‘I think you’ll want to see this,’ Helen said after scanning the file. She knew what she was looking for; years of chewing over investigative materials had honed her skills to notice anything that stood out. This nugget did just that. ‘We already have Jean-Luc’s DNA there from a few weeks ago, but they found chewing gum in a waste paper, on top of a newspaper dated last week, yielding DNA matching Jean-Luc’s. He’s alive.’
‘And he’s visited his mother. When is she to be interviewed again? She lied to the gendarmerie,’ Sylvia said.
Helen made a phone call to the control room, where squad cars were dispatched across the city, and it wouldn’t be long until Madame Bisset was in custody answering some uncomfortable questions.
‘I don’t think it’s expedient to share this with Khalil Dalmani just yet,’ Helen said.
‘I agree,’ Sylvia replied.
‘He needs to be kept at arm’s length until we’ve got some answers about why his son is so valuable. He says he hasn’t received a ransom demand, so the motive isn’t money. There’s something else, and my guess is that he knows what it is. He wouldn’t tell me the name of the security expert who has replaced Jean-Luc, but I have my suspicions.’
Sylvia looked at her, waiting for an explanation.
‘He employed Grant Tennyson, a Brit, last year, as his security head for AlGaz.’
‘I thought Jean-Luc was his head of security?’ Sylvia said.
‘Only for the inner family circle. Tennyson is ex-military. I know him.’
‘So Dalmani is non-compliant to your investigation. Fuck him, Helen, crack on with what you’ve got. Are you still in touch?’ Sylvia asked.
Helen loved Sylvia’s down-to-earth Irish expletive-laden frankness. It made things much easier if one could talk openly, and it saved time. She’d worked with investigators in the past who tiptoed around red tape and vagueness and Sylvia’s approach was refreshing.
‘No. He’s an old contemporary of mine, I don’t keep in touch with many army people – the RMP isn’t very popular among infantry regiments,’ she added.
Sylvia smirked. ‘I wonder why. You guys are always on their cases, right?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Have you got anything on the Range Rover burned out at Calais yet?’ Sylvia asked.
Helen bristled subtly. The head of International Missing Persons was a busy woman, and she had other cases to review today, but she was lingering, and Helen couldn’t help wondering if she’d had her nose put out of joint because, again, the RMP were encroaching on somebody else’s turf: this time, civilian. Helen decided that Sylvia was simply keen to help. Her gut told her that Sylvia was on her side, and that she was being trusted to use her judgement with Interpol’s absolute backing. Solid police work spoke for itself, and Helen saw in Sylvia a communal desire to catch the perpetrators of a crime. There was no agenda. And they had no history.
‘Yes,’ Helen replied. She brought the fire report up on her laptop and scanned the most important sections, which she’d previously highlighted.
‘The plates were fake – any dodgy garage in France would make them up for twenty euros. The original plates from which they were cloned belong to a farmer in Normandy – they’re still on his almost identical Range Rover. Any serial number or tool markings on the burned-out car were lost in the fire. There was evidence of ammunition having been in the boot and glove compartment at some point, indicating the owners mean business, and that they’re familiar with illegal arms acquisition – a worrying development. The most promising detail is that the accelerant cans were found nearby. It was bog-standard petrol, but the idiots left their receipt in a plastic bag, buried in a very crap and hasty shallow grave.’
‘It’s always easier to catch dumbasses,’ Sylvia said.
‘We’ve traced it to a garage just outside Lille, and the CCTV footage is being searched as we speak.’
‘Well done – that’s great work,’ Sylvia said, still standing. She turned around from her vantage point at the window. ‘I had a memo come in to me from the head of Counter Terrorism.’
‘Peter Knowles?’ Helen asked.
‘Yes. He’s been informed by the UK Home Office that activity around the property of Fawaz bin Nabil has stabilised and he’s no longer travelling to Europe. In fact, he’s up to very little. I thought you’d be interested to know.’
The penny dropped. Sylvia had her back. Working for multi-layered international organisations meant that information could get lost in translation. What was important to Counter Terrorism and Peter Knowles might not necessarily strike anyone as important to a new secondment delving into a very different angle on the floor above. A standardised computer network would help but with that came further headaches to do with clearance levels. So the fact that Sylvia was passing on this information meant she was considered part of the team.
‘Thank you. I am. Nabil Tradings is a rabbit warren of trails and dead ends – I’ve barely begun on them yet. It’s curious that the Americans have been trying to catch him out for years, but yet they can’t come up with an explanation for his recent behaviour. What does “inactive” mean? How are they so sure he’s settled at home in front of a cosy fire?’
‘He’s been under their surveillance for years. Even the Americans make mistakes,’ Sylvia said.
They held each other’s gaze for a second.
‘Here are my login details, familiarise yourself with the software – it’s easy.’ Sylvia scribbled down her password on a piece of paper and went to her desk to show Helen how to access her files.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Helen asked, following her and peering at the screen.
‘In my experience, missing kids often fall through the net because people like us don’t talk. Here we have an opportunity to find someone’s child, but we improve our chances if we work together. Nail Nabil Tradings and you get closer to Fawaz himself.’
‘It’s not my area of speciality,’ Helen said.
‘So why do they call you
