Chapter 16 #2
At afternoon briefing, Lauren brings the team up to speed in relation to Gary Fisher but doesn’t mention Bahnaz’s eBay findings.
She shares the photograph of the ‘uniformed PC’ and pins a printout of the still image to the large board at the front of the room.
Their first suspect. The other figures are question marks, captioned only with their aliases – DI Colin Burton; forensics officer; private ambulance driver – and Nadeeka’s description of them.
Although their suspects remain unnamed, the board is beginning to fill up.
They have the registration number of DI Burton’s blue Corsa, and in the past hour they’ve been able to add a potential part index for the private ambulance, after one of Nadeeka’s neighbours remembered seeing a black van with the same initials as her daughter.
‘I’ve asked for a VODS check,’ Sonya tells Lauren.
It’s a promising lead. A vehicle online descriptive search will produce a list of all the UK’s black vans with the same letters in the registration number.
‘I’ll start with vans registered in a twenty-mile radius,’ Sonya says, ‘then I’ll work my way out. ’
‘AJ.’ Lauren turns to him. ‘I understand you’ve been able to retrieve significant data from the victim’s phone?’
‘From his cloud account.’ AJ clears his throat. ‘We don’t have his phone.’
Lauren lets the pedantry go.
‘Okay if I screenshare?’ He gets to his feet, bringing his laptop to the front of the room.
‘We’ve been able to recover a number of incoming messages received in the weeks before the murder, one of which is very interesting indeed.
’ There’s a pause as AJ connects his laptop, and a message appears on the large screen on the wall, along with a phone number.
There’s a collective murmur as everyone takes it in.
You’re fucking dead.
‘How quickly can you trace that number?’ Lauren says.
‘We don’t need to – we had it in the system already.’ AJ clicks his mouse and the screen flicks to the next slide. ‘Scott Hadley. No previous convictions, but a caution for affray and several intel reports relating to recreational drug use and football disorder.’
‘That’s Nadeeka’s ex-husband,’ Lauren says, and the murmur around her grows so loud she has to hold up a hand to bring the room back to order. ‘He told Nadeeka he was out for a run at the time of the murder, but we have yet to speak to him.’
‘Most of the other messages are from Nadeeka Prasanna,’ AJ says, ‘or work-related.’ He clicks his mouse and the screen shows another message.
Nice work. The boss appreciates you working out of hours to get the project signed off. You’ve proved yourself to be a real team player.
‘Carrie Finder?’ AJ turns it into a question.
‘Head of HR,’ Lauren explains. ‘Are there any other messages from Hadley?’
‘No, but there are these . . .’ AJ clicks once more. ‘They were sent to Jamie Golding’s phone via a web-based messaging system accessed through a VPN.’
Lauren stares at the messages, each accompanied by the date it was received.
broken tide ember
silent echo breeze
foggy spiral dusk
whispering cobalt ash
crimson shadow glass
‘I’m getting PTSD flashbacks to GCSE poetry.’ Kenric grimaces.
Sonya laughs. ‘Like you did GCSE poetry!’
Kenric adopts a whimsical expression. ‘I wandered, lonely as a—’
‘Can we focus on the matter in hand, please?’ Lauren snaps.
‘Is it some kind of code?’ Matt looks around the room. ‘Like, the first letter of each word spells out a location . . .’ He trails off, perhaps realizing his theory doesn’t work, but it gives Lauren an idea.
‘Could it be what3words? That identifies locations, right? The words are usually separated by full stops, but if someone wanted to be less obvious they might leave them out.’
‘I’ve got the app.’ Fraser takes out his phone. ‘Foggy dot spiral dot dusk.’ He types it in.
The entire room seems to hold its breath.
‘Nope.’ Fraser shakes his head. ‘The closest is a foggy spiral duck, somewhere in Cornwall.’
‘Silent echo breeze doesn’t work either, boss,’ Matt says, looking up from his own phone.
‘Ember tide broken!’ Bahnaz cries. Everyone turns to look at her.
‘Other way around,’ Fraser says. ‘It’s broken tide—’
‘They’re backwards.’ Bahnaz uses two fingers to navigate the map on her screen. ‘Ember tide broken is a British Legion Club.’
Lauren turns to Fraser. ‘What’s the next one? Breeze echo silent?’ She waits impatiently for him to type it in.
‘A village hall.’
‘Dusk spiral foggy looks like a local pub,’ Matt says. ‘The Lord Admiral, on Princes Street.’
The fourth code is a boutique cinema, and the fifth another pub – the King’s Arms. Lauren looks at her laptop to find the two ‘ND’ dates Nadeeka is sure about, then checks them against the dates on the screen.
A perfect match.
‘The locations must be where Jamie met ND,’ Sonya says.
‘Maybe.’ Lauren is more circumspect. She’s never had an affair, but sending locations in code, via a secure website? It seems a little over the top. And who meets their lover in a village hall? There’s something more going on here than a plain old affair.
And whatever it was . . . it got Jamie Golding killed.