Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
Friday
ROMAN
Roman leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. The name is burned there on the inside of his eyelids: Oliver Sharpe.
A man who shouldn’t exist.
The thrill of the find zips through Roman like static. He can’t keep this to himself. He just can’t.
He grabs his phone and thumbs out a message.
Found something mental. You won’t believe it.
Three dots appear almost immediately, so Sanj must be onlin . . . no surprise there.
You worked out Elon Musk’s Starlink password?
Roman grins, and replies.
Better. Our neighbour’s been living under a dead man’s name.
OK . . . you been drinking, ha ha?? Come round.
Five minutes later he’s biking up the lane, hoodie up despite the sunshine, MacBook jammed into his backpack.
At Sanj’s house, his friend opens the front door, frowning. ‘My mum’s at work. She makes me swear I’ll keep the door locked, like I’m ten or something. Come up.’
Roman follows him upstairs, pulse hammering. Sanj flops into his gaming chair. Roman drags the office chair alongside and flips his laptop open.
‘Show us then,’ Sanj says. ‘This dead bloke you’re living next to.’
Roman pulls up the record and taps the relevant lines. ‘Look. Five years ago he changes his surname to Sutton—same year the real Oliver Sutton dies. Then, one year ago, he changes it again, to Sharpe. Emily, too.’
Sanj leans in, eyes widening as Roman lays it out for him: the probate entry, the obituary photo, the matching birth date.
‘Mate,’ Sanj breathes. ‘That’s . . . that’s insane.’
Roman can feel his face lighting up. ‘Told you. I knew he was the sort of loser to keep secrets.’
Sanj nods slowly. ‘Yeah. And I knew you wouldn’t stop until you found them. How would he get all the documentation he needs, though? Driving licence, passport . . . that kind of thing?’
Roman shrugs. ‘Dark Web? Specialist contact? Ordinary people wouldn’t know where to look, but if you’re into shady games already, there are experts who provide this stuff. For a price.’
Sanj sits back, staring. ‘So five years ago, they basically built themselves a new library of documentation to live under the new name.’
‘Exactly,’ Roman agrees. ‘And then they shed it again a year ago. Like they’d finished with it and fancied a new start.’
He swivels the screen so Sanj can read.
‘Emily’s name changes have both been done by deed poll,’ Roman says. ‘Neat and straightforward. Which means she didn’t need to steal anyone’s ID. She just changed it legally.’
Sanj looks from Emily’s record back to Oliver’s, the point landing.
‘So why does Emily get the simple version,’ Roman murmurs, ‘while Oliver goes to all that trouble first? Taking a dead man’s name. Keeping it long enough to build a paper trail. Then swapping again right before they land on Orchard Lane.’
Sanj’s voice drops. ‘Because Oliver’s the one who needs the extra layers to pass scrutiny . . . have to go looking for dodgy contacts on the Dark Web or whatever he’s done.’
Roman nods, the question sparking hotter every second.
‘What the hell has Oliver Sharpe done that’s so bad?’
He opens another tab and pulls up what he found next.
A set of email logs flashes up. Not the emails themselves, just the account activity and subject lines that hadn’t fully cleared.
Sanj leans closer. ‘Insider trading, maybe? Blackmail? Dodgy deals? The possibilities go on.’
His eyes flick to the window. ‘And our mystery contact is interested in Orchard Lane. Maybe we drop a hint we’ve got something on one of your neighbours. Something big to tempt him in.’
Roman likes the sound of that. It might bring recognition. Reward. Real players like GRN_DoR taking them seriously.
Sanj squeezes a stress ball. ‘It’s not easy, living under a false identity.’
‘Agreed. So there’s a reason for it,’ Roman says. ‘A big one. Assuming a dead guy’s identity is pretty hardcore, right? I’m asking myself what happened five years ago that he had to do that. There must be a good reason he keeps it up.’ He frowns.
‘He could have some really bad shit hidden away,’ Sanj murmurs.
‘I’m counting on it, mate.’ Roman cracks his knuckles and taps his keyboard again. ‘Hold up.’ He clicks into another folder. ‘Look at this.’
A draft document opens—an invoice template with Vanessa Lambert’s full name partly typed into the header. Below it: ‘Deposit—property completion—urgent.’
Sanj’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘He’s taking money off that rich widow?’
‘Looks like he’s intending to,’ Roman mutters.
Sanj whistles. ‘Tut tut. That’s big-boy crime.’
‘This is serious stuff,’ Roman agrees. ‘Stuff that could finish him.’
Sanj counts off his fingers. ‘So we’ve got emails, then documents. And what about Emily? I wonder if she knows her husband is a dead man walking. She must know he changed his name illegally each time.’
Roman pauses, picturing her. Those stunning blue eyes that take everything in. His scalp tingles. ‘She might be. But better to keep it tight and focused on him, I reckon. If we go too wide, we could start to trip alarms.’
Sanj smirks. ‘Listen to you, Mr Sensible. Nah, you’re right. We stick to Oliver for now, and if we hit a dead end, we’ll circle back.’
Roman clicks open a thumbnail image. It’s blurry, but readable: 150,000 required, and beneath it time critical—48 hours.
The big monitor pings and a message bubble pops up at the bottom-left corner of the screen. GRN_DoR has sent you a message.
Both boys freeze. Roman clicks and reveals a short, sharp message.
Got a job for you.
Sanj looks at Roman and winks. ‘Watch this. We’ll play hard to get.’
He types a quick reply.
Sounds great, but we’ve already got another big job on for next couple days.
Almost instantly:
What job?
Sanj chuckles, fingers hovering above the keyboard. ‘Eager, isn’t he?’
Confidential, obviously. Client won’t be happy if we start blabbing.
A longer pause. They both stare expectantly at the screen, the blinking cursor.
‘You’ve gone and pissed him off now.’ Roman scowls.
‘Oh yeah?’ Sanj claps his hands and points to the monitor.
Fair enough. But maybe we could play the trading game.
You tell me a little, I pay a little. That’s how the game works.
‘He’s gonna pay us?’ Roman’s pulse hammers. He wants to shout, to spill what he’s found, but Sanj holds up a hand. ‘Patience, mate. Let’s keep him keen.’
Sanj thinks for a moment and then types a response.
Roman discovered something about a neighbour on Orchard Lane. Shocking stuff.
We’re digging deeper before we can say more.
Roman’s stomach drops. He wheels round to Sanj.
‘Mate . . .’ He jabs a finger at the screen. ‘You just blew my cover.’
Sanj blinks, then swears under his breath. ‘Oh, shit. I didn’t even think—’
‘You never use my name,’ Roman hisses. ‘Never.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Sanj says quickly, sitting forward. ‘I was just trying to sound . . . legit. Like we’re serious.’
Roman stares at the message, the buzz in his veins turning sharp and cold.
Because it means one thing.
He’s not anonymous to GN_DoR any more.
The reply arrives so fast it makes Roman’s head whirl.
I’ll make it worth your while.
Roman and Sanj look at each other. The room feels stuffy, too warm.
‘Ask him how much,’ Roman says.
But Sanj keeps his cool.
Can’t divulge. Need to protect our sources. You get it.
There’s a longer pause this time. Then the words drop like stones.
Here’s the job: Info needed. Link below.
Silence. Sanj clicks on the link to a Yorkshire Post article with the headline:
Woman Survives Horror Cliff Plunge
Roman feels the blood rush to his ears. He reads the line twice, three times.
They stare at each other for a moment, then Sanj slaps Roman’s hand in a triumphant high-five.
‘This is very good news, mate. Something solid to get our teeth into.’
‘We’ve made it!’ Roman says. His face feels hot, but in a good way. ‘This is it. Real money. Real jobs. We are in.’
Roman can’t stop grinning, can’t stop picturing the balance in his bank account climbing into numbers he’s never seen. But beneath the buzz, beneath the flood of adrenaline, something darker stirs.
But Sanj had mentioned Roman’s name in the messages, and Orchard Lane, which makes him feel cautious and uncomfortable.
A line has just been crossed, and he knows it. They’re getting in deeper.
He looks again at the message from GRN_DoR, still glowing on the screen, impersonal and slick. There is no profile attached and no activity history he can verify.
It’s the confidence and the money that bother him most. People who dangle cash like this are either scammers or very sure of themselves, and with GRN_DoR it very much feels like the latter.
Roman scrolls back and rereads the phrasing. The way GRN_DoR never quite answers questions directly. The way he always seems to know which ones matter the most.
Who is he? And how much does he already know?
Roman thinks of Sanj, typing too fast and too casually, letting his name slip like it’s nothing. It won’t feel like nothing if someone decides to pull on that thread. Names lead to addresses, and addresses lead to patterns. Sanj is usually more careful than that.
If this is a test, or a trap—then Sanj’s mistake may already have put a target on Roman’s back.
A lucrative payday, yes. But at what cost?
Roman closes the laptop, heart ticking a little faster than he’d like.
It’s too late to pretend this is just a game now.