The owners proved to be a delightful elderly couple. Their story was symptomatic of the time and social conditions in which they lived. Stoical, they had accepted their fate and closed down the business in the face of huge competition and a meagre profit that dwindled with each passing year. The less people travelled, the less they needed to board their pets; it was a simple enough equation, with no room for diversification. The couple were happy enough for the two detectives to search away, even tossing Bliss the keys and asking him to pop them back through the letterbox when they were done.
‘It’s still the best break we have at the moment,’ Bishop insisted when they all assembled in the incident room shortly before 5.00pm. ‘We need to widen the search. Perhaps get other areas involved and looking on our behalf.’
Bliss understood his colleague’s line of thinking – but the trouble was, none of them knew precisely how far that search area might extend, nor in which direction. The dumping of their first victim’s body at the chalk pits suggested the holding area might be as far south as Cambridge. A lot of acreage stood between the two cities. It felt like an impossible task. But Bishop was right not to show his anxiety. Bliss wouldn’t have, either.
Data had started coming in from mobile providers. There was plenty of it, and it would take a while to collate into some kind of order. Warburton, Bishop and Bliss discussed the relative importance of what they had and what was to come. Their first request had been related to their victim’s presumed business phone, and the three decided they had progressed beyond the point where its data would be of use to them in finding Abbi Turner. Their initial goal, that of finding out why Majidah Rassooli had been killed and by whom, was no longer the Phoenix priority; what they were after now was anything that might lead them to the man Turner had been seeing recently. For that, they needed her phone data, which had not yet arrived and was unlikely to be ready for assessment until the following day.
Bliss was the first to venture his thoughts on the matter. ‘I’m not convinced we’ll find what we’re looking for. People can be dumb, which is often the reason we catch them. They make stupid mistakes when they commit crimes. But we’re not talking about criminals here. These girls share information the way they share their fears. Yes, you could argue that if they are willing to branch out on their own, they’re probably dense enough to make stupid mistakes, like having incriminating text conversations on their phones. But do any of us genuinely believe we’ll find something from this Des bloke on Turner’s phone?’
‘You said criminals could be dumb,’ Bishop countered.
‘And I’m not saying he’s not. I’m saying I doubt she is. Keeping incriminating evidence on a phone she’s already not supposed to have would be foolish in the extreme.’
‘So why did we have Gul beg for the data?’ Warburton asked.
‘Because we still need to go through the motions. And yes, I suppose there is still a remote possibility of us finding something useful. But we’ve moved on since making the initial request, the parameters have changed, and to me it’s more likely to be Nicola Parkinson’s phones that give us something solid.’
‘And when do we expect to have that data in?’
‘First thing tomorrow, with a bit of luck and a following wind.’
Bishop was of the opinion that they’d be better off recharging their batteries while those with the right amount of technical savvy went about the business of sorting the data into neat packages of relevant information. Warburton agreed. Both looked to Bliss, who nodded.
After Warburton called it a night, Bliss rejected requests to join the others for a drink. He had plans, he told them. He just didn’t reveal what they were.
Chandler had come up trumps. Her friend, Trish, worked for a company based in a unit in Orton Longueville. They specialised in exercise and physical therapy, part of which included specialist massage techniques. Bliss sat in a chair outside her designated room for fifteen minutes while she treated her final scheduled client of the day. When it was his turn, he shook Trish’s hand and thanked her for extending her working day on his behalf. She looked to be about the same age as Chandler, and wore what looked like white scrubs beneath a white jacket, her hair up and held in place with an array of claw-like clips.
‘Penny told me it was an emergency,’ she explained with a warm smile.
‘I think she exaggerated. I ache and I’m a bit sore, but I’d hardly describe it as a crisis.’
Trish shook her head. The smile broadened. ‘Oh, no. Penny said the emergency was her need not to hear you whingeing and whining anymore.’
Bliss laughed. Typical. ‘Again, she exaggerates. So, how do we do this?’
Trish asked him a few pointed questions about his general health and fitness and made a few notes in her diary as well as on a sheet of unlined A4 paper. Eventually she nodded. ‘Sounds to me as if the areas we need to work on most are your arms, shoulders and legs. If you’re happy for me to go ahead, I’ll leave the room for a couple of minutes while you strip down to your underwear. There’s a fresh towel on the massage table that you can wrap around you for modesty.’
Five minutes later, Bliss was face down looking through a hole in the table while Trish got to work on him. Powerful fingers kneaded his muscles, from his wrists up along the arms. She had just moved from his biceps to his
