AN INSPECTOR CALLS

weblogs, chatlogs and who-knows-what-else, Dawson had only one tiny scrap of evidence.

He stared at the fifty words on a sheet of A4. These included an account number, 75377983; the date the account was opened, 24/02/2006, along with the account balance, £4,022.81. But there was also a name on it: Mr A A John; an email address: STPAULS@LEGEND. CO.UK; a physical address: 63 St Paul's Road, Manningham, Bradford; a corporate sign-on ID and, crucially, a corporate sign-on password: 252931.

If he could just confirm the account holder's identity, and if that man were to state that he had never knowingly divulged his password, then Dawson would probably be able to persuade the judge to send the accused for trial and refuse bail. And that might just buy enough time for the Detective Sergeant to comprehend exactly what he was dealing with.

When Dawson had tried to contact Mr A.A. John he had learned that he was a minister of the Church of England who was taking a group of underprivileged children on holiday around India. He was also told that he would not be contactable until his return from Delhi. The Reverend was scheduled to arrive a few hours before the suspect had to be released. If he failed to come through, then the quicksand of this case would swallow up the ocean of data upon which Dawson had stumbled. Along with the data, the suspect would doubtless fade back into the anonymity of his virtual alter ego.

It was Dawson's misfortune that the Reverend John was sufficiently unsettled by the telephone conversation with his wife that he resolved to deal with the matter only once he had arrived in his parish, Manningham. Indeed, he had turned off his mobile phone and concentrated instead on his long drive from the airport.

So why was he so upset?

Short and compact, the Reverend John was by temperament a jovial man. Born on the edge of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan, his slightly hexagonal face was usually all sunshine, radiating from behind his professorial glasses. He was born into the minority-faith community of India's Christians and joined the priesthood to work for the Anglican Church of India in Delhi for fifteen years.

But in 1996 he was approached by the Church of the Province of South Africa to take charge of a parish in the Indian township of