"Look after it. I might need it."
Now she was dumbfounded. "Whatever for?"
"Trust me," he said, tapping his index and forefinger against the breakfast bar. "I need to go. It's important and I can't leave it until the morning."
He leaned in to kiss her, Alice angling her head to meet his, and they kissed. It was brief but affectionate.
"We still need to talk this through," she said.
He nodded. "Yes, we do. And I intend to make sure we get the time."
With that said, he strode from the kitchen without another word. The dog followed, and when he reached the front door, he tried to step out with Tom which was a welcome change. Tom dropped to his haunches, ruffling the terrier's head but making sure he understood he was to stay here.
"I'll be back soon, little man."
Tom hurried to his car, his mind a whirlwind of thoughts. Not for Alice and his doubts about their relationship, but because of the note Adrian Gage had left for her. He'd found a link, one that everybody had missed and he was determined to flesh it out before he shared it with anyone else. Driving to the station, he found his confidence building. Maybe now he was going to be able to make some sense of all this. Somehow. He thought of Eric. How he could use the constable's ability to sift through information right now, but he decided against calling him in. Everyone deserved a bit of personal time, and this wasn't an emergency.
Much of the station was in darkness with few people around. Those on nights were either out and about or manning the custody suite, but it was quieter than usual. Flicking on the lights in the ops room, Tom pulled out a chair and switched a computer on. He typed Prometheus Energy into the search bar and hit return. The page filled with numerous articles detailing the proposed Norfolk Wash project. Liam Hansell's picture appeared in the image search, standing in an orange high-viz jacket and a hard hat, presumably out at sea on a maintenance vessel. There were pages of hits listed and Tom felt the weight of a night's work sorting through them was going to be likely. He sensed he was on the same path that Adrian Gage must have trodden, but he was still unsure as to why.
The note Gage left for Alice. Torn from a small pad with a blue bar across the top, only this one was complete, including the company logo. Prometheus Energy. He was annoyed with himself. Having left the offices of the company, he'd spied the name plate on the wall, blue background and white lettering, but still hadn't made the connection. Adrian Gage had left a clue for him with his sister, a piece of paper that told him where Gage had been. And he'd missed it. Until now.
Reaching the third page of results, he was finding links to the same articles only printed in different newspapers and online magazines. Sitting back, he put his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers. Why would Adrian Gage be at the offices of Prometheus Energy? If he could figure that out, then he would more than likely be able to narrow down the search criteria for what he was trying to find. Gage had a proven track record of exposing corruption, of forcing dodgy backroom deals out into the open. If this was the case here, then the company must have something to hide.
Returning to the search bar, he typed in the word 'controversy' after the company name and hit return. The screen shifted and the results changed. The first three entries were related to the activism. A shot of Mary Beckett was there alongside the second article. There didn't seem like much to the protesters that would be of interest to a journalist such as Gage. Objections to planning proposals of this nature were common and hardly likely to be the big 'final score' he'd described to his sister. It was the fourth result that stood out to him, though. Opening it up, he read through the article and the further he read down the more it ticked the boxes. He zeroed in on that story, searching for it as a search term of its own. There was no shortage of articles and he found several contradicting one another. This was it. It had to be.
Buoyed by the find, he took a note of the name and typed it into the police national computer. The results returned a local address in King's Lynn, on the western edge of the county. Glancing at the clock, he figured at this time of the night he could be there within half an hour. It would be late to drop by unannounced, but upsetting people came with the warrant card. He made a note of the address before switching off his monitor and pulling his jacket off the back of his chair. He left ops with such haste he didn't think to turn the lights off, quickening his pace along the corridor.
Lights were on, on the ground floor of the house when Tom pulled up outside. He wasn't familiar with the area he found himself in. The estate was probably built in the sixties, terraces of half a dozen houses, uniform in both size and appearance for the most part. They were most likely all once council owned, but many had been bought or sold off with the odd house in each run having been adapted. Whereas many had white boarding clad on the front elevation, some had been changed to more contemporary colours to match the new windows and doors. Each house had a small garden to the front, bounded by a fence or a low wall with varying degrees of attention paid to the upkeep. The residents' parking was all on the street however, with no driveways for any of the houses. Some had knocked down the fence and driven
