I gave him a brief breakdown of our evening and how boring it had been, and he understood why he hadn’t heard from any of us. Rather than brief me on his discoveries over the phone, he was coming to the office again.
On Christmas Eve, Rochester High Street was as bustling and busy as it ever gets. Street sellers touted their wares, the smells of mulled wine and frying onions filled the air. We all needed to eat, and boy did I need coffee, so en route to the office on foot because we got the cab to let us out at the far end of the High Street, we split up.
Big Ben went for coffee, probably because he wanted to chat up the girls in there and prove he hadn’t lost his touch, and Amanda stopped to snag us some sausages in buns.
Basic came with me to the office. My feet stopped moving the moment I could see the front façade.
There was police tape all over the front door listing the place as a crime scene. Caused to stop walking by the shock of it, I was running the next second. Driven by fury, I tore at the tape, ripping it from the door in a frenzy.
I could see over the frosted panel to the office interior and the mess inside. I was so desperate to get through the door, I almost snapped the key in the lock in my haste.
Throwing the ball of crime scene tape to the floor, I looked around my office. What last night had been a tidy organised space, was now a wreck. The police had come looking for evidence after they arrested us. It was yet another reason why Quinn wanted me locked up last night. With me under arrest, he could legitimately raid my office and take my files.
Now there was nothing we knew about the Sandman case that he didn’t also know. The computer tower from the reception desk was missing. Leaving Basic hovering by the door, I ran through the office to confirm they had taken the computers from both my office and Amanda’s. Then, getting more incensed with every heartbeat, I ran to the back store. They hadn’t just taken the files from the cabinets, the cabinets were gone too.
I heard Amanda swearing and ran back out to find her just inside the front door. She’d charmed the sausage seller into giving her a cardboard box to carry our food in and was holding it in front of her body as she stared wide-eyed at the desolation of our once-tidy office.
A fresh thought hit my chest like a thunderclap, stopping my heart and restarting it. Yanking out my phone, the battery of which was almost dead after a night in a box at the police station, I called my neighbour.
‘Hello, dear,’ Mrs Comerforth’s answered the phone. ‘Will you be home soon? My daughter is coming to take me to her house for Christmas.’
I’d forgotten about that. She told me a few days ago when we were chatting on her doorstep. Being neighbourly, I’d politely enquired as to her plans for the holiday and was pleased to hear she had somewhere to go and people to share it with.
‘I’m afraid I will not be home for a while at least, Mrs Comerforth. I’m terribly sorry. When it comes time for you to go, please deposit the dogs back in my house. I will get there as soon as I am able.’
‘Very good, dear. I heard your name on the news a little while ago. Did you get arrested again?’
I sighed and hung my head. ‘Yes. Yes, I did. I am no longer in custody though. I will be home as soon as I can.’ I repeated.
I was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, I needed a shower, I was hungry, and we were no closer to catching the Sandman and rescuing Jane than we had ever been. With a heartfelt thank you to Mrs Comerforth and a wish that she would have a happy Christmas, I got off the phone.
Amanda had placed the tray of sausages in buns on the reception desk and was holding her head as she looked around.
‘They took everything,’ I let her know. ‘Even the filing cabinets out back.’
‘Hey, folks … Wow!’ Big Ben came through the door with four coffees in a cardboard holder. Like the rest of us, he was shocked at the change from the tidy office we left behind.
‘How are we even going to do the research now?’ Amanda gasped, pulling at her hair in frustration.
Hampering us probably hadn’t been Quinn’s primary intention, just a happy side effect. He had all the data, and at some point, he would catch the Sandman.
I took a few breaths to steady myself while I thought.
‘Jagjit and Alice are on their way here right now. They have information to share and will have a laptop with them. They also have a car,’ Jagjit owns a double cab utility vehicle, ‘so if we need to go anywhere, we can.’ I was going to need to do something about the dogs and probably wanted to go home to get my own laptop.
Big Ben put the coffees down and grabbed a sausage. Taking a bite, he spoke around the gob of bread and meat in his mouth.
‘We have a white board still,’ he nodded his head across the room. ‘Until Jagjit turns up, why don’t we put our heads together and see what we know?’
Big Ben acting as the calm voice of reason was like waking up from a coma to discover
