Deep Hurt - Eva Hudson Page 0,66

flew up and backwards and he seemed to slap the side of the backpack. He then readjusted the weight on his back.

“Can you get a close-up of his face?” Ingrid asked.

“Sure.”

Although the image wasn’t clear, what was evident was the color of the man’s hair—much darker than Kyle Foster’s.

“Could that be him?” Ingrid asked Gurley. “He’s the right build and height. He could have dyed his hair.” Ingrid stared hard at the screen. “Pull back again, so we can see his whole body.” She leaned further forward. “Did you see that?”

“Something moved in that bag,” the technician said, a little excitedly, when Gurley didn’t respond.

“Hit the pause button again, will you?” Gurley ordered the technician. He turned to look at Ingrid. “Are you seriously suggesting this is Foster and he’s stuffed Tommy into the backpack?”

“It could be, couldn’t it? The timing fits. Can we get footage from the platform cameras? Which platform would he need if he were planning to head north?”

The technician took a few minutes to cue up the required recordings and fast forward to the correct timestamp. “There are four cameras on the right platform.” He tapped the four split screen images in turn with a pen.

They watched in silence as the footage played in real time. They continued to scrutinize the recording for ten minutes until the first train arrived. The man they’d identified hadn’t appeared on the platform in that time. At quadruple speed they watched for another five minutes. Another train arrived. Still no sign of the man with the wriggling backpack.

“Where’d he go?” Gurley sounded curious and impatient at the same time.

“Maybe he wanted to cover his tracks a little, took a train some place else, then backtracked,” Ingrid suggested.

“We can check the other platforms, give me a second to bring up the relevant recordings.”

“What are we trying to prove here?” Now Gurley just sounded pissed. “This guy may or may not be Foster. Tommy may or may not be inside that bag. It doesn’t get us any closer to finding him.” He shook his head. “Jesus, what kind of man stuffs an eight-year-old kid into a bag anyway?”

“You’re right,” Ingrid conceded.

Gurley opened his eyes wide. “I am?”

Ingrid realized she wasn’t going to get more definite proof that the man with the backpack was Foster, so decided to withdraw as gracefully as she could. Better to make a concession to Gurley when there was nothing much at stake. “We should try to figure out why Foster’s decided to head north. Who does he know up there? Why make such a long journey?” Ingrid was hoping a conversation about Foster’s motives might help pinpoint his possible location.

“Let’s ask those questions on the way, shall we?”

Ingrid thanked the technician, requested he send her as good a close-up still image of the man with the unwieldy backpack as he could, then she and Gurley made a swift exit.

Halfway back to Freckenham, Gurley’s phone rang. He answered on hands-free. A hesitant voice the other end crackled into the car.

“Major Gurley?”

“Yes?”

“Sergeant Willis here, sir. We’ve had a report sent to us from the local police department in Northumbria that I thought you should know about right away.”

“What is it, Willis?” Gurley didn’t bother to mask his impatience.

“A flying club in Felton—about twenty miles north of Newcastle—has reported one of their aircraft is missing.”

“Missing?”

“Stolen. Must have happened in the last two hours they think.”

“And they’ve only just noticed?” Gurley glanced at Ingrid. “What kind of aircraft?”

“Helicopter, sir. A Eurocopter EC120. First Lieutenant Foster flew choppers in Afghanistan as part of his search and rescue missions.”

“Thank you, Willis. I’m well aware of that fact.” Gurley ended the call and pulled the car over to the side of the road. He slammed his fists against the steering wheel. “Goddammit! The goddamn sonofabitch could be anywhere by now.”

34

After Jack Gurley agreed with Ingrid that a trip to the airfield in Northumberland was a waste of time, he drove her to Bury St Edmunds railway station and left her to get back to London by her own devices. The train journey was a little uncomfortable, and took longer than she would have liked, but she was relieved to be headed back to the embassy without Gurley breathing down her neck.

When she finally returned to her desk, late afternoon, she discovered a rectangular, Fed-Ex labeled box sitting beside her computer monitor.

“Hey, Ingrid, I didn’t expect you back so soon,” Jennifer said when she walked into the office a moment later, a steaming cup of