After that I looked at the billings for the two victims found immediately after the phone call that had been made to Sam, and the next discovery after them, someone called Edward Langton, and each showed exactly the same pattern as Rachelle’s billing – incoming calls only. One each evening, short in duration. For each set, the calls were made at slightly different times. Dana’s phone was called at 18.46, 18.42, 18.44… around a quarter to seven each night. The last two calls went unanswered, and then stopped. That was in August.
Eileen’s regular incoming calls were earlier – 18.31, 18.30, 18.27, 18.30… and then, one isolated outgoing call, the night before she was found – a local landline. It must be the call that Sam had received. Momentarily distracted, I put the number into the search facility on the database. That was right – it came back as being the newsdesk at the
Briarstone Chronicle
.
I looked at the billing for the phone found at the last address – the one for Edward Langton. And again, the same pattern. Incoming calls only, this time they were all around six o’clock. Sometimes a minute or two earlier, sometimes later, but always around six. There was something about the timings that bothered me. I frowned and scratched around in my head for what it was, but it wouldn’t come. Maybe it was the regularity of it, the boldness, the sense that this was something that was being organised, planned. I went back to the spreadsheets, and the phones found at Robin Downley’s address, and, finally, Shelley Burton’s. Each set of billings showed the same defined pattern – regular, incoming calls at the same time each evening – then two unanswered calls – and then no further contacts. It was difficult to believe that they were not linked – but in each case the mobile number which was making the calls was different.
I used the internal address book to find Andy Frost’s mobile number, reached for the phone and dialled it. The phone rang once and then went to voicemail. I tried to think about it rationally but the excitement of how easy it might be to unravel the case kept me fidgeting on my chair.
The sensible thing to do would be to document everything, finish recording the summary of the data on my spreadsheet, and then complete a report with recommendations for them all to peruse on Monday.
I stared at the screen, then back to the phone, then I rang his voicemail back and this time I left a message. ‘Hello, it’s Annabel. I’m in the office. Can you give me a ring urgently, please?’
I looked at the black windows and listened to the unusual silence that I hadn’t been aware of until that moment: no tannoy, no rattling of coffee cups in the kitchen, no laughter and chatter, no phones ringing. It was as though I was the only one left in the whole building. That wasn’t the case, I knew – custody would be just warming up for its busiest period of the week, Friday night, and night duty staff would be coming in and changing over with the late-turn ones down in the patrol office. But up here… the MIR was asleep.
I started typing up the report and before many minutes had passed I was engrossed in it, so focused that I didn’t even hear the door opening behind me.
‘Hello,’ said a voice. ‘What are you doing here so late?’
It was DCI Paul Moscrop, but I had been so absorbed in the spreadsheets that for a moment I couldn’t think of his name. ‘I just wanted to get this finished, sir,’ I said.
‘I didn’t know you were back, Annabel. How have you been?’
He was leaning against the door, tie loosened, sleeves rolled up. The Friday afternoon look, except it was Friday evening and he should have been at home by now.
‘Alright,’ I said. ‘Thanks for asking. I just wanted to get back to being busy, I think.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Well, it’s good to see you.’ He gave me a warm smile and turned to go. ‘Don’t stay too late, will you?’
‘Sir,’ I said, ‘can you hold on a minute?’
He turned in the doorway and, although he smiled and said ‘Sure!’ again, his posture said he’d had enough and wanted to go home. But dutifully he leaned over and looked at my spreadsheet. I explained that the similarities between the billings for Rachelle Hudson’s phone and the other five linked them – and that the rest seemed unlikely to be part of the group of victims.
‘Unless there was another phone that they were using, which either wasn’t found, or was removed before the bodies were discovered,’ I said. ‘But, even so, their call patterns varied and some of them were receiving calls from more than one number – friends and family, I suppose – until a few weeks before they were found. So I think we can rule them out.’
Paul Moscrop pointed at something on the screen. ‘What’s that?’
‘The list of numbers used to contact Rachelle and the others. A different one for each of them.’
‘But the pattern’s the same?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very interesting. Have you requested billings for these numbers – the ones that are calling the victims?’
‘No, sir. I’ve never done the requests myself before. But we need to get them urgently, I think.’
‘Right,’ he said. He took his mobile phone out of his trouser pocket and dialled a number. To me, he said, ‘Can you put all that in an email to me, or something?’
‘I’m doing a report – ’ I started to say.
‘Keith? You still on the station? … Can you? That would be good. I need you to come up to the MIR when you get here, there’s been a development… No, nothing like that. I need you to sort out some more phone billings – can you do that?’
There was a pause. Presumably Keith, whoever he was, was not quite so keen on turning out again for a ‘development’ that involved filling in online forms.
‘I wouldn’t be ringing you if it wasn’t important. And you are on call.’ The DCI’s tone had taken on a distinct chill. Finally, ‘Thanks. Can you ring me when it’s done? Cheers. Have a good weekend. Bye.’
He disconnected the call and looked at the handset, shaking his head slightly, distracted. Then he looked back at me.
‘Keith should be here in ten minutes or so. He’s on call, so don’t let him bloody complain about it, right? Tell him what needs doing and get him to email them to me for authorisation. With a bit of luck we should get the billings back quite quickly. Make sure he does them on Priority. Is that OK?’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Any idea how long before they come back?’
‘Depends on the service provider – hopefully less than twenty-four hours. Maybe quicker than that. How do you feel about a bit of overtime this weekend?’
‘That would be great.’
‘Are you sure you’re alright doing this, Annabel? You’ve had a tough few weeks.’
‘I know. I need to stay busy. But thank you.’
He was hovering. I sensed his sudden awkwardness, waited for whatever was going to come next.
‘They interviewed you, didn’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve not remembered anything else? About what happened?’
‘I’ve been trying not to think about it, sir. I know that’s not very helpful.’
‘It’s alright. It’s not about being helpful. I just didn’t want you to think you can’t come and talk to us, you know. If you think of anything else.’
What did he think I was going to do, suddenly recall everything the angel said to me and then keep it to myself, just for a laugh? I shook my head.
He made sure I had his mobile number and then he went, leaving me in the big silent office on my own waiting for Keith. I went back to the report.
The
Chronicle
’s campaign continues. Three weeks ago, there was a brief paragraph in their usual proselytisation about a woman who had been found in a ‘state of distress’ and taken to hospital. Mr Sam Everett used his column to put out an appeal asking for anyone who knew the person responsible to make contact with him. Responsible for what, exactly? Helping people escape from interfering well-wishers who don’t understand that sometimes the most blissful state of being is to be left in peace?
There is nothing on the front page today, just the one article inside about maintaining contact with friends and loved ones wherever in the world they happen to live. And a brief interview with the man in charge of the investigation. Detective Chief Inspector Paul Moscrop. He looks like one of those Americans they describe as a ‘go-getter’ – all even white teeth and management hair. He says the investigation is progressing well and that anyone with any information should come forward.
Reading that, I feel momentarily like coming forward myself, emerging, blinking, from the crowd and surprising all of them. As it is, the brief moment of recognition in the newspaper gave me a kick, and now I want another one. The thought of them getting bored with the story already – already! – when I have other surprises for them, other treats in store, makes me grit my teeth with frustration. They should be proud of me, of my achievements. They should recognise what I am doing and praise me for it – not push it aside and call it a crime as though I’d graffitied a wall or stolen a joint of meat from the supermarket.
If they are bored, I’ll have to give them something to wake them up a bit. I’ll have to show them exactly what I am capable of.
Even though there are others out there, still alone, still undisturbed, transforming in the privacy of their own homes, I can feel I’m losing interest. I’ve observed so many of them now. And despite the differences, the variations in the process, there is little that happens which is truly surprising. So I need to introduce some variables, something new, that will reignite the spark.
In other words, the delectable Audrey.
I got into the town centre half an hour ago, at six-thirty, while it was still crowded with people making their way home and I could blend in with the masses. Directly opposite the Italian restaurant called Luciano’s is a fast food place with further seating upstairs. I bought a coffee at the till and took it upstairs with me. I should probably have ordered food as well but I am not willing to corrupt my digestive system with it or waste money by purchasing it. So it was just a coffee, and even that is scarcely drinkable.
Nevertheless, sitting by the window overlooking the square, it gives me a perfect vantage point from which I can watch the restaurant and the various pubs and clubs. I can even see the taxi rank if I stand up and lean over a little.
I see Audrey arrive with a female companion, at five past seven. She is wearing a short dress in a dark, silky fabric that clings to her thighs. Her high heels make her walk across the cobbled square look particularly hazardous. And yet, her thighs… I can’t tear my gaze away from them. I’ve been concentrating on them, gazing at various photos from her Facebook profile since Wednesday night, yet seeing them here, moving, rubbing against each other, the muscles under the skin and the flesh moving as she walks – the way her arse moves, visible through the outline of the tight, silky skirt – and the temptation to go out there and grab her, force her round to face me, and instead of speaking (for there is nothing, really, to say) to just run my hand up her thigh and push the fabric away…
They go into Luciano’s and shut the door.
I sip a lukewarm coffee that might as well be gravy, and wait.
Keith Topping turned up about half an hour after the DCI had gone. He seemed nice enough when he finally turned up – but I got the distinct impression that despite being on call he didn’t consider applying for phone billings to be reason enough to come back into the office on a Friday night, however urgent they were. In the end he showed me how to apply myself – not something that was technically supposed to happen, but it would save everyone a lot of time in the long run, he said.
‘Won’t they need some sort of authorisation? I thought you had to put in passwords and stuff,’ I asked.
‘Usually you do. Not for something like this, though. As long as you use the Op Name – there, look,’ he answered, leaning over me and granting me a whiff of his armpit, ‘you put in the DCI’s Force Number there. Right? Think you can manage that?’
I was non-committal. I wasn’t planning on doing his job for him. I had enough work of my own as it was.
‘So…’ he said, as I started to write a list of queries for him to complete… ‘how have you been?’
‘Alright,’ I said.
‘We’ve all been really worried about you,’ he replied.
I looked up in surprise. ‘You don’t even know me,’ I said, before I could stop myself.
He looked a bit embarrassed. ‘Well – you know. You’re one of the team. We look after our own.’
Really?
I thought.
‘We got the CCTV back. That’s when it all went a bit mental. I don’t think any of us really believed there was someone behind it all until then.’
‘What CCTV?’
‘Of you. In the shopping centre.’
‘I didn’t know there was CCTV.’
Probably, if he’d thought about it for a bit longer, he wouldn’t have shown me, or even mentioned it in the first place. But he showed me where the file was saved on the Operation’s drive on the network, and before I knew it I was launching Media Player and waiting for the file to buffer.
The footage from the shopping centre wasn’t very good. The camera was facing into bright sunlight so there was a glare that obscured much of the image, leaving the rest dark and indistinct. Despite this, I saw a person standing outside the glass window of a shop, and after a moment of thinking that I had a coat like that I realised with a jolt that it was me. Seeing yourself on film was always a bit strange, but this was worse – I didn’t recognise myself, not just because of the shadow but because the way I was standing was just so odd. I looked hunched into my coat, the slope of my shoulders and my bent head making me appear utterly defeated. Lost.
As I watched, I realised that there was a second figure standing next to me, slightly to my right, and I saw myself nod, and then again – although I had no memory of any of it. He was talking to me. He had his back to the camera and the top half of him was obscured by the glare from the sun, so all anyone could really make out was that it was a man, wearing a short jacket of some dark colour, dark trousers and proper shoes, not white trainers.