Accessing financial records was one thing, the agents needed a separate court order to put a tracker on his truck, and they needed authorization from West’s boss in order to apply. He took some convincing, but ultimately seemed as intrigued as they were. The judge waved it through without a second look. No body, therefore, no question the boy might have faked his death. The two agents returned to the island to fit the device.
It wasn’t the easiest to fit. Sam Wheatley lived in a small house right on the clifftop overlooking the wide stretch of Silverlea Bay. He left the vehicle close by the house, clearly visible from the kitchen and living room windows, where he seemed to spend most of his time when at home. There was no easy place to hide out and wait, so the only option was to come in the night, at three am, and hope the guy wasn’t an insomniac. It wouldn’t have been a problem if they could have used the micro tracker, that could be installed in moments, but it only had a battery life of about three days. So West wanted to use the much larger version which would last indefinitely, but had to be wired into the truck’s battery. And that meant jimmying the hood open. Working by flashlight it would take at least five minutes. Five minutes when they could be spotted.
However, she was fortunate to have a partner in Black who loved this side of the job. His father ran a garage, and he and his brothers had grown up around cars. She kept watch while he worked, getting it open in less than twenty seconds, and fitting the wires, then feeding them down so the device itself could be fixed on the truck’s underside. A skilled mechanic could now do a full service and wouldn’t notice anything was wrong, only an electrical auto engineer might wonder what the additional wires were running from the battery. Better hope he didn’t break down.
They tracked Wheatley for a week, charting where he went and how long he stayed, building up a picture. He slept at home most nights, but had a girlfriend in Newlea, a woman they identified to be one Milla Reynolds, a nurse working at Newlea General Hospital. They ran the full electronic works onto her, but if she was sheltering Billy Wheatley at her address, she was keeping quiet about it.
Sam Wheatley was buying food though, too much of it, and using cash to buy it. They pulled the CCTV from the store to get an idea what he was buying, and those raised more doubts. There was a lot of pasta, dried stuff. Plus bottles of water. Even more odd, he was buying fuel. They watched him fill up four twenty-liter plastic jerry cans, again paying cash. But then they sat there in the back of his truck for three days, while he drove around. Always the same places – home, Milla’s place in Newlea, and the boatyard in Holport where his boat was out of the water being antifouled.
Then he went somewhere else.
By then though, frustratingly, West and Black were off the island, catching up with paperwork in the FBI base in Chelsea, having only been given permission to spend three days over there. They watched Sam Wheatley’s movements on the screen of West’s computer.
“What’s at this Moors’ Point then?” Black asked, leaning in for a better look. The tracker recorded its routes overlaid on a Google map, but that had little information on where exactly Wheatley had gone, it was just a blank expanse of green.
“I’ll get a map from the map room,” West said, pushing back in her chair.
Ten minutes later the two of them pored over an old-fashioned fold-out map. It had far more detail, showing footpaths leading up and down the low cliffs from the small parking area. A sandy bay to the south, and, behind a corner of the island, more marshy area to the north. There were no buildings though, no obvious reason why he’d visit.
“Maybe he was going for a hike?” Black observed. “Guy has just lost his kid after all.”
“Yeah. Only we’re working on the theory he hasn’t lost his kid.” West replied. She tapped a finger on the map, near to where it showed the parking area. “What’s this mean?”
Black checked the legend. “Viewpoint.”
“No, this symbol.”
“Oh.” Black looked again. “Sea caves.”
The second alarm came a couple weeks later. That was the way the system worked. It was designed to get triggered either by a single highly unusual event, or a combination of smaller, less significant anomalies that together could mean something. The way law enforcement was going, soon the whole damn thing would be automated, at least that’s what Black said, sounding like he was himself an old-timer, instead of a young guy just starting out.
The trigger was Amber Atherton, the young woman West and Black had interviewed, and identified as perhaps Wheatley’s only friend – certainly his closest friend. She’d traveled back to the island to attend his memorial service, and now she was heading back again, three weeks after that. The odd thing – she hadn’t been back once in the six months previous.
She had no car, and even if she had, there wasn’t enough to get a court order to put a tracker on it, so they had to do it the old fashioned way, flying back to the island and sitting outside her old house, where her mother and younger sister still lived. Since they had her ferry booking in advance they were able to get there in time to watch her arrive. And
