10.04: Soccer Kit Searchers

Noah arrived in the briefing room a little after Jamie had been called away, he had another op to concentrate on.
They already had a list of eighteen companies that produced the majority of the north-east’s printed team kits. By the time they'd finished, Shakeel who had been bribed by Emma to give up his saturday to join in the research, had divided the list so they each had a small number of companies to call up.
The team of four used the six desks in the communications centre to make their calls. They each started by calling the phone number on the company's website. Noah's first call was to a company called Kitmeister US (East). After listening to an open Monday to Friday recorded
message, he started looking up the names of company directors. Then he accessed mobile phone network databases and got the number for half a dozen mobile phones whose bills were paid by Kitmeister.
Sophie was feeling downhearted when Emma approached.
“Think of it like cracking nuts,” she said. “Deal with the easy ones first, and return to the tough buggers if you need to later.”
Sophie smiled and called the next one.
It was Shakeel who made the first breakthrough. He waited for everyone to finish the call they were making before explaining his scribbled notes.
“I called Matthews & Son,” Shakeel explained. “It took about six attempts to explain what I was asking for, but the receptionist put me through to this old-timer. He sounded doddery, but he's been in the kit business for a millennium and he definitely knew his stuff.
“He says that basic kits without logos are produced by several different manufacturers, and then customised with sponsors' logos and player numbers by companies like his. He reckons that none of the big name manufacturers currently make an orange and maroon hooped sock. The only one that does is a Taiwanese kit producer called SoccaAce.
“He says he wouldn't sell SoccaAce because their stuff is cheap for a good reason. He also said that there are only two companies in the north east he knows who do print on SoccaAce kits. One is called Oberon Sports, the other is Kitmeister. He's really got it in for Kitmeister. Apparently they're the biggest company in the market, but their quality is poor and their customer service is shit.”
“Language.”
“Sorry Ms Frost.”
“But good work Shak,” Emma said, as she cracked a big smile.
An hour later they had a very helpful mail from a woman at Oberon detailing that they had made twenty-eight sets of kit with maroon and orange hooped socks since 2015. Three
football and two rugby clubs, and had been nice enough to supply all the customer addresses and zip-codes.”
Noah called up Google Maps on one of the big screen and he, Sophie and Shakeel started checking how many of the addresses were within an hour's drive of where Hisako escaped. Shakeel felt dejected as they were all far too far away.
“It has to be that Kitmeister place,” Sophie said.
Noah agreed. He called them. Emma saw him put the phone down, sit back and stretch his lanky frame.
“How are you getting on Noah?”
Noah huffed with frustration. ‘I spoke to Kitmeister's managing director, but he's at his cottage on the Long Island for the weekend and can't get into the office until Monday, because only the building manager has the code for the alarm. To make matters worse, he says he'll have to talk to his lawyers before giving any information to any one.’
Emma tutted. "Sounds like he's being awkward for the sake of it.'
Noah shook his head. 'Then he went into a rant about government harassment and the IRS
strangling small businesses like his with red tape. After he literally slammed the phone down on me. I looked up Kitmeister's IRS files. Apparently they're under investigation for non-payment of taxes.'
“That's gonna make it tough to get info,” Sophie said. “Any outside enquiry is going to be treated with suspicion.”
“If you want my opinion,” Shakeel said, “we should drive round to his house and threaten to nail his balls to a door.”
Emma laughed. “Somehow I can't see your testicle nailing scheme getting past Valerie.”
‘Leaving the psycho nailing fantasies aside,' Noah said, 'Kitmeister US's eastern headquarters is only about forty minutes drive from here back toward New York. Breaking in and having a little rummage through their filing cabinets and computer systems isn't completely out of the question.'
“Are you serious?” Shakeel said. He had been itching to get some field work under his belt.
‘I didn’t say you were going to do it.’
“Aww sh… ucks.”
‘What do you think?’ Noah asked Emma.
“Given the IRS are involved I can’t see us getting anything useful out of the company.”
“I already checked to see if we can do this on an external hack but there’s no way in.”
“Advanced firewalls are whatever they call them?” Emma asked.
“More likely everything is switched off ‘cos they don't work weekends.”
“Let me go and sweet talk Val. Noah get a group together.”
As she left she heard a determined barrage of ‘please please please please’ from Shakeel desperate to put his new found skills to the test. She had seen a glint in Sophie’s eyes too, a level-headed girl that one.