He rolled the Insignia to a halt in the same spot he’d parked the last time he’d been out here, past the news vans and just short of the cluster of police vehicles. Nicky was in the passenger seat beside him, a finger to one ear and her mobile to the other, straining to hear the voice at the other end of the line. Fleet had been lost in his thoughts, hypnotized by the sound of the rain and the steady sweep of the wiper blades, and he tuned back in to what was being said.
“Sorry, Liv, can you repeat that? I lost you when we left the main road. Liv? Are you—”
Nicky pulled the handset from her ear and frowned at the screen. Fleet could hear the beeps signaling a disconnect sounding faintly from the earpiece.
“Who’s Liv?” he said.
“Olivia. PC Brightman. She’s the one who was following up on the phone the kids say they found in the woods. The one they decided must have been Sadie’s.”
“And? Any joy?”
“We’ve got confirmation that the emergency call Cora made at the start of all of this came from a number that was registered to a pay-as-you-go. All the search party kids had contracts, so we know it almost certainly wasn’t one of theirs. And given that their phones all apparently went missing . . .”
“But is there anything definitively linking it to Sadie?”
“Well, for starters, the number was assigned three days before she disappeared.”
Fleet felt a tightening in his stomach, a sense of something clicking into place.
“And we found the shop the pay-as-you-go was bought from,” Nicky went on. “The bad news is that the CCTV footage has already been deleted. Plus, the phone was paid for in cash, so there’s no record there either. But Liv has been down there talking to the employees. Apparently the kid who sold the phone near shat himself when Liv showed him Sadie’s picture. He’d seen her on the news, obviously, and he was terrified he was going to end up in handcuffs.”
“For what exactly?” said Fleet.
“Obstruction of justice, I suppose. Failing to respond to our requests for information. Although Liv said the kid also stank of weed. Hence the memory loss, perhaps.”
“So he ID’d her? He confirmed he sold the phone to Sadie?”
“He gave a tentative ID. He said it might have been Sadie who bought the phone. That was as far as he was prepared to go. But if it was her, he said, she didn’t look anything like she does in the picture we’ve been circulating to the press.”
“Meaning she disguised herself?”
“Possibly,” agreed Nicky. “Or possibly he was just trying to cover his back.”
Fleet considered for a moment. He reached to open the car door. “Either way,” he said, “and given what Sadie’s friends have told us, we need to work on the basis the phone was hers. I assume it was bagged with everything else the kids had on them when we caught up with them?”
“It was. I’ve checked in with Forensics, and they’re bumping it to the top of the queue. It looks like the phone got wet in the rain, so there was no obvious sign of the blood Cora mentioned, and the fingerprint situation is a mess. But if there’s something there, they’ll find it.”
Fleet nodded his approval and unfolded himself into the weather. He’d come prepared this time. As well as a waterproof jacket, he was wearing a pair of boots he’d bought from one of the fishing supply stores near the harbor, and they sank into the ground the moment he took a step from the gravel onto the grass.
He strode heavily toward the woods, as Nicky checked her mobile again at his side.
“Nothing,” she said. “Not even a single bar. It’s a miracle those kids got reception out here at all.”
They passed several police officers returning from the woods, and Fleet mirrored their salutes.
“You know,” said Nicky, “that might actually make sense. A disguise, I mean, even if it was just sunglasses and a ponytail. If Sadie bought the phone, but didn’t want to be recognized. And the money. The fact she’d stopped paying her wages into her account. It means she would have had cash—money to spend that couldn’t be traced. Plus, there’s the fact she bought a second phone in the first place . . .”
“You think she ran away after all,” said Fleet, who’d been mulling over the same thoughts himself.
“Maybe she was planning to,” Nicky replied. “I mean, everyone’s been saying it would have been totally out of character, right? That Sadie was prepping for her A levels after getting straight nines on her GCSEs, had already drawn up a short list of universities. But those memes, the stuff online . . . maybe they bothered her more than people realized.”
“Because . . .” Fleet prompted.
“Because . . .” Nicky frowned. She shook her head. And then she stopped walking. “Because the rumors that she was sleeping around were true. Just like Lara said.”
Fleet stopped walking himself. He raised his eyebrows, then turned and continued on.
“So is that the theory now?” said Nicky, her voice betraying her excitement. “That Sadie ran away? Does that mean . . . Do you think she might actually be alive? Except . . .” She slowed again. “How does that tally with us finding her bag? And her coat, more importantly. The blood . . .”
It was the very question Fleet had been wrestling with, and he didn’t like any of the answers he’d come up with. The only one that made sense was barely an answer at all, just the same meaningless phrase that had been going around and around in his head. It sounds like there’s more than one thing going on . . .
They entered the forest, and this time they ran into a group of at least a dozen officers heading back toward the Land Rovers. Instead of saluting this time, Fleet frowned. “Shit,” he muttered.
And then, with a glance at Nicky, he picked up the pace.
* * *
Superintendent Burton was standing under a
