‘In the back of the car, the body of this woman was found.’
A silence filled the incident room as the team stared at the photographs.
‘The hospital has confirmed they’ve had to remove the driver’s spleen, and I’m told he also has a broken leg and will require further surgery to pin that in due course. They’re keeping him in the induced coma to try and reduce the swelling to his head wound – looks like he banged his skull against the window of the car when it rolled down the embankment.’
‘What are his chances?’ said Kay.
‘Grim, but as soon as we get confirmation from the hospital he’s conscious, we’ll be making arrangements to formally interview him.’
A murmur swept through the incident room. It would make their jobs harder if they couldn’t question the driver, and although none of them wished him ill health, they also wanted to see justice served for the man’s victim.
The DI waited until their voices had quietened. ‘Carys – has anything come up on the Police National Computer about the car registration?’
She shook her head. ‘There’s nothing that looks like a connection, guv, but some of the records on the database from the Driver Vehicle and Licencing Agency are a mess, so I’ve put in a request to them. It doesn’t appear to be a hire car, though. Hopefully I’ll get some clarifying information from them soon.’
‘All right. In the meantime, fingerprints were taken from the driver, but we’ve drawn a blank,’ said Sharp. ‘He doesn’t appear in our system. He had no wallet or identification on him, and none were found in the car. Two mobile phones were located in the car, however, and those have been passed to Andy Grey’s digital forensics team at headquarters. We would’ve brought them into evidence here, but they were crushed in the accident, and we needed Grey’s expertise to extract what information we could from them. Harriet’s team found another phone amongst the undergrowth that had the female victim’s fingerprints on it. Grey confirmed fifteen minutes ago that the last call made on one of the phones in the car was made to the victim’s phone.’
‘But why would he be calling her?’ said Barnes. ‘He knows where she is – in the boot of his car.’
‘Maybe she’s known to him and he called her before killing her?’ said Kay.
‘Or it was a hit and run?’ said Gavin. He shook his head. ‘No, that doesn’t make sense.’
‘What about the woman? Any information about her?’ asked a female police constable on the fringe of the small group, her pen poised.
‘None. Again, her fingerprints have been taken, but she doesn’t show up in the system, Debbie,’ said Sharp. ‘So, can you circulate the prints to our colleagues in Sussex, Essex and the Met to start off with to see if they have anything for us? Widen the search if they don’t. Lucas Anderson is planning to do the post mortem tomorrow morning, so we’ll have to wait to see if that turns up anything to help us by way of dental records and the like.’
‘Will do, guv.’
Debbie West regularly supported the major crimes unit, and Sharp always sought her presence from the uniform staff at the station if she was available.
Diligent and one of the most talented users of the HOLMES2 database the team relied upon to manage any investigation, Debbie exuded a degree of calm amongst the often fraught team dynamics.
Sharp’s attention returned to the detectives. ‘While Debbie’s following up the fingerprints angle, Carys – you and Gavin start working with Missing Persons to see if our victim turns up on those databases. Harriet emailed some photographs from last night’s scene, so you can use those. Again, widen your search if she doesn’t show up in Kent.’
‘Will do.’
‘While Carys is dealing with the DVLA, we need to trace where that car’s been,’ said Sharp. ‘Gavin – get on to the ANPR. Have them trace the car from its last known point on the M20 to its starting point. Tie it in with local CCTV and see if we can pinpoint the driver’s movements.’
‘Guv.’
‘Carys – speak to uniform. As soon as Gavin has a starting point, we’re going to need their help. Could be industrial, could be residential but it’s going to take manpower. I’ll speak to DCI Larch about the budget.’
‘Kay, Barnes – the minute we have an identification for the driver, check the database to see if we have a note of him in the system and any known acquaintances. No doubt we’ll be paying some of them a visit over the coming days, so I’d like to have an update on where we can find them. In the meantime, you can help Gavin by going through the local CCTV footage when we get it.’
‘Got it.’
‘Right.’ Sharp checked his watch. ‘We’ll have another briefing at five o’clock. Let’s see what we’ve managed to pull together by then.’
Chapter Four
Kay wandered over to the water cooler and filled up two white plastic cups before joining the small group around the whiteboard at the far end of the incident room.
The winter sun had dipped below the horizon over an hour ago, the sky turning from pale grey to black within minutes.
Kay checked her watch. She’d forgotten to eat, and hoped the final briefing of the day would be short.
‘Here you go,’ she said, and handed one of the cups to Barnes.
‘Thanks.’
Supervisors for the team responsible for reviewing the ANPR and CCTV images were present, as well as a number of administrative staff from headquarters who were tasked with liaising with the uniformed officers.
Kay yawned, the packed incident room quickly becoming stuffy due to a combination of temperamental central heating and lack of ventilation. She and the rest of the team had been running on coffee and adrenalin all day, and despite her best efforts, exhaustion was beginning to seep in.
Sharp blew a loud single-note whistle to bring the numerous muted conversations to a halt, and everyone turned their attention
