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by the predators out there, which in turn makes them even more vulnerable.’

‘It’s a chicken and egg thing,’ Coughlan said, eager to make up for his earlier outburst.

Bradshaw looked at him blankly.

‘You know, what came first – the vulnerability or the person making them vulnerable.’

‘Indeed,’ Bradshaw said. ‘But what does that have to do with a chicken?’

‘It’s a saying. What came first, the chicken or the egg? It’s an unanswerable question.’

‘The chicken came first, obviously,’ Bradshaw said. ‘The proteins found in eggshells can only be produced by hens.’

Laughter.

‘Really?’ Coughlan said. He turned to Nightingale. ‘I’ve changed my mind, ma’am, I’m glad she’s on our side.’

‘Sit down, Dave,’ Nightingale replied.

‘But … but why?’ someone at the back said. ‘What’s in it for the administrator?’

‘The only person convicted of administering a Blue Whale Challenge game is a Russian called Philipp Budeikin. He claimed he was cleansing society and that his victims were nothing more than biological waste.’

‘And do you believe that?’ Nightingale said.

‘I don’t. I’ve studied his profile and I think Philipp Budeikin was an intelligent young man who had failed to build any connections with anyone. He developed his methods and honed his manipulations until eventually he felt like God. He had the power of life and death over people. That’s why he did it. He was simply an evil man.’

‘Why have I not heard about this?’ the chief constable asked.

Poe stood.

‘Couple of reasons, ma’am.’ He held up a finger. ‘First, there haven’t been any Blue Whale attributable deaths in the UK.’ He held up a second finger. ‘And two, everyone did what we would have done: downplayed it to discourage copycats.’

‘So it might not even be real?’

Poe shrugged. ‘Opinions are divided.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think that when the Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that one hundred and thirty child suicides took place in a six-month period, almost all of them were in the same internet group and they were all from good families.’

‘Jesus … And that’s what we have, a sicker version of Blue Whale?’

Bradshaw changed the screen.

#BSC6

‘The Cowells certainly thought so,’ Bradshaw said. ‘I believe they were selected because of their intense sibling rivalry, which, to anyone who knows where to look for these things, is discoverable online. Robert Cowell says that after they were sent an invitation they ended up daring each other to play. Hashtag BSC1, the first Black Swan Challenge task, was to commit a low-level act of vandalism. Robert destroyed a tree in a local park and his sister went one better and slashed a police vehicle’s tyre.’

‘And that’s it? It escalated into murder?’ Nightingale said.

‘No, Detective Superintendent Nightingale,’ Bradshaw said. She changed the screen again. A chatroom exchange appeared.

‘This is where the Black Swan and Blue Whale Challenge differ. Whereas administrators in the Blue Whale Challenge manipulated their victims using the psychological techniques I mentioned earlier – induction, habituation and preparation – the administrator in the Black Swan Challenge simply used blackmail. This is a screenshot of an exchange Robert Cowell had with him. As you can see, when he logged on for the next task, he was told that malware had been inserted into his computer and that he had to keep playing or all his files and personal information would be made public. I’ve run a diagnostic check and, although there was no virus, Robert Cowell clearly believed there was.’

‘What was it he needed to stay secret?’

‘That’s just the thing, Detective Superintendent Nightingale: I couldn’t find anything on his computer that would make Robert Cowell susceptible to blackmail.’