can only work with intelligence received,’ I said. ‘And at the moment I’ve got crucial stuff to tell them, and I’m farting around outside an accountants’ with Nancy Drew.’
I could tell by his expression that he didn’t know who Nancy Drew was. ‘Or the Hardy Boys, or whatever they were called,’ I said, lamely.
‘You don’t have to come in with me,’ he said. ‘I’ll pick you up later if you want. Just send me a text. Or… whatever.’
‘Fine,’ I said, giving him a backward wave and stomping off down the hill, trying to look purposeful.
The morning meeting was just finishing when I arrived. Trigger and Kate piled back into the office talking and laughing without even registering that I was sitting at my desk. ‘Did I miss much?’ I said, in the end, as much to remind myself that I was alive and breathing as anything else.
‘Nah,’ said Trigger. ‘The DI’s got his knickers in a twist because the Chief might put in an appearance this afternoon. Clear desk policy and ties on, you know. Welcome back, by the way. Are you – er – alright?’
As if I’d been off with the flu or something.
‘Thanks,’ I answered. ‘I’m much better now.’
Kate had gone next door, presumably to round up her mates for a coffee break.
I found the incident log, by searching for Lindsay Brown and the address where Sam and I had had tea this morning.
CALLER IS REPORTING THAT HER FRIEND HASN’T COME HOME THIS WEEKEND
*
FRIEND IS AUDREY MADISON AGED 36 DARK BROWN HAIR BLUE EYES F507 TEL MOBILE NUMBER 07670 212 212
*
AUDREY WENT OUT WITH FRIENDS ON FRIDAY NIGHT AND HASN’T BEEN SEEN SINCE – WORK SAYS SHE HASN’T TURNED UP THIS MORNING
*
MOBILE PHONE IS SWITCHED OFF
*
AUDREYS BOYFRIEND CORREX EX BOYFRIEND IS VORN BRADSTOCK LIVES IN BRIARSTONE TEL NO 07672 392 913
*
REPORT TO INTEL MAJ CRIME – ADVICE GIVEN TO CALLER
That was it. That was literally it. Nothing further on the report. It didn’t mean nothing was happening, of course, just that the log hadn’t been updated since – I looked at it again – 9.15 this morning.
Something else was bothering me, too. Keith Topping had said they hadn’t got very far with the Automatic Number Plate Recognition database because there weren’t cameras in the right places, and the time window was just too big to provide a useful dataset. But this window of time was much smaller… and there was an ANPR camera on the main road heading away from the Market Square.
I opened the ANPR software and started filling in a query. The field for the vehicle registration number I left blank. I isolated the cameras to be included down to just one – Baysbury Road, northbound. And the time – what time had Cheryl Dann said goodbye to her?
I pulled out my mobile phone and sent a text to Sam.
Ask Cheryl what time she left Audrey and where. Urgent. A.
While I was waiting for a response I put in an experimental time period for the search just to see what came back: 11pm to 12 midnight. Just one hour, one camera, and the system reacted as if I was forcing it to do manual labour. The processor on the workstation started whirring alarmingly. I opened up the Police National Computer in another window and performed a search for vehicles linked to Mr Colin Friedland of Briarstone, giving DI Frost as my authorising officer.
It seemed he had a Fiesta, blue in colour.
A minute and a half after I’d started the ANPR query, it came back with 1,759 hits. I put the registration number of Colin’s Fiesta into the search results box.
No results.
My phone bleeped with a response from Sam.
Midnight, she was walking up Baysbury Rd. Why? S.
I didn’t bother to reply. I felt cross that Colin’s car hadn’t been on the Baysbury Road that night when I’d fully expected it to be. And yet… there was something else. I felt so close to it, the thrill of being right and the possibility of finding something that might be useful. Something that might make a difference…
I went back to the query and changed the time parameters to ten minutes either side of midnight.
This time the data came back quite quickly: 259 results. Still a lot, but the likelihood was that, if Audrey had got into a car after leaving her friend, it would have gone past that camera.
I added a filter to the results for vehicles that had any alerts on them. This was unlikely to bring up