“Calm down, Dido,” said John, who was surprised at her outburst.

Dido showed no signs of doing as he wanted.
“Calm down and tell me why you think that they didn’t believe a word?”

Dido was looking for something to hit. He’d never seen her as angry as this, even when she’d identified Professor Fox as the man who had held her captive and made her perform all sorts of unthinkable sex acts for years.

Chrissy stood well back. She’d seen angry people during her time in the same captivity as Dido. Those men who could not get it up, even with their dick shoved down her throat, got angry with her and had then taken it out on her with their fists and feet. Broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder were payment for apparently being unable to excite a man who had paid handsomely for the opportunity to abuse a child.

She had never seen a woman as angry as Dido was now. She knew that Dido’s anger was from the heart.

The three of them sat in the car while Dido calmed down. After nearly ten minutes, she said nothing but got out of John’s car and kicked the tyres. John knew that was her blowing off some steam. After a few minutes, she got back in the car and put on her seatbelt. Her eyes were tightly closed, and her teeth clenched. He’d never seen Dido or almost anyone as angry as this and not let out a stream of expletives in his long career in the Police. John started the car and drove out of the car park. Not a word was said during the journey, but John could sense Dido’s anger at the whole thing. He wondered if it was a farce, as Dido had suggested.

Back at John’s home, there was still tension in the air, but Dido seemed to be a lot calmer than before.

“Ok, Dido, you have done enough chewing the cud, so why don’t you tell us why you think that the Assistant Commissioner and a senior official from the Home Office did not believe a word that we said tonight?”

“Do you remember telling me to watch a few trials before starting my degree?”

“Yes. I know that you went to the Old Bailey to watch Fox in action.”

“That is very true, but I also went to a couple of magistrates’ courts and a few crown courts. I saw her testify at Southwark Crown Court. This was just after she’d been promoted to commander and was related to a case when she was a SIO to a big drugs bust. She was a chief super at the time, which, if you remember, I commented on as being unusual.”

“Yes, I remember. The case fell apart when some crucial evidence went missing.”
“That’s the one,” said Dido defiantly.

“So?” asked John.

“She has a tell. She fiddles with the cuff of her jacket with her left hand when she is lying. She did it under oath in part of that case where she was a witness to an assault by one of the drug kingpins two days before the bust. She testified that she could not recognise the assailants, yet three days previously, I’d seen her deep in conversation with one of them in Spitalfields Market. It turned out that he was a CI of hers, and she was determined to keep him out of jail. Then tonight, she said all that crap about reviewing the situation while she fiddled with the cuff of that two-and-a-half thousand-pound Givenchy Jacket.”

“I’m not sure,” said John.

“John, do you trust me and my word?” said Dido.

“I have never questioned it before, but now? I don’t know.”

“So, why don’t you go to the Home Office on Monday and see if there is a meeting? If there isn’t, then you have your answer. If they do meet, then get their decision right there and then?”

“You are right. I will do that. Your beef is with the AC and not Julian?”

“Yes, unless he is in bed and I mean that literally with her. They had furtive glances at each other from the moment she arrived.”

“I didn’t see that, but I’m willing to go along with your claim that she is bent. I never really trusted her when I was on the job. She rose through the ranks far too quickly for my liking. Julian is openly bisexual for what it matters.”

“Good. Now I’m going to bed.

Dido walked out of the kitchen, leaving Chrissy and John behind. Neither of them had seen her as angry as this ever before. The normally mild-mannered woman had changed into a fire-breathing dragon in a flash. John was now unsure as to what sort of game the AC was playing, but it was up to him to find out. He owed Dido and Chrissy that much, at least.

Later that evening, John reviewed what Dido had said. For her to explain the tell of the AC so accurately was unnerving for him. He knew that her powers of observation were second to none. He thought back to the meeting, and it didn’t take him long to understand that Dido was right about the AC. She either didn’t believe a word that had been said to her despite the evidence, or, even worse, she was as corrupt as Fox. He didn’t want to think about the second option. For an Assistant Commissioner of the MET Police to be corrupt would be a national scandal in its own right.

John got up early the following morning, fully intending to talk to Dido about his plans for the day. His good intentions went up in smoke when he saw the door to Dido’s bedroom wide open and her bed made up. She’d either not gone to bed or had left very early for God knows where. Then, a thought occurred to him, and he dashed to the window. His BMW was parked where he’d left it the previous night. Dido had left on foot. For a moment, he had visions of Dido wrapping the powerful car around a lamppost in her anger at the world.

He looked at his watch and did a mental calculation. It would take her almost an hour to walk to the nearest railway station, and the first train into London was due in a little under five minutes. He didn’t have enough time to get there to stop her. His shoulders sagged. The last thing he wanted was Dido in a ‘get even’ mood on the rampage in Central London. Her excellent skills in many of the criminal arts could present a threat to any business she set her mind on robbing or something.

There was nothing he could do from where he was right now, but he had Chrissy to think about. When it was just Dido and him, things were so much easier.

Chrissy hadn’t said much the previous evening after their return from the meeting at the hotel. She’d deflected all his attempts at getting her to open up before going to bed. He had to try again with Chrissy before heading into central London and searching for Dido.

Chrissy came into the kitchen well over an hour later. Her arrival made John stop thinking about Dido and focus more on getting breakfast for them both.

Chrissy’s first words were,
“I know that Dido has gone off. She came into my room just before four this morning and told me. She said to tell you that she will be back and not to worry about her. She also said that she wasn’t going to do anything stupid.”

John managed a small smile.
“That’s me put in my place then?”

Chrissy reached over and took John’s hand. She’d shied away from almost all physical contact with males ever since her attack.
“John, you are a good man, and you are like a father to both Dido and me, but acting like a broody hen is not going to get you anywhere.”

John laughed.
“What did I just say about being put in my place?”

“It is true, isn’t it?” asked Chrissy.

“Ok, ok. Yes, I am like a broody hen at times, but you two are my family. We… my late wife and I couldn’t have children, and now… and twenty years too late, I have two wonderful daughters to care for.”

He smiled at Chrissy, but his mind was really on the whereabouts of Dido.
Just then, Trish wandered in with a big yawn.
“Did I miss anything last night?”

Her words diffused the anger of the moment.

On Monday morning, Dido was loitering without intent on Victoria Street about halfway between Victoria Station and Westminster. She had a hunch that one of the two people whom they’d presented to the previous Saturday evening was going to be in the area before mid-morning.

Her reasoning was that was where she’d witnessed the same assault as Assistant Commissioner Fiona Morgan. Her evidence at the trial of that very assailant had indicated that she walked from Victoria Station, along Victoria Street and past the ‘New Horticultural Hall’ on her way to her office inside New Scotland Yard every morning.

Dido walked up and down the street for well over an hour before conceding that the AC was not going to appear. She headed for St James’s Park Tube Station and disappeared into the underground network. A simple search told her that she’d been silly to think that an AC of the MET Police would walk to work. The assault that she’d witnessed had taken place before her latest promotion. Now, she would have a car and driver for official business.

Now that ‘Plan A’ had fallen through, Dido headed for Brick Lane. This once den of iniquity was now a gentrified tourist hot spot, but it still had many links to the criminal world once you got off the main tourist route from Bethnal Green Tube to Spitalfields and then to Liverpool St Station. Her destination was closer to Hoxton than Brick Lane, but Dido was in no hurry. The person she was looking for was never an early riser unless the police came knocking on his door at zero-dark-something ungodly.

It was almost midday when Dido rang the bell to the penthouse flat where her long-time friend lived.

“Hello?” came a distinctly sleepy voice over the intercom.

“Ricky, it’s Blondie,” she said, using her old ‘street’ name.

The door clicked open without even a second of hesitation. Dido went inside and made sure that the door was closed and locked behind her.

Ricky Marlow and Dido had crossed paths when she was living on the street. She had been begging on Brick Lane for over a week and had noticed that someone was following him whenever he ventured out. It was very subtle, but there was a tail. Brick Lane had been a bit of a lost cause for a few days… well, it was early November, which is mostly a dead month in the tourist calendar. The Lord Mayor’s show at the start of the month had proved very profitable for Dido, so she decided to follow the followers.

After three days, she had a good idea of who was tailing Ricky. While it was never the same person all day, they all belonged to a South London Crime gang. Ricky was only slightly ‘bent’, but his main source of income was trading information. Dido guessed that the mob from south of the river wanted in on his information brokerage.

Blondie, as she was then known on the street, had introduced herself to him at a Café in Hoxton one Sunday morning. At first, Ricky had been suspicious of her, but a few photos of him with an obvious tail soon persuaded him to give her the time of day.

She wanted information that was not generally available to the public, and Ricky was the ‘go to’ guy for it, but he would not deal with any ‘Tom, Dick or Harriet’. You had to win his trust first. Over the next two months, she did just that, and eventually, Ricky gave her the information she wanted.

“I heard you were going straight. If so, why are you risking being seen coming here?”

“Nice to see you too, Ricky…” remarked Dido.

Ricky smiled.
“Sorry, Blondie, it is still a bit early for me.”
He looked at the clock.
“And I’m due at Murray’s Pie and Mash shop in half an hour.”

Dido wasn’t sure if he was trying to pull a fast one, but she let it slide.

“I need some info on AC Fiona Morgan. The more dirt, the better.”

The smile that was on Ricky’s face disappeared in a flash when he heard the name.
“No way, Blondie. She is strictly a no-go area.”

“I wasn’t asking you to get it yourself. I would not be that silly. No, I was kinda hoping that one of your international associates would do it, and then you are out of the loop and squeaky clean, if you get my meaning.”

Ricky thought for a moment.
“Ok, I know someone who might do it for a decent wedge. He’s into Bitcoin.”

Dido smiled.
“Sounds like the person I want. Payment on results after a 10% retainer?”

“That would do it. 10% would show that you are serious.”

“Good. I’ll let you get ready for your pie and mash. You have my dark web contact details?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Here is your finder’s fee,” said Dido.
She put down on the nearby table an envelope with more than 500 euros in it.
“Don’t let me down, or I’ll be back, ok?”

Ricky smiled.
“Have I ever let you down?”

“No, and if this person is as good as you say they are, then there will be another one of those at the end.”

Dido didn’t wait for Ricky to answer. Their business was done, and neither of them was into small talk.

While Dido was trying to find out why the AC had not done anything about their case, John Proudfoot had begun to call in a few more favours from people he had worked with while he was a serving Police Officer. None of them would speak openly, but he began to read between the lines, and it didn’t take long for him to discover that AC Fiona Morgan was not a person to be associated with. The image that formed in his mind was of someone who had changed once she’d reached Superintendent. After that, she was prepared to put a knife in the back of anyone who even threatened to get in her quest to become Commissioner.

The then Commissioner had put her in charge of rooting out corruption in the Metropolitan Police. She had become very vindictive and had developed a very forked tongue. Something had happened to her soon after that appointment. No one could put an exact reason as to why she’d changed as she had, but everyone was definite in the opinion that she was not to be trusted. It was reported that she and the head of AC-12, Terry March, were hardly speaking thanks to her demand that she be fully briefed on every case, no matter how trivial. To Terry and his team, that was a clear security risk. AC-12 relied upon their veil of secrecy to get a long way into their investigations before even those suspected of wrongdoing became aware of the interest in their affairs.

Anyone involved with Police Corruption immediately becomes a pariah with most of the rank-and-file cops, but she’d done something to alienate them. None of the people he contacted would say anything on the record that could come back to haunt them. That told him that there was something rotten going on in and around her office.

Dido hated working on the ‘Dark Web’, so she relied on people like Ricky to do it for her. That was how she found out the online identity of the person who had held her prisoner and made her perform all sorts of unmentionable sex acts. He, as in Professor Fox or his son Marcus, was active on the same ‘Dark Web’. He used the alias ‘BrerRabbit’. That bit of information came to her after less than a day into a search that she’d started via Ricky. It was hard for her to resist going online and searching for the alias, but she was paying good money for the services of a group of people who inhabited the ‘Dark Web’ daily. She had learned to trust them not to come up with fake information; even so, she would check every detail before sharing it with anyone.

After two days of dithering, Dido used an alias to create an account on the service used by Fox on the ‘Dark Web’. She was able to do it easily, thanks to her Bitcoin account. Once on the service, she paid for access to the ‘BrerRabbit’ photo library. Despite being prepared, Dido was shocked by the images she saw. For 0.02 of a Bitcoin, she was able to purchase access to a high-resolution picture of herself being bum fucked by a huge man. She remembered the man vividly, thanks to his terrible breath. She saved all the details in an encrypted file. There, it would stay unless it was needed at the time of Fox’s trial. At the time, she didn’t know who the man was, but she’d stumbled upon an article about him in the online edition of the Financial Times. The man with the bad breath had been tipped to be the next chairman of the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, about the time the picture was taken, but had not got the job. The power that someone like that could wield could make or break countries. He’d have to be taken down after Fox had been found guilty.

She found one more photo that hurt Dido just looking at it. Nevertheless, she bought it for 0.23 of a Bitcoin. It would be held back and only used if absolutely necessary to take Fox down; it was that incriminating.

Once that was done, she sat back and thought about what she was doing. It was probably illegal to possess pornographic images of a child, even if that child was her. At that moment, she almost quit the operation, but her curiosity got the better of her once again.

Some of the other pictures that ‘Brer Rabbit’ had available were of two as yet unknown captors. They looked a lot younger than even the image of a young Dido. She felt even angrier when she saw the cost of those images. The price went as high as 0.5 Bitcoin. For a moment, Dido considered asking around for someone to hack the Bitcoin account of ‘BrerRabbit’, but decided to leave well alone for the time being. She got the hell out of Fox’s sordid place, but even then, she felt rather unclean. Her nemesis, Fox, was getting to her once more. One or both of the Fox’s was making at least several hundred thousand pounds a year selling child abuse porn. It sickened her for a while. After thinking about it some more, she reasoned that it was just the sort of thing that Marcus would do.

She documented everything that she had done, including her justification for the exercise. Then she saved it all in her private cloud after encoding it three times with a 256-bit cypher only known to her. The keys to decoding the file were saved inside a high pixel-density image of Tower Bridge using a steganographic technique.

After a couple of hours of thinking, she concluded that she needed to have enough Bitcoin or whatever digital currency was needed to fund the search for Fox and the people who supplied children for him to sodomise at will. She had some Bitcoin, but for this sort of work, it had to be done using a different identity.

When Dido saw the exchange rate for Bitcoin, she smiled. A quick calculation on her phone showed that she’d made a cool two hundred and sixty thousand dollars in Bitcoin so far. She transferred some of her holdings to a trusted intermediary and cashed in most of the rest. She’d already survived one crash in the bitcoin/dollar currency rate, and now was as good a time as any to take her profits and run. The money appeared in her Puerto Rican Bank account before the close of their working day. That account was her retirement nest egg, should everything go belly up with her life, such as it was.

The intermediary would hold the money for a 2.5% consideration and send it anonymously to whoever Dido directed him to. The consideration guaranteed his discretion.

Dido went through the motions at university for the next few days. Trish tried and failed to get her to start thinking rationally again. Even going out for a run along the Thames path as far as Abbey Wood failed to quash that irritation. It was only the smell of the mega-sized sewage works that turned her around.

In desperate need of something else to do, Dido went to see John and Chrissy. Trish, having done all her washing, tagged along in the hope of a nice ‘John Proudfoot’ Sunday lunch’.

Right away, she saw that John was just as unhappy as she was. Chrissy was the only bright spark in the place. That was because she’d received her Passport and new National Insurance card. From now on, she could work legally and not just for cash in hand.

To celebrate Chrissy’s newfound status, Dido took her shopping in Milton Keynes. It helped Dido forget about the rotten week that she’d had for a few hours at least.

The day ended with an encrypted text arriving just as she went to bed. Once she’d decoded the message, she went to bed in a much happier frame of mind.