The door was still closed. No one had come in since breakfast. At first it was a welcome relief from the annoyance of yesterday’s continual questioning. Then it began to get tedious and, after a couple of hours, worrying. They’d said they could hold Corby for twenty four hours on police authorisation and after that it would need a magistrate. Twenty four hours would have passed this morning so presumably they’d applied for the extension.
It must have been nearly lunch time before they came for him. It was a different interview room, this time, with a window looking out over the docks. And yes, they had the extension.
“Good afternoon, Doctor Corby. I hope you had a comfortable night.” It was the Detective Sergeant with the moustache. Jackson? Jackman? What had he said his name was? Sarcastic swine.
“Are you going to charge me with something, Sergeant?” Corby asked.
“All we want at the moment is information, Doctor Corby.”
“Am I being charged with something?” Jackman was playing the same game as yesterday. Simply ignoring anything he didn’t want to hear.
“Your lawyer will be with you in a minute.”
“Am I being charged with something, Sergeant?”
“All we’re asking for is a reasonable explanation for your behaviour, Doctor Corby. If you persist in not talking to us, a court could interpret that as concealing something. I’m going to bring Mr Shaikh in now, and I’m sure that he will be able to explain what we need from you.” Still the same story.
A few minutes and then Amir Shaikh was shown into the room, his suit rumpled and his breath smelling of peppermints.
“Are you well, Doctor Corby? You seem to have upset the Detectives.”
“Not as much as they’ve upset me. And it’s taken you long enough to get here. They arrested me yesterday morning.”
“This isn’t America, Doctor Corby. In the UK, the police can delay your meeting with a lawyer if you’ve been arrested for a serious crime and they think that contact with your solicitor could interfere with the case. I gather that you haven’t been willing to talk to them.”
“So now you’re here, what do we do?”
“They say that they confiscated some computers from your flat. Their experts say the data’s encrypted and you won’t give them the code to examine it. Only you can say whether that’s a question you want to answer but they’re interpreting your reluctance to share it very negatively.”
“Shows how ignorant their ‘experts’ are. It’s the knowledge base – well, part of the knowledge base – for a neural network. It isn’t encrypted but the information isn’t coded like a normal file. It holds relationships and they only have meaning in the context of the stimuli that created them. I can’t decode it any more than them. But even if I could help – there’s no way I’d do it.”
“It’d be a lot easier if you would tell them that – the first part about it not being encrypted. They may or may not believe you but at least you’d show willing.”
“I’m within my rights to say nothing. All they can do is either charge me or release me. I’m a law abiding person. They’ve no right to ask me for information. Private information.”
“I’ll tell them. But they won’t be happy.”
Shaikh knocked on the door and was let out, returning after five minutes with Jackman and his assistant.
“I gather you’re determined to be unhelpful, Steven,” the policeman began. “As I said before, we can’t make you talk to us but you’re making it more difficult for everybody. A court is likely to place the worst interpretation on the fact you won’t help us access what’s on your computers. You’d be helping everyone – and specially yourself – if you told us how to access the data.”
“Are you charging me, Sergeant? I’m asking a simple question and I’d like an answer, please.” What a prat! Does he think that using my first name will fool me into being matey? Or is he trying to pretend he’s the headmaster and I’m a schoolboy? Either way, at least one would hope a court would understand why the data’s meaningless.
“OK, Steven. If you don’t want to talk about your computers, let’s go back to where you were between April and July 2010. We know that you went to Libya. Who did you see there?”
“I’ve asked you several times whether I’m being charged. Please answer my question. If not, I would like to go home now.” This was just a repetition of yesterday’s fiasco. Completely pointless.
And so it went on. Until, after perhaps an hour, Jackman changed tack. “You think we’re stupid and you can pretend there’s no encryption on your computers and we’ll give up? You can just wait here and things will blow over? It doesn’t work like that. We both know you’ve been up to something and I’m going to prove it, however long it takes.”
“I’ve never said I think you’re stupid.”
“No, Doctor Corby. You never said it. But now you can rot in a cell while we find the proof. You’ve had your chance. And you’ve blown it.” He walked towards the door, gesturing to his colleague to follow him.
“I’m afraid you’ve made an enemy there, Doctor Corby,” Shaikh said. “He’s determined to find something.”
“Let him try. There’s nothing for him to find.”
“The worry is, if he doesn’t find anything, he may try to make something.”
“I have faith. This is England and he’s talking about the English courts. He’s all talk. The worst I stand accused of is saving a file on a university computer. And of striking Fielding, of course. There is no more than that and when you compare that with what’s happened to me – my computers stolen, my research sabotaged, my job lost – then any court in the country will find for me. The police haven’t got a thing to go on.”
“All the same, my friend, be careful. Be very careful. You’re never so vulnerable as when you’re in the right.”
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