by Jack Slater
‘You saw no one else out here, before or after?’
Pearson shook his head.
‘Walking or driving?’ Pete insisted.
‘No one, Sergeant.’
‘OK. We’ll let you get back to your work then, Mr Pearson. I’ll come in with you, see if your CCTV can be helpful again.’
*
Dave and Jane looked at each other in silence.
The school nurse, sitting across the room from them, recrossed her legs. Dave looked over. ‘We’ve done with the interviews for now, Nurse. I think you can probably get back to your usual jobs.’
‘Very well.’ She stood up.
‘Thank you,’ Jane said as she left the room.
Quiet settled over them again. They were both shocked by what they’d learned in the last hour or so, both processing it in their own ways. Then Jane’s green eyes snapped into focus. ‘Fisher. Did he really get the pictures from her dad?’
‘We can’t ask him. Not at this stage.’
‘No, but… ultimately, there are only two possible sources and I think we can discount Becky herself.’
‘Yeah, but did they come directly or indirectly?’ He paused, eyes lighting up with inspiration. ‘We’ve got the means to eliminate or confirm the first option.’ He pulled out his phone again and dialled quickly.
‘Ben,’ he said when it was picked up. ‘Have you got the records from Neil Sanderson’s phone and computer handy?’
‘Yes, they’re on my PC. Why?’
‘Could you have a scan through them? See if you can find any contact with a Sam Fisher. He’s a games master here.’
‘OK. I’ll call you back.’
‘I really hope he finds something before the vans get here,’ Jane said as he put his phone away again.
*
‘Detective Sergeant.’ The big, grey-haired man held out a meaty hand. ‘Good to see you again.’
‘You too,’ Pete said as they shook. ‘Seems I need your help again. One of the partners here, Mr Pearson, found a body down the street.’
‘I heard.’ He shook his head. ‘Hell of a thing.’
‘Yes, so…’
‘Come on through. We’ll have a look, see if the cameras picked anything up.’
‘Thanks.’
Franklin led the way across the wood-panelled reception and through a door. ‘Start about forty-five minutes ago?’ he suggested as he headed down the corridor.
It was now about twenty-five since the 999 call had been made. ‘Yes, that should cover it.’
‘If not, we can go back a bit further.’
He opened a door on the right and stepped in, switching on a light. Pete followed. The room was small – little more than a cupboard really – with a desk, single chair, computer and three hard drives whirring quietly on a shelf. ‘Sorry. I’ll get another chair.’
‘Don’t worry. I spend enough time sitting down. It won’t hurt to stand up for a while.’
‘Are you sure?’
Pete nodded.
‘OK. We’ll get started then.’ He powered up the computer, then brought up a program that gave him a split screen, all three feeds appearing to be live in windows that, between them, filled three quarters of the screen.
‘Right.’ He tapped in a time and hit Return. The pictures jumped. ‘We can pause at any point or fill the screen with any one of the pictures for a better view.’
‘Great.’
The videos began to run in real time. Nothing happened for a few seconds.
‘Hang on,’ said Franklin and hit a key. The times in the bottom left of each window sped up. ‘That’s better.’
Still nothing happened on any of the cameras for a while. One of them was showing a neatly maintained garden at the back of the building with three tables surrounded by chairs on a stone patio. Another was showing an inside view. Pete recognised the corridor they had walked down. The third image was looking out from the front door of the building. Cars were parked across the mid-ground, the narrow park across the road showing in the top of the image. This was the one Pete was concentrating on.
A car sped past, right to left. He couldn’t tell make and model at that speed, but it was dark-blue. The taxi out there was white. Another car followed it, larger and black. A figure stepped up to the door and entered. Male. Older and balding. As he went from sight, Pete caught the flash of a passing vehicle behind him, pale in the sunshine. ‘There. Was that the taxi?’
Franklin hit a key and the images froze. He hit another and they began to creep backwards. A white car reversed into view, frame by frame. The right shape. It edged further backwards until they could see the whole of its roof. No taxi sign. Pete slumped. ‘No. OK.’
Franklin hit another key. The car vanished once more, the time ticked forward until a dark car passed. It looked like a black Audi to Pete. Then another pale one. This time, Pete was sure. ‘There. That’s him.’
The big man ran the footage back, filled the screen with the single image and let it play in real time. The white taxi rolled past, going slowly. Pete was sure he could see a figure in the back, behind the driver, but the camera angle gave him only their lap and the torso up to a couple of inches above the side window on the far side of the car and that was in shadow. ‘Stop there,’ he said, leaning down beside Franklin to peer at the screen. The image froze with the driver half out of the frame. Staring hard at the figure in the back, all Pete could say for sure was that they seemed to be slim and female and there was a hint of redness about whatever they were wearing.
He stood up and made a note of the time from the image. ‘OK. Carry on.’
The picture moved on, the car going out of view. Franklin sped it up to four times natural speed. They waited to see what would happen next. Seconds passed. Another car went past, this one a pale-green saloon. The time readout in the corner of the screen advanced steadily. One minute. Two. Three.
A woman stepped out of the building, closing the door behind her and turning away to the right. ‘That’s Jacqui,’ Franklin said. ‘One of the secretaries.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Another minute passed. And another. The time readout was quickly approaching the point when… ‘There’s Nate.’
The grey Aston Martin flashed past near the top of the screen.
‘And no sign of our killer,’ Pete said. ‘She must have gone the other way.’
‘Looks that way.’ Franklin hit the Pause button.
‘Can you burn me a disc, though? I don’t know how useful it’ll be, but best to be safe.’
‘Yes, no problem.’
‘Thanks.’
Pete waited while it was done then took it with him as he left the building. By then, forensics had set up along the road and the coroner was in attendance. He walked along the pavement. As he approached, Doc Chambers stood back from the car and waved two white-overalled assistants in with a gurney.
‘Hello, Doc. What can you tell me?’ asked Pete.
‘Good afternoon, Peter. Looks like the same perpetrator as the other two. The same single slash across the throat from behind. Same pepper spray. This time, the car wasn’t locked, unlike the first one, so your suspect would have been able to simply step out of the back and walk away, probably without a mark on them.’
Pete sighed. ‘And the victim?’
The driver of the taxi. ID still in the car. Hardeep Randrashan. Thirty-nine years old, resident of the Exton area. Cause of death was the cut to the throat. No signs of other injuries, defensive or otherwise.’
‘So, another apparently preplanned and targeted attack with the victim given no chance to defend himself.’
Chambers nodded, his bristle-cut grey hair glittering in the sunshine. ‘That’s about the size of it.’
‘Cheers, Doc.’ Pete turned to the forensics team. ‘Have you found anything useful, guys?’
The team leader – for once not the tall and portly Harold Pointer, but a slimmer, older man with a goatee beard – turned to face him. ‘Possibly
. We’ll have to wait and see.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘There were a few hairs. A palm print on the roof above the back door on the driver’s side, a bit of red thread that appears to be dyed rather than bloodstained. No fingerprints in the back of the car or on the outer door handle, which I would say is highly unusual at this time of day for a taxi. Whether any of it’s relevant or not, though, remains to be seen.’
‘The lack of fingerprints certainly is,’ Pete judged. ‘Not that it’s helpful. This is the third victim in a few days, so I’d appreciate it if you could put a rush on the results. We’re going to have chaos on the roads round here if we don’t put a stop to it soon.’
‘We’ll check the red thread and the palm print as soon as we get back and let you know any results ASAP.’
‘Thanks.’ Pete extended a hand. ‘DS Pete Gayle.’
‘Yes, I gathered.’ The man shook his hand. ‘Terry Thatcher.’
‘Pleased to meet you. What’s happened to Harry?’
‘Couldn’t stand the pace.’ Thatcher smiled. ‘Said you work him too hard. Took a few days off.’
‘I must remember to take the piss when I see him again,’ Pete said, returning the smile before walking away along the road in the direction the suspect must have taken when leaving the scene. The wall on his left enclosed a large, mature garden with trees and large shrubs that overhung it in places. Not far around the bend, the suspect would have had to turn left up Melbourne Place to get out onto Holloway Street. She could have gone either way from there. Left towards Western Way or right, out towards Topsham. But was she on foot or in a car? He stood on the corner, pondering the problem. She could have driven here, walked to the main road and caught a bus somewhere, then got the taxi to bring her back. Or she could have done it the other way around – parked somewhere else, got the taxi to bring her here, then caught a bus back to her car. Assuming, of course, that she didn’t live within walking distance of where he was standing.
One thing he did know: there were no CCTV cameras around here, run by either the city council or the police. The nearest would be on Holloway Street or further, so they would be no help at all. All he could say for sure at this point was that she had walked in this direction from the point of attack and he thought she might, possibly, maybe, be wearing a red dress, with or without a jacket over it. He took out his phone. Dialled the squad room.
‘Ben,’ he said when it was picked up. ‘Can you do something for me?’
‘What’s that, boss?’
‘Check for CCTV cameras on Holloway Street and, if there are any, look for a woman in a red dress, possibly with a jacket over it, coming from the direction of Melbourne Place within the last forty-five minutes. And if there’s nothing, go back a couple of hours from there.’
*
After an emotional trip across the river to inform the latest victim’s wife of his death, Pete returned to the station intending to go through the footage he’d obtained from the solicitors’ office – until he stepped in through the back door and found the custody suite full of boys in school uniform, being herded by Jane and Dave.
‘What the hell’s going on here?’ he demanded.
‘Hello, boss,’ Dave greeted him. ‘Blitzkrieg. We’ve established the facts, so we’re booking the whole damn lot of them. A bit like the old shoot ‘em all and ask questions later plan. Except we’re not allowed to shoot ‘em, sadly.’
‘How many have you got here? It looks like half a class.’
‘All nine. We’ve also established the source of the images that you so inconsiderately deprived them of by arresting Neil Sanderson. We’ve got a bit more work to do before we can make that arrest, though. Ben’s working on proving the link.’
‘He didn’t say anything when I spoke to him a little while ago.’
‘Ah.’ Dave tapped the side of his nose and winked. ‘Sworn to secrecy, see. Don’t want to go off half-cocked, do we?’
Pete looked around him. ‘What’s this then?’
‘Shotgun tactics.’
Pete grunted. ‘As long as it hits them all equally.’
‘Equally and permanently: that’s the plan.’
‘Right. I’ll go see what Ben’s up to then.’ He continued along the corridor and up the stairs to the squad room. Dropping into his chair, he looked around at the other three members of his team. ‘So, what have you got to tell me, any of you?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
‘There’s been no red dresses or skirts on Holloway Street in the past three hours, boss.’
‘I wanted good news, Ben, not bad.’
‘Did you see Dave and Jane on your way in?’ Dick asked.
‘Yes. With half a classful of young boys from Risingbrook.’
‘Well, we’ve got some bad news for them too. There’s no direct link from Sanderson’s phone or computer to any device registered to Sam Fisher.’
‘Sam Fisher, the games master?’
Dick nodded.
‘Why would there be?’
‘Supposedly, they’re mates. And that’s where Dave and Jane were told the lads got the pictures of Becky from. Borrowed his phone one day and uploaded his photo files. Just as a lark, at the outset. But then they saw what they’d got and… Well, you can imagine. Teenage boys.’ He shrugged.
‘So, Fisher had pictures of Becky taken by Sanderson on his phone, but they weren’t sent to him by Sanderson.’
‘Unless one of them’s got a pay-as-you-go stashed away somewhere.’
‘Which you kinda would, if you were sending stuff like that back and forth, I’d have thought,’ said Ben.
They all looked at him.
He began to look as if he was going to blush, but then he pushed it back. ‘Well, you would, wouldn’t you? I mean, you wouldn’t use a device that you carry around all the time and could get caught with. Not if you’ve got an ounce of brains anyway.’
‘Fisher did,’ Jill said.
‘Well, yeah, OK. But he is a games master.’
‘So, are we saying we think Sanderson’s got another phone stashed away somewhere?’
‘Either that or one of them uses a coffee-shop Wi-Fi or the local library or something.’
‘Which is entirely possible,’ Jill pointed out.
‘Yeah. Unfortunately,’ Pete agreed. ‘Can we track their movements at all?’
‘Depends,’ said Ben. ‘If they’re carrying GPS-enabled smartphones or laptops, then yes. There’s a log kept of the locations devices like that go to, whether they’re used or not. I’m not sure how long the data’s kept for. I dare say it varies. But we could be lucky. Especially with phones. As long as we’ve got the number, we can find the provider and get the tracking data from there.’
‘But with a pay-as-you-go, we wouldn’t have the number. That’s the point, isn’t it?’ asked Dick.
‘Yes, but as long as they’ve got their normal phone with them as well, we can track that. Then any contact can be traced to a location they’re at, at the time. I’m assuming we’re looking at more than one relevant contact?’
‘Best ask Dave or Jane,’ Pete suggested, switching on his computer. ‘I don’t know if they’ll appreciate the interruption at the moment, though.’
‘So, what’s with the girl in the red dress?’ Dick asked. ‘There was a movie about that, wasn’t there?’
Pete took the disc in its plastic case from his jacket pocket and waved it in the air.
‘Where’d you get that?’
‘Same place I got the footage of Hardy and Parker with Alfie Bowens.’
‘Ah. Nice one,’ Dick nodded.
Pete logged in and slipped the disc into the drive. It whirred like a super-charged hoover for a moment, then went quiet as a media-player window popped up automatically on the screen, waiting for him to hit Play.
His eyebrows rose when he saw that Franklin had given him the whole afternoon’s footage from the front-door camera. That could be very useful. He enlarged the windo
w to fill the screen and hit Play as, two desks to his left, Ben said into his phone, ‘Jane? Quick question. Do you happen to know roughly how many times Sam Fisher downloaded those pictures onto his phone? Was it just the once, or was there regular contact, or what?’
Pete concentrated on his screen as Ben listened then said, ‘OK, thanks,’ and put the phone down. The silence lasted only a few seconds before Jill broke it.
‘So? What’s the answer?’
He glanced up. She was staring at Ben as if he should have told her without prompting.
‘The lads only know of a couple of times, so it wouldn’t be probative on its own. We’d need some supplemental evidence to make it stick. Some way of saying it was definitely him, not someone else who just happened to be there at the same time on those two occasions.’
‘Well, if the images are still there, wouldn’t they have data attached saying when they were downloaded?’ she asked.
‘The point is, we need to know at least some of that in advance, to get a warrant to check the phone in the first place,’ Dick told her.
‘Aah.’ Jill shook her head in frustration. ‘And the boys’ testimony wouldn’t do it?’
Dick shrugged. ‘They’re under arrest themselves.’
‘Yeah, but they weren’t when they first said it, were they?’
Dick tipped his head.
‘Can’t hurt to try,’ Pete said. ‘Draw it up and see.’ Then, maybe, he could concentrate on the footage on his screen.
A car went past the front door of the solicitors’ office and he hit Pause, reversed the image slowly until he could see the driver.
Pete’s phone rang abruptly. Jesus! Can I just get a little bit of peace here? He picked it up. ‘Gayle.’
‘Peter.’ It was DCI Silverstone. ‘Would you mind coming through to my office?’
The calmness in his voice was ominous in itself, but Pete was too wrapped up in what he was trying to do to take any notice of that. ‘What, now, sir?’
‘If you don’t mind.’
The phone clicked dead, precluding any further discussion.
‘Fast-track,’ he told the others. ‘Don’t know what he wants, but he’s a bloody nuisance while I’m trying to go through this stuff.’ He left the image on his screen as he got up and headed for the door. He wouldn’t be long, he hoped.