Still smiling, she cast a glance across at Kyle.
He was smiling too, and already looking across at her.
“You look like the cat who’s got the cream!” she teased him.
“So do you!”
She hesitated, then stood up and walked across to him.
“I’ve got something, and I’m just about to extend the search and see if I can ratify my findings with extra data. But given that the clock’s ticking and someone’s life is on the line… ”
“You want to compare notes?” Kyle offered.
“Yep.”
Kyle didn’t hesitate.
“Pull up your chair and show me what you’ve got. I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours!” he added, flirtatiously.
Hannah reached across and picked up her notebook and then grabbed the back of her chair and pulled it over.
“What basis did you use for your Audirex searches?” she asked.
“The first petrol station. Then I took the location of the clump of trees where he kept changing the number plates and I also took the bottom of Bath Road in Edinburgh and the time when the detective said the suspect put a note on his car.”
Hannah nodded.
They were good choices.
“And what did you come up with? What numbers, and which identities?”
“I got one burner and another which I think is the SoI’s main phone, which he was carrying at the bottom of Bath Road.”
He pointed to his screen showing Hannah the name of the man who, according to a subscription to T-Mobile, owned the second phone which had come up at several of the locations Kyle had investigated.
Hannah took one look and did a fist-pump in the air.
“YESSSSS!” she exclaimed loudly. “Same guy! I’ve got him too. Neil McBeth. From just outside of North Berwick!”
Kyle took a quick look at her notes, and she explained her logic, and he confirmed it was all good.
He stood and hi-fived her, and they turned to go find Ray Luck.
There was no need.
He was standing right behind them, and they hadn’t even noticed.
“Good work.” Ray nodded, smiling. “But before we go absolutely crazy, I want you to do two more things. Kyle, take the number you’ve got for McBeth’s phone, and see if it’s the same one that we saw being called at the petrol station on the CCTV. Check the phone records from T-Mobile. If it’s the same phone that we saw being used at the same time we logged it on the CCTV, then see if you can get the telephone number of the person who called him. Then do a search on Audirex and see what we can learn about the person who called him. Perhaps we cold-call them and see if we can learn anything about McBeth without alerting or alarming him. Second, take the number for McBeth, go back a week in time on Audirex, and see what it can tell us about all the locations the phone was in that week. Try to build up a pattern of life for Neil McBeth. Can it tell us where he works? Where he hangs out in his spare time? And can it confirm that during the night, the phone is stationary at the same address that is recorded on his subscription contract?”
“Hannah? Take another three locations… Say, the flat in Leith where the first note was put on DCI McKenzie’s car, and Mark McRae’s house, and then perhaps also the place where the burnt-out white van was found. Run the number for Mcbeth through Audirex and see if the phone was ever recorded as being present at those addresses. Let’s just do a little more homework to try to confirm this is really the guy, and that we do know where he lives, before we send the cavalry in and try to find Mrs McKenzie. Agreed?”
They both nodded.
And jumped to it.
-------------------------
Incident Room
Operation Blue Building
13.10
The atmosphere in the Incident Room was buzzing.
After days of continuously being on the back-foot, now at last, progress was being made. And rapidly.
After Lynch had told McKenzie about a possible connection finally being made between Maggie Sutherland and Hamish Hamilton, McKenzie had immediately requested him to try to get hold of Hamish’s medical notes.
It was surprisingly easy: now they had his national insurance number from the HMRC for the pay he’d received at the army, Dean had managed to get a colleague in ACT in Indian to hack into the NHS medical database and access Hamilton’s online medical records. They confirmed that he had been treated for PTSD at the same hospital that Maggie Sutherland had worked. It didn’t connect them directly, but it was the next best thing.
Whilst this was happening, McKenzie had asked Anderson to find out what they could about Maggie Sutherland’s career.
It seemed that everyone was now turning to Dean, and that he had quickly become the most popular person in the team.
Anderson had simply asked Dean to talk to his new best friends in ACT, and see what they could find out about Maggie.
It only took them about ten minutes to pull records from the HMRC, her insurance company, the Home Office, and the Passport Office, to find out that after about five year’s working, she had applied for a working visa to Australia, got insurance and gone to work in Perth.
She’d been there for about two years, before coming home.
Anderson was impressed.
The guys in ACT knew exactly what they were doing. Without even asking for it, they had produced what could only be described as a mini-dossier on Maggie Sutherland.
There was one single fact that interested the Sergeant, however.
On the passport form to apply for the working visa, she’d had to state the name of a sponsor in Australia, and the address of where she would stay.
It was a very easy name to remember.
It was a good Scottish name.
Neil McBeth.
One third and very relevant fact had come back from the forensics team.
It was the analysis of the dirt that was found entombed within the melted rubber of the tyre on the burnt-out White Van.
According to the report, an exact location of where the dirt came from could not be determined in such a short period of time. However, this much was possible at this stage: it was soil from a farm from the east Coast of Scotland, near the sea. It contained traces of fertilisers, minerals and tiny pieces of volcanic rock commonly found near areas of volcanic activity, as well as sea-salt and sand possibly blown in on the air.
If the forensics team were to hazard a guess at a more exact location, they would suggest somewhere near North Berwick.
Chapter 53
Wednesday
A Secure Conference Call
between
Incident Room Operation Blue Building, Fettes Row & ACT London
13.30
“Thank you all for joining me. And thank you all for the amazing work you’re all doing. This is actually probably a first for us all. The first time we’ve got ACT and the Fettes Cyber Team hooked up to a video conference call with a Police Scotland incident room briefing.” McKenzie greeted everyone who had joined the video conference call.
There were two large monitor screens on the desk in front of him: one projecting a view of DI Dean and two others in the Fettes Row cyber room, and another with Ray Luck. Both of the screens had video-conferencing cameras attached to the top of them. The incident room itself was full of the rest of McKenzie’s team. Including Mather who had come in early to help.
“Things have been moving so fast that I think we first need to get everyone up to speed. So, shall I recap the situation, and what we know, and then we can move on to deciding a course of action?”
McKenzie nodded at the cameras on the large monitors. He was not very comfortable with the technology, and hadn’t really used it much.
“First of all, let’s note the time. It’s one thirty GMT. We’ve reason to believe that by five o’clock the killer, who we believe to be Hamish Hamilton, will have killed his latest abductee. That abductee, is my wife, Fiona McKenzie.” McKenzie paused, and swallowed hard. “T
o avoid confusion, the killer refers to her as GasBag, and he seems to be following the plot of a book – Remember Me? – which details how all his victims to date have died. Or near enough.”
“Moving on, we suspect that Hamilton has changed his name, or is at least operating under a pseudonym since he returned from living in Australia. For the past few hours our new-found friends in ACT and Fettes Row have been helping us to track down that pseudonym and also to establish where Hamilton may currently be living or hiding. They’ve done an outstanding job.”
“To cut a long story short, we’ve established that Hamish Hamilton is now using the name Neil McBeth. We don’t know if that’s the name he’s living with, or just using as a cover. We’ve got an address for him several miles north-west of North Berwick. It’s a farm. CCTV and ANPR footage show that he’s been driving back and forward from Edinburgh down the A1 to somewhere very close to the farm, where he disappears off down a side-road. We also have confirmation that the soil found in the tyre that partially survived the fire of Hamilton’s old van, came from an area that would meet that description. We also know that it’s very likely that Maggie treated Hamish Hamilton for PTSD, and that she subsequently went to live in Australia for a while and that she listed Neil McBeth as being her sponsor at that time, and that she named his house in Australia as her residence.”
Some of the team in the incident room hadn’t heard all of this yet, and were furiously copying down notes and smiling: this was fantastic progress!
“Before we can move on though I have two questions, which I’ve been told our guests on the screens may already have answers for. I’ll ask the questions for the benefit of everyone, and then hand over first to Fettes and then to ACT to explain what they’ve found.”
McKenzie looked at the screen which showed the Fettes team.
“My question is this: what do we know about Neil McBeth? Is it a made-up name? Why Neil McBeth?”
The man on the screen to the left of Dean answered.
“We ran a check on Neil McBeth. He’s a real person. Active credit cards, active NI number, active council tax payer. He’s got an active driving licence and a job. And this is the photograph on his driver’s licence… ” The man held up a facsimile of a driver’s licence and held it just in front of the camera lens on the screen so that everyone on the other side of the connection could see it. It was Hamish Hamilton.
“However,” he continued, “and this is the interesting part. The identity also flagged up another person with that name. He was in the army, and apparently served in the same regiment as Hamish Hamilton in Afghanistan. According to the army records, however, Neil McBeth went missing in Afghanistan. He never came home. We also found out that Neil McBeth was an only child whose parents died in a car crash while Neil was in Afghanistan.”
“We have one last piece of information which you may be interested at this time… ” the man teased them.
“Go for it,” McKenzie rewarded him with the theatrics Fettes obviously craved.
“The parents of Neil McBeth were farmers. And their farm is not far from North Berwick. In fact, it’s the same address that appears on Neil McBeth’s current driver’s license.”
McKenzie clapped his hands together.
“Brilliant. Great job. So, that’s basically it then. That’s the answer. Hamish Hamilton goes to live in Australia to start a new life and to forget his old, unhappy childhood. He wants to start afresh. He assumes the name of someone who he served with in Afghanistan and who McBeth knows is so far only declared missing in action but not yet confirmed dead. Except McBeth knows he’s dead. He may have been a close friend, we don’t know, but certainly close enough to know that McBeth’s parents were dead, and he was an only child. McBeth then somehow manages to convince everyone that he’s the son, now living in Australia. Before he went to Australia, Hamilton was treated for PTSD. It’s likely that’s when he met Maggie Sutherland. After Hamilton goes to Australia, Maggie Sutherland comes to live with him. Then comes back to the UK. A while later Hamilton comes back to Scotland too, but now under the name of Neil McBeth. Assuming the role of the prodigal son now returned, he goes to live in Neil McBeth’s house and takes on the rest of his identity. Somehow, he gets away with it.”
McKenzie strolled the floor in front of the screens, thinking aloud.
“Okay, so we still don’t know the extent of the relationship between Maggie Sutherland and Hamish-stroke-Neil McBeth, but we have to assume it was quite close. But we also know that he never went to her funeral, so possibly they fell out, maybe in Australia which explains why she came back before him. Although we don’t know that for sure. Maybe they returned together? But from what Fettes says… , sorry, your name?”
“PC Menzies, Guv.”
“But from what PC Menzies has just said, it sounds like she came home alone, and Hamilton aka McBeth followed her later. There could be a relationship between them that we don’t know about, and my guess is there was. Otherwise, why the hell is he killing everyone just like Maggie described, and why was the book dedicated to him?”
He picked up a glass of water and took a drink.
“Okay, over to you Ray. My last question is, do we know where McBeth is now?”
“From what we can tell, he’s at the farm near North Berwick. There’re not many mobile masts in that part of the world, but the triangulation we have from the nearest ones shows us that his phone is somewhere in the area that the farm buildings occupy. Give or take a couple of hundred metres. It would also appear that he drove home around six a.m. this morning, and has been there ever since.”
McKenzie smiled. Broadly.
“Thank you, Mr Luck. Thank you very much.” McKenzie clapped his hands in front of the camera. “Oh… sorry, there’s still one thing, Ray. Please can you ask someone to monitor his phones and let us know if any of his phone numbers move away from the farm?”
“Absolutely. It goes without saying, DCI McKenzie.”
McKenzie turned to the team in his Incident Room.
“Okay, so it’s now one-fifty. We’ve got roughly three hours left. Time is running out...”
McKenzie was just about to start discussing ideas with the team concerning what could happen next, and open the floor to ideas, when he felt his phone buzzing against his leg.
He quickly pulled it out of his pocket and checked the caller display. It was a voice message.
A cold feeling of dread swiftly permeated his senses.
Excusing himself from the meeting for a moment, he dialled 121.
As soon as the message began, he reached out to steady himself against the bannister on the stairs that linked the three different levels of the portacabins.
Fighting the urge to vomit, he closed his eyes and steeled himself.
“Isn’t this fun! Now the count-down has begun!
With two for the price of one!
They’re both going to die,
Automatically blown sky-high,
When the clock reaches five,
Big and Little Gasbag will no longer be alive!”
Leaning back against the wall, he felt very weak, and his legs were no longer able to support him. He slid slowly down the edge of the portacabin until he was sitting on the ground.
For a few minutes he rode out the wave of confusion and fear.
Then slowly he opened his eyes, and looked up at the sky.
It was blue. The sun was shining.
The world was still there.
Some birds flew overheard.
He pressed a few digits on his phone and listened to the message again.
Then again.
Getting angry.
Learning from the words, and exactly what was said.
Turning the threat into intelligence which he could use to save his wife’s life.
He also knew that he was now on thin ground.
That was the second message he’d received from the ‘kidnapper’. He should now really report them and hand over the case to
the NCA.
His career would depend on it.
Or he could just pretend he hadn’t heard them - ‘yet’.
McKenzie stood up. He took several rapid deep breaths and swore several times in quick succession and then stepped back into the portacabin.
“Okay, team, sorry about that. But I also needed just a moment to myself. To think and to plan.”
He took a few more breaths.
He could feel the adrenaline kicking in now.
His hands were shaking.
The anger was building.
The words of Hamish Hamilton echoed in his head,
“With two for the price of one!”
He closed his eyes again and blocked the sound of the metallic voice out of his head.
When he opened them, McKenzie looked around the room, briefly scanning the Video Screens.
Everyone was looking at him. Waiting.
They didn’t have to wait long.
“Okay, things have just changed. We’re no longer going to be on the back foot. It’s now time to let the hunter become the hunted. And to get my wife and my child back… Safe, sound, alive, and in the next three hours! I have a plan. This is what we’re going to do… ”
Chapter 54
Wednesday
Two miles from Sea View Farm
North Berwick.
15.00
It had taken fifteen minutes to organise everything. It had then taken another forty-five minutes for everyone to drive down to the location close to Sea View Farm where they had selected to set up operations, and where they now believed that Hamish Hamilton was hiding at the old farm which once belonged to Neil McBeth.
They didn’t yet know if Fiona was also there, but McKenzie knew time was running out. For both him and Hamish Hamilton.
But, if Hamilton had driven there first thing that morning after snatching Fiona from the caravan and had not left, the chances were that he also had Fiona there.
Remember Me 2 Page 27