positive sightings, it didn’t work out that way. She must have stood out somehow for members of the public to remember her.’
‘There’s no CCTV in Matlock Bath, is there?’
‘No. This isn’t Glossop we’re talking about. They don’t expect major crime on the street. There will be some limited CCTV systems on commercial premises, but nothing on the street.’
‘There’s a webcam,’ said Cooper.
‘A what?’
‘A webcam. You can go on the internet and see a view of Matlock Bath promenade. I think they have it running pretty much every day.’
‘Who operates this thing, Cooper?’ asked Kessen, leaning forward in his chair.
‘I think it’s a photographic museum.’
‘Time lapse, I suppose?’
‘Yes, sir. But no worse than most CCTV systems.’
‘It would be too good to be true if it caught Rose Shepherd. But let’s check it out anyway.’
Hitchens waited to see if the DCI had finished. ‘Next thing,’ he said. ‘We’ve had the victim’s phone records checked, and we now know that a call was made to Miss Shepherd’s home number at three o’clock on Sunday morning. The call lasted only twelve seconds. As you might have guessed, the caller used an unregistered pay-as- you-go mobile. No account, no address. If our suspects knew what they were doing, they’d have bought a phone specifically for this one call, then dumped it. And it looks as though they knew exactly what they were doing.’
‘Pay-as-you-go phones,’ said someone gloomily. ‘The biggest gift that was ever made to drug dealers.’
‘And paedophiles. And terrorists. We need some legislation on this one, don’t you think, sir?’
‘That’s way above our heads, I’m afraid.’
‘Right. We’re just the poor buggers who have to pick up the pieces.’
Hitchens sighed, and departed from his notes. ‘Actually, true anonymity is hard to achieve these days. We might not be able to identify the purchaser of a prepaid mobile, but if the call credits are paid for by card or cheque, the payments can be traced back. Also, we can track the phone’s physical location, provided it’s switched on. But, in this case, assuming our suspects do still have the phone, it’s been switched off since the call to Miss Shepherd.’
‘Dumped it, like you said, sir.’
‘Exactly. Now for the victim’s background. You’re probably aware that this is proving a real headache. Whatever her reasons, Rose Shepherd went to extraordinary lengths to protect her privacy. She left almost nothing of a personal nature to give us an angle on her life. However, we’ve had time since yesterday to go through her cheque books and bank statements.’
‘Anything interesting?’
‘To be honest, I’ve never seen such a boring credit card statement as hers. I was hoping for something a bit revealing — I don’t know, a purchase of expensive wine, or a subscription to a porn website. But nothing out of the ordinary. Not a thing. Her bank statements show her Council Tax, electricity bill and water rates going out on direct debit. Her BT phone bill was paid online by credit card. There’s nothing here that tells us anything about her. All the evidence we have points to Miss Shepherd being a model citizen, paying her bills on time, being no trouble to anyone.’
‘Much too perfect to be true.’
‘Absolutely. I think we can all agree on that.’
‘Perfect citizens vote, don’t they? Is she on the electoral register?’
‘No. And she’s not in the phone directory either,’ said Hitchens. ‘All we’ve got is her passport, plus her bank statements and utility bills. The other strange thing is that there are no obvious personal contacts. There
‘A dialling code, perhaps,’ offered Kessen.
‘Well, we checked it out. The Highbury area of London comes closest — 0207 359.’
‘Inner London?’
‘Yes, London N1.’
‘What about the 0359 code? Where’s that?’
‘Nowhere. It’s a BT code all right, but it’s allocated for future network expansion.’
‘Could it be a country code?’ said Cooper. ‘Is there a directory somewhere?’
‘On the shelf.’
He picked up the directory and leafed through the pages towards the back. ‘They don’t list international codes by number, but by country, in alphabetical order. Hold on … well, that didn’t take long. It says here 359 is the code for Bulgaria.’
‘Oh, great. There’s a job for someone to follow up. Any volunteers?’
There was a ripple of laughter round the room as the atmosphere eased and officers recognized the end of the briefing approaching.
‘I know it’s going to be a pain in the neck for Scientific Support, but we should get someone to go over the whole house for fingerprints,’ said Kessen. ‘The fact that the victim didn’t spend too much time dusting should work in our favour.’
‘Meanwhile, the IT team are giving the laptop a going-over,’ said Hitchens. ‘If Rose Shepherd had information stored somewhere, it might be online. There are plenty of sites offering free web storage space.’
‘Protected by a password, of course. So we just have to hope we strike lucky.’
‘Basically, the victim’s story seems to be this: she kept herself hidden away in Bain House for the best part of a year, then for some reason decided to go for an afternoon out in Matlock Bath. That same night she was murdered by person or persons unknown.’
‘It’s as if she was hiding from someone. Do you think she was frightened of being recognized if she went out?’
‘Yes, she thought she was in danger. And it looks as though she exposed herself to that danger on Saturday. But we don’t know why. We’re working on the theory that the victim was seen in Matlock Bath by someone who followed her home to find out where she lived. Somehow, they also obtained her ex-directory phone number. Then they wasted no time in eliminating her.’
‘She must really have upset someone in the past.’
‘Absolutely. If we can establish why Rose Shepherd was in hiding, it should give us a lead on her killer. At the moment, she’s still something of an enigma. But that was all her own doing. In making it difficult for anyone to find her, Miss Shepherd also made it harder for us to identify her murderer.’
After the meeting, Cooper collected the actions he’d been allocated on the enquiry, then went straight to his computer. He Googled the Matlock Bath webcam and soon found the site. Life in a Lens, that was the name of the photography museum. The camera seemed to be mounted on the roof.
According to the caption, the webcam picture was updated every sixty seconds on weekdays, but it seemed to be more like thirty seconds when it began to reload. The picture was pretty grainy, of course. They’d have a hard time identifying anyone, unless there was detailed information available about what they were wearing at the time.
Matlock Bath was a bit like a seaside resort, but without the sea. Beyond the railings to the right there was just the shallow water of the River Derwent. The camera covered only a section of the road and the river beyond it. This was North Parade, looking northwards to Jubilee Bridge. But the picture showed almost nothing of the shops and cafes on the promenade, except for a glimpse of some buildings in the background.
It was a grey, damp day in Matlock Bath. The river was brown and choppy, and Cooper could see mist hanging on the slopes of the narrow valley. Cars and people were reflected in the wet tarmac of North Parade.
Fry stopped to look over his shoulder. ‘Is that Matlock Bath?’
‘Yes.’
‘It looks pretty miserable.’
‘It’s one of those places that changes completely at weekends, or in the summer. On a busy bank holiday, you wouldn’t recognize it.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
