspense, Ctrl-Alt-Delete is both a modern love story and a prophetic tale of intrigue in our ever-distracting machine driven world. A truly gripping debut novel by Dave Lewis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dave Lewis
• Release date: Nov 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466106635

Dave Lewis

Dave Lewis is an award-winning writer and poet who has been widely published all over the world. He is founder of the International Welsh Poetry Competition - www.welshpoetry.co.uk. His first ever short story was runner up in the Rhys Davies Competition and his poetry collection 'Going Off Grid' was a finalist in The Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2018. He has been a science teacher, BBC web producer, doorman, photographer & builder's labourer. He has a Zoology degree from Cardiff University and a HNC in Software Engineering from the University of South Wales. He likes to travel the world looking for wildlife. Although known mainly as a poet, Dave has also written a gritty, crime thriller trilogy where he hopes to give readers the same thrills and excitement that you get from reading Lee Child and James Patterson. If you enjoy crime thrillers, action, adventure, murder mystery, black comedy, technothrillers with bouts of juicy sex you can visit his writing website - www.david-lewis.co.uk. For book publishing help visit - www.publishandprint.co.uk.

Book preview

Prologue

August 2010…

Jenny had drunk far too much white wine. It was an easy mistake to make and now she was going to die.

How long had she been unconscious? She had no idea. No concept of time. Struggling hard not to panic as she felt herself begin to hyperventilate Jenny instinctively knew she must absorb and assimilate every detail, something somewhere might save her. She also realised she must act immediately if she wanted to escape.

Labouring for breath she forced herself not to give in to the gagging reflex as her desert-dry mouth filled with burning bile. Jenny’s swollen eyes strained to become accustomed to the murky gloom. She tried to shake her long, curly brown hair away from her face but dried sweat held it tight as the cold metal of the handcuffs cut into her wrists. Her whole body was aching now, and her pulse throbbed relentlessly in her head.

As her thoughts drifted back to earlier that evening she vaguely remembered her vision blurring and the muted sound of words slurring, like holding your head underwater in the bath. Then her stomach had tightened and warm flushes had begun to spread out all over her body. A distorted Daliesque clock face melted and slowly slithered down the wall like a Tom and Jerry cartoon character. As Jenny’s coordination flew off into the evening her knees had buckled.

She recalled heading for the carpet in slow motion as a small, rough hand expertly plucked the free-falling wine glass from mid-air and delicately placed it on a low wicker table next to her.

Terror can manifest itself in different ways but all Jenny could visualize at this moment was Hal’s grinning face staring back from the centre of a computer monitor. In these first brief seconds of consciousness her mind searched for reassurance. She tried to reason with herself, to tell herself it would be OK.

Then she tried to justify her actions, to make sense of it, to make it alright. It wasn’t her fault. What else could she have done? Stalkers don’t just stalk anybody do they? You have to give them a reason. You’ve got to make them want to do it.

Oh shit! What have I got myself into? The thought of being a lonely old spinster was now quite appealing… then all of a sudden, off to the side, a long penetrating torch beam flashed across her body and in a nanosecond she was catapulted back to the all too real present. The harsh blue light settled on her pale face and blinded Jenny for a brief moment before an echoing click plunged her back into silence and darkness.

With her senses heightened by fear she could taste the damp, musty smells of straw, onions and potatoes. The odour of mouse droppings mingled with the stink of rotting, wet vegetables. She desperately searched the dim recesses of her prison. Her funeral-black pupils frantically scanned the darkness for hope. Penetrating, probing. Looking for anything that could offer her a way out of this nightmare… and then she saw them.

Laid out purposefully in a neat line on the small wooden bench in the corner of the barn. Almost out of sight. Not placed in front of you - for effect. Not staring you in the face, not carefully arranged like pretty glass ornaments on a living room shelf. Not meant to shock or terrify. These had been put there for a purpose. Practical. To be used.

Jenny shivered, her big brown eyes grew to saucers, her face became china-white as the adrenaline kicked in and coursed through her blood. She tried to jerk free but the restraints held firm as she slowly traced the metallic shapes in perfect clarity. Her screams were muffled by the crimson scarf tied tight around her mouth, and an earthy taste of silk mixed with her briny tears as they streamed into her mouth.

Suddenly and without warning warm liquid began to flow down Jenny’s legs as her bladder opened involuntary. She stank of fear. She missed her daddy.

Then, slowly but surely, the same rough hand emerged from the shadows and reached for a shiny, clean scalpel that glinted sporadically in the half-light. It edged closer to her, leaving the rest of the knives, dissection instruments and power tools set out clinically in the dark.

One

April 1st 2010…

Hal Griffiths had been fast asleep. His head submerged deep in a pillow, Egyptian cotton sheets wrapped around his lean but muscular torso.

A thick winter duvet lay in a pile on the floor next to a pair of old Levi jeans and a faded blue Billabong tee shirt. Bridgedale lightweight walking socks and a pair of Merrell trail shoes were close by. Smiling to himself, semi-conscious now, he kept his eyes closed tight.

These were the precious minutes just before waking when your mind knew it was time to face another day but your body craved another hours rest, or was it the other way around? Either way he wasn’t going anywhere, the voluptuous super-model Elle McPherson was with him.

Earlier that day they’d watched the Cronulla Sharks win at home, had a few Belgian beers and a giant ham and pineapple pizza. Hal ordered extra baked beans to go on top of his half. They’d shared it but Elle had hardly touched her side, so Hal ate that too.

She’d apologised to Hal for experimenting with that rhino horn when she was young and he’d reassured her she wouldn’t need that with him around. He’d also reminded her he took better photographs than Bryan Adams, even if his camera equipment wasn’t as good. She agreed with absolutely everything he’d said, of course.

Then a few more beers and a couple of hours of her laughing at his crap jokes and the same old stories were followed by them strolling arm in arm, into a waiting taxi. They headed home to her luxury flat in a trendy suburb of North Sydney. To the fading sounds of the traffic below she stretched her six foot frame up to kiss him, squeezed his strong, hairy arms and smiled a smile that would last forever. She might be forty-seven but what the hell, she’d do.

Then he rolled over to feel the empty space next to him and realised his latest Polish girlfriend was still in Gdansk with her sick mother. Hal yawned, scratched his balls and headed for the bathroom. It took ages to pee when he was this big, but he kept his eyes firmly shut, willing it out and not wanting to lose this image.

Back in bed he tried to remember what Elle looked like naked as she contorted her body around him but it wasn’t to be, the only thing on his mind now were recurring visions of his fat, ugly boss in her ill-fitting business suit staring daggers at him across the table and the thought of the presentation he was to give to the area manager in half an hour. The one he hadn’t prepared because he was so drunk last night.

He screwed his eyes rigid until they hurt. He refused to give in and used his left hand to pull the sheets over his head as his right hand crept gradually lower. Faster than Captain Kirk he was teleported to a cabin in the woods high up above the shoreline on the Pacific Northwest. The coastal air was so clean and fresh, he could almost taste it…

His brain fast-forwarded through Farrah Fawcett, Geena Davis and finally Christie Brinkley but none of them would stay for long. Herring gulls and lesser black-backed gulls were squawking outside his open window now and he thought he smelt plum and cherry trees as the sea crashed on the rocks below. He blinked awake for a second realising a car had screeched its brakes outside his top floor flat near the St David’s Hotel in Cardiff Bay.

He tried one last time. Silvia Saint in the back of a valleys taxi and finally the dirty old blonde woman who worked in the last of the sailors’ pubs still open down the road, but it was no use. Hal was annoyed and frustrated. She was normally a cert and he rolled over like a grizzly bear leaving its winter den and finally opened his eyes for good.

The seagulls were real now. Shit! He was parched and needed a drink. Time for a giant mug of tea, a massive bowl of Frosties, and a good kick in the bollocks of reality.

He clicked the thermostat on to warm up the flat, but left the windows open. He grabbed some Tropicana orange juice and drank straight from the carton. The acid burned his throat like paint stripper and the bits of fruit stuck between his teeth and he cursed to no one in particular.

Still naked, he strolled into the living room, rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms skywards, above his head until they touched the ceiling. He then picked up a half-eaten Yorkie bar from the settee.

His morning ritual was completed when he pressed the switches on his beloved Roksan HiFi and blindly grabbed at the nearest CD from the shelf. He was hoping for Tangerine Dream to gently ease him into the day but instead got Marina and the Diamonds. Oh yes! She would definitely do Hal thought… and she was from Abergavenny!

Two

Paula’s hard nipples felt huge in her lover’s mouth as he struggled to keep her figure-hugging nurse’s tunic falling back down again. The consultant’s private room was locked from the inside and no one else had a key as far as he knew.

The DAB radio, a present from his wife, was playing a Rolling Stones track and as Mick sang about not being able to get what you want Doctor James Nicholas Martyn was convinced he was about to get what he needed.

In fact, at forty-four, ex-private schoolboy Dr Martyn didn’t think he’d ever seen a pair of tits like them. And he’d seen plenty in his line of work as a gynaecologist at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.

True, most of them were saggy due to the constant diet of McDonalds and wicked strength cider most of his under privileged, socially challenged, downwardly-mobile young mothers seemed to live on but at least he still got to see them all first, and then he; as top-dog consultant and clinical director, could decide if any of the half decent chavs should be put under his expert care for the next six or seven months. Of course they usually shattered the illusion when they opened their mouths, and then he loathed them as much as he did most people.

Dr Martyn was standing up straight now, his face lost in an award-winning cleavage, wondering how he ever came to agree to work in this hellhole of a borough when Paula spoke.

‘Oh my, what’s that bulge in your knickers honey?’

‘Why don’t you find out, you dirty girl you,’ answered James.

Ex-Cardiff Medical School graduate James Martyn believed everyone was put on this earth to please him and him alone. Paula, for her part, was quite prepared to play along even if his kinky habits and role-playing games seemed to be getting worse lately. In fact, the more she gave in to his demands the more outrageous they became. She often wondered where he got his ideas from, but then Paula never used the Internet. She was more of a Hello magazine kinda girl.

And yes, for busty Paula, an inch under six foot and built like an Amazon, he would make exceptions too.

Brought up in Lisvane she had a little bit more class about her, thick as two short planks as she undoubtedly was. But her breasts were all natural and that was all the superficial James Martyn cared about these days.

They were amazing in fact! What would the boys at the sports club say if they could see him now? Hole in one, most definitely! Who needed a lap dancing bar, a round of golf in the pissing down rain, or yet another Boxercise class when he could spend his Thursday morning ‘private clinic’ time in a tiny office sunk to the nuts with a stunning and randy tart like nurse Paula Price.

And boy did she keep him fit. He’d not only cut back on the jogging since he’d met her but also on his Tuesday evening trips to the Aikido martial arts club just north of town. Mind you he did still enjoy hitting the old punch bags in the gym. But that was different because he could imagine they were his slag of a wife.

The only problem he could sense with the arrangement was that Paula had started wanting to spend more and more time with him, and kept hinting at them moving in together. Last week the money-grabbing bitch had even asked him to buy her a flat. As if.

‘Oh, but baby, that way I’ll always be ready and waiting for you whenever you can get away from your horrid wife.’

‘How much do you think I earn Paula? I sometimes think you only love me for my money,’ James said in a sulky way guaranteed to keep her hanging on a bit longer for fear she’d think he’d worked out what she was really after. Like he didn’t know exactly, already.

Three

‘Warlock’ was nervous. He could normally spot the crazies a mile off, but this one was different. Calm, almost reserved one minute, a bit vague the next, before, suddenly out of nowhere, exploding into rage with their next message board post. It had all started with a simple password guessing game Warlock had posted to try to get newbies to think about what they were doing online.

Most computer users are very lazy and if they can get away with it only ever use very simple passwords. Whether the same people would consider 1234 as a pincode for their bank card is another matter but many computer passwords can be guessed by humans with knowledge of the person and their personal information. Examples of guessable passwords might include: the words ‘password’, ‘admin’ or similar, a row of letters from the keyboard - qwerty or asdf perhaps.

Warlock would always warn his followers about being so lax with security, it was a particular interest of his. He would often tell his posters never to use: the user's actual name, nickname, wife’s name or girlfriend’s etc. Birthplaces, date of birth, a relative, pet, favourite animal or telephone number should also never be used as common passwords. Other popular choices for password fields, which were frowned upon, might be: car registration plate number, or a mobile phone number.

Adding a digit to an easy, guessable password does make it slightly more difficult to guess but most people will put a ‘1’ if asked for a number as well. You could reverse the order of the letters and a particular favourite of Warlock’s himself - a swear word, although of course he usual wrote it in ‘leet’, backwards and in Polish.

Newbies; somebody inexperienced in the use of computers, enjoyed Warlock’s little tests and would spend a day or two trying to work out a password of a fictitious character, usually someone he had quickly created on MySpace or Facebook.

In Warlock’s latest Facebook profile of an imaginary friend he listed the person’s favourite music and films. The newbies then had various avenues to explore – maybe the name of an actor, singer or celebrity the person likes or a simple modification of one, e.g. petER gabr1el, and using this simple method it wasn’t difficult to guess the password, especially remembering common letters can be substituted for numbers as well, e.g. a ‘1’ for an ‘L’ or ‘I’. or a ‘4’ for an ‘A’.

These kind of tests were easy, bin rummaging stuff for most. But for ‘Hagar’ who was obviously a leet too, it was often too difficult and it would result in a good old, online row.

The term ‘leet’ comes from the word elite. Leet, also known as eleet or leetspeak, is basically an alternative alphabet for the English language that is used primarily on the web. Using various combinations of ASCII characters to replace normal letters, example spellings of the words leet or elite might be - 1337 or 3l33t respectively.

The leet alphabet is really a specialized form of symbolic writing. Leet may also be considered a substitution code, a cipher, hacker slang, a dialect or a completely new and evolving language depending on your use or fondness for it. Various linguistic varieties exist in different online communities and leet certainly doesn’t stick to the English language.

Leet is also used to describe a computer user with great expertise or accomplishment, especially in the world of online gaming and in its original usage, computer hacking.

Hagar was without doubt in the top few per cent of computer experts in the country and demonstrated this often on the forum with their replies to requests for cracks or programs by other less knowledgeable users.

Leet language, like most languages, is also an evolving one; misspellings of common words are normal, as in mobile phone or chat room text language. Being totally international, spelling is less an issue, and it also comes in handy for circumventing content or swear filters, which may throw out certain messages for various reasons. ASCII art is also another common use of leet.

And then there were the strange URLs that Hagar posted to Warlock’s forum. Some links helpfully directed other users to news on WikiLeaks or solutions to various tests of competence on Hack Forums but when someone posted a link to the dumbed down BBC all hell would break lose. And it wasn’t because they were Muslim loving, pc liberals; all that seemed to go over Hagar’s head, it was just that Hagar didn’t seem to understand what was being posted. It was like Hagar lived in a bubble.

Then things would go quiet again, there would be more high level discussion of weak encryption systems, password hashing scheme codes to exploit poorly designed algorithms and solid cracks to the latest cutting edge software, and all that would be fine. Discussion on cryptology and salting was also no problem for Hagar.

Another particular favourite post on the forum was if anyone knew where to get a download of an original copy of the Anarchists Cookbook again, which Hagar did, although as any explosives expert will tell you you’ll probably lose a hand if you try this nonsense in the kitchen and there are much better versions online if you know where to look.

All this, Warlock guessed was harmless enough, even though the street cred of his board might be suffering with so many square links to Yahoo or MSN, but then it would all go tits up and a bit mental so everyone kind of joined in the fun. Someone would say the wrong thing on purpose and then it would come. You could almost feel the anticipation on the board as more mature users came to recognise the telltale signs, to realise what they were dealing with, and then the inevitable rant, the violent tirade, followed by a link to a Japanese ‘How to commit suicide message board’ and encouragement for the offending poster to pop by and get some much needed carbon monoxide therapy on a deserted mountain top. Warlock couldn’t work it out. Very odd indeed, almost like there were two people posting sometimes. And lately it had got worse…

Four

At the same time as Hal struggled to come to terms with the aftermath of a gallon of real ale Jenny was on her way to work. At nine o’clock she’d skipped off the bus and strolled along the length of Queen Street as usual. The wind was picking up. Piles of snow were scattered like molehills at the sides of the city’s main shopping thoroughfare. Cardiff council street cleaners were leaning on brushes, smoking and cursing, as the wind made a mess of their earlier hard work.

One of them whistled as Jenny passed and she offered a quick fleeting smile that made his morning.

‘Ah, my very own special day,’ said Jenny to herself as she realised the date. It was April Fools Day, 2010.

Then the sun went AWOL again and the sky turned to the colour of concrete. It started drizzling, which cheered up the other council workers as it might finally wash away the snow.

Miserable though it was, spring wouldn’t be long and with the clocks having gone on last week Jenny could look forward to the lighter nights she’d been craving for all through winter. But instead of rays of sunshine a hollow feeling lurked deep inside her stomach. She pulled the collar up on her old duffle coat and bunched her thick dark hair either side of it and walked on.

Soon she found herself in the warmth of her workplace, a charity office, high above the cold, restless city. And once again she would try to find something in her job to take her mind off things. Attempt to shake off the feelings of being in limbo. The feelings that seemed to accompany her every waking moment. The office radio was playing Since I Don’t Have You by Guns N’ Roses, a song she loved but one that always made her feel blue. It was not helping.

It was over two months now since Chris, her boyfriend of over twenty years, had finally left. She was all on her own again and at nearly forty-eight this was not a good prospect. Her wonderful father, whom she’d doted on had died three years ago, her mother had long since past, even the cat had found a new sugar mummy.

Although Chris would usually offer encouragement and a shoulder to cry on when she needed it his heart wasn’t in it anymore. Jenny knew that much.

He’d try to keep her happy by promising they’d go away somewhere special next year and then taking her out for the night to a fancy new bar, or to one of the ridiculously expensive new restaurants that were springing up all over the city lately. But his promises never materialised. They never went on holidays even though the lounge was starting to resemble a Thomas Cook travel agents, what with all the brochures strewn about everywhere. In fact Jenny had seen so many pictures of the Seychelles and Mauritius that she often imagined she’d been there already.

He was in debt, spending more money than he earned on designer clothes, a new Rolex and a new car every couple of years. As the years dragged on the spark had well and truly gone but she still never once thought of being unfaithful or looking for someone else, even though there was never any shortage of offers. She just wasn’t made that way. She imagined that’s just what happened to couples as the time went on.

When he did finally bugger off she realised that they were actually quite different. The last year had not been a good one. But as happy as she was to be rid of him on the one hand… she now thought of herself as a sardine separated from the shoal, waiting for the sharks to come. She swore this would never happen but it had. Jenny had never felt so completely and utterly alone.

Five

Outside Hal’s flat one of Europe’s most vibrant capital cities was well and truly waking up. Although a settlement had existed at Cardiff about fifteen hundred years before either Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid of Giza it never grew much as a town even when the Romans built a fort there to try to control the warring Celtic tribes. The Normans developed the castle further around 1081 but by the end of the 13th century, Cardiff still only had a population of around 2,000.

The city of Cardiff only really entered the modern world we know today around the 1830’s, when the dock was built to link up with the Taff Vale Railway. Cardiff then became the main port for exports of coal to countries all over the world. The coal coming from the pits of the Cynon, Rhondda, and Rhymney valleys to the immediate north.

Now, the largest city in Wales with a population of approximately one million, if you included the wider suburbs, it became the capital in 1955 and with a thriving university of over 30,000 students, the Cardiff Bay development and numerous large venues dotted around for huge sporting and cultural events the city is now seen as a young and prosperous enclave with a great future.

And so it was that in one of the many trendy housing developments down ‘the Bay’, as it was known, that valley boy and ex-Cardiff University student Hal found himself munching on leftover chocolate waiting for his eyes to become properly accustomed to the cruel, morning light.

Hal finished his shower, leaving the discarded wrapper at his feet in the shower tray. He cleaned his teeth and ran his fingers through his short-cropped mess of black hair for a few seconds before ambling out to the terrace window. A towel trailed behind him as Marina declared she wasn’t a robot.

Hal always liked to look at the outside world before he actually stepped into it. Not really to check the weather or to decide what to wear but just to get a feel for the day. As he gazed out the window, the icy cold water in the bay gently lapped against the little boats that were peeking through the mist and the rain. The low sun reflected off the copious amounts of glass and metal in the marina and it looked like it might even snow again later.

He nearly tripped over a pair of blue Karrimor KSBs