An Inspector Calls

capital of the world’, acting as a mighty engine of Britain’s Industrial Revolution.

By the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, Manningham had been in a state of decay for many years. Employment and prosperity, once flourishing, had moved away long before. Drug abuse, domestic violence, property crime and prostitution had taken their place. The Reverend John cared for more people in his drop-in centre, all trying to escape the traps of poverty and criminality, than attended his church on Sundays.

With the ever-present threat that latent violence could break through the surface, the Reverend John’s work was on the front line of Britain’s class, cultural and social wars. Not easily scared, he maintained a readiness to chuckle in most circumstances. Given the challenges of his daily work, he wondered why the news of his compromised bank account unsettled him to such a degree. Above all, he wanted to talk to his sons, who understood about computer things. And then he decided that he needed to talk to the police quickly, to find out exactly what was going on. ‘Above all,’ he resolved, ‘I want this thing to be sorted out and put to bed as soon as possible.’

The Reverend’s nervous reaction is not uncommon. The psychological response on learning that one has become a victim of cybercrime is similar to that experienced on being burgled. Even though the act is confined to cyberspace, a world of accumulated tiny electronic impulses, it still feels like a physical violation. For if one’s bank account has been hacked into, what else might the thieves have discovered in the privacy of your computer?

Have they, perhaps, stolen your passport details, which some criminal or intelligence agent is now using as a fake travel document? Could they even, as you read this, be examining your emails, with confidential information about a colleague or employee? Might they have stumbled across some dangerously flirtatious emails or other indiscretion that you wrote or received? Is there any part of your life they could not explore, with access to your computer?

Now quite determined, the Reverend John called the police officer in the neighbouring county of Lincolnshire as soon as he arrived at the pleasant little cottage next to the imposing spire of his church in Manningham.

That this case should fall into the lap of Chris Dawson, a