She had just returned from placing a disheartened Rodney Dawlish in a cell. The urgent interview she had conducted with him hadn’t gone well. Unable to even meet her eye, Dawlish had sat down opposite her, a broken man. When the questioning began, Dawlish had refused, point blank, to tell her where Winston was hiding out. Acting as though it was a virtue to be proud of, he declared that, whatever faults he might have, being a grass wasn’t one of them.
As she closed the heavy cell door, leaving Rodent to fester in solitude inside the hollow concrete cube, he surprised her by politely apologising for not being more helpful during the interview. For a moment, she had thought that he was taking the piss, but then she had realised that he was being genuine.
Taking the still ringing phone with her, Susie punched the four-digit code into the keypad next to the security door and departed the custody area. She went straight up to the second-floor canteen, taking the lift because she was too tired to use the stairs, purchased a strong cup of tea and a cereal bar, and sat down at the nearest Formica table. The lunchtime trade had died off and, apart from her and a jaded looking middle-aged woman in canteen staff attire, the room was completely empty.
Susie was absolutely shattered. Although she had heard that working a new job with Tyler was akin to being put through a particularly punishing endurance test, she hadn’t quite realised how close to the mark the observation had been. The man was like a tsunami, pushing on relentless, sweeping everything in his path aside.
That said, they had made incredible progress since he’d taken over the enquiry, and as much as she liked Andy Quinlan, she very much doubted they would have come this far this quickly under his leadership. Quinlan was, without doubt, a very experienced and formidable SIO, but he was slow and ponderous in comparison, better suited to protracted enquiries that required lots of meticulous digging and probing to unearth the truth. He certainly didn’t possess the brick through a window mindset that Tyler approached manhunts with.
Susie had recently sat the Inspector’s exam. If she passed, she was hoping to stay on the new Homicide Command, which was going to be called SO1. She knew she wouldn’t be able to remain on her own team, but she wondered if there might be a place on Tyler’s team when they moved over to Hertford House in a month’s time. She suspected she’d be in for a very steep, but very rewarding, learning curve if she went to work for him on a full-time basis.
After taking a very much needed sip of her tea, Susie examined the caller ID on Dawlish’s phone to see who had called him. Her heart jumped when she saw that it was the 777 number. Taking another quick swig to whet her whistle, she hurriedly reached into her shoulder bag for her mobile. Tyler would want to know about this immediately.
Chapter 33
“Boss, I’ve just had the TSU on the line,” Reg said excitedly as he barged into Tyler’s office, only to see that Tyler was already speaking on the telephone.
Jack held up a finger and mouthed ‘one moment,’ before indicating for Parker to take a seat.
“Okay, Susie, thanks for the update. You might as well get back here, and we’ll sort out someone to do the slow time interviews on Dawlish in due course.”
Hanging up, he turned to Parker, his expression thoughtful. “That was Susie, over at KO. Dawlish was about as helpful as a dose of syphilis during interview, but a few minutes ago his mobile received a call from the 777 number. Did we even know Dawlish had a mobile?”
“No, we didn’t,” Reg said, “but I suspect it ties into what I’ve come to speak to you about.”
“Which is…?”
“As I was saying, I’ve just had the TSU on the phone with an update. Firstly, the signal detector van has pretty much covered all the properties we’ve identified within the area, and so far, it hasn’t picked anything up.”
Tyler scowled at him. “But we know they’re in that neck of the woods from the cell site data, so how can they have suddenly disappeared?”
“It could mean a number of things,” Reggie said quickly, “from the 777 and 321 phones no longer being there to them just being switched off, or it could simply be down to them being in a part of the building where there’s no signal when the sweep was done. Apparently, in some of the sites they surveyed, the signal strength was much weaker than others, constantly dropping in and out of coverage. They haven’t been able to pick up the 321 phone since they arrived, but they were getting a weak reading from the 777 phone. It seemed to be coming from one of two small hamlets set in close proximity to each other. Unfortunately, by the time the van got near enough to be able to distinguish which one it was, the signal just disappeared. Anyway, the crew have broken for a quick lunch and toilet stop, and then they’re going to repeat the circuit.”
“What about the TIU? Any updates from them?” Jack asked, annoyed that the detector operators were being distracted by their stomachs when the clock was ticking down and they needed to make the most of every second remaining.
Reg nodded and placed a sheet of paper on Tyler’s desk for him to peruse. “There was a call from Meade’s phone, the one ending in 989, to Garston’s 777 number at 10.20 a.m. It was short, lasting only a couple of minutes. The 989 number made another call straight afterwards, equally brief, and I’m awaiting the subscriber results for the number it rang.”
“Let me know as soon as it comes in,” Jack instructed him.
“I will,” Reggie promised. “Also, as you can see from this printout, Garston received a call from
