by Simon Hall
The lights on the Derriford roundabout turned green, but the line of traffic approaching froze at their wailing assault. The driver shrieked around the corner towards the airport. Dan gripped the door handle tighter and fought back a temptation to wave to the line of gawping motorists.
Just a couple of minutes and they’d be there. He had to ask Adam now. There’d be no time when they got to Gibson’s car. He’d go mad, but it had to be now. He felt a shot of adrenaline pulse its shocking way into his system, the thought of Nicola sobbing helplessly, cold, alone, terrified suddenly back in his mind. He blinked it away and cleared his throat.
‘Adam, before we get there …’
‘Yes, what?’ he snapped, not looking up from his notes.
‘Can I get a cameraman to come and film the car?’
‘No. I won’t want Gibson to know we’ve found it yet.’
Dan had expected that. ‘OK. But my editor’s on my back and I do need to know what I can run for a story tonight.’
‘OK. You want something new so they can have you in the studio again?’
‘Yes. Well, sort of …’
Adam’s detective’s instinct sensed the discomfort. His head span round.
‘What do you mean – sort of?’
‘I mean … well … we want to run something from the answer machine message he left.’
The detective’s eyes narrowed. ‘No chance. It’s vital evidence. I can’t allow that. Anyway it’s gone to the labs for more detailed analysis. We’ve only got transcripts left.’
Dan took a breath. ‘Well … that’s not quite true.’
‘What? What have you done?’
‘Lizzie,’ said Dan, carefully distancing himself from her, ‘decided we should take a copy of the tape.’
Adam stared at him, and Dan braced himself for the attack. ‘In fairness,’ he added quickly, remembering what he’d prepared to say, ‘Gibson did call us and the tape was our property and we did hand it over to you as soon as we knew we had it and we are helping as much as we can and …’
‘OK, that’s enough,’ cut in Adam, a finger jabbing towards Dan’s chest. ‘Let’s get something straight here. This is my inquiry, not yours. Got that? You’re here because I need your help, but what I say goes. It’s as simple as that. And whatever you might think, it’s not a bloody game either. There’s a kid’s life at stake. It doesn’t get any bigger than this. Do you want to kill a young girl because you think getting some tawdry little exclusive is more important than saving her?’
Dan gulped at the attack. The pain in his ankle stabbed at him, and the thought of Nicola was back, vivid before his eyes. He didn’t know what to say, so broke Adam’s glare to look out at the planes parked in a neat line through the fence by the side of the road. He gripped harder at the handle above the door.
‘I haven’t got time to rollock you,’ Adam continued. ‘I’ve got much more important things to think about. But consider yourself warned. Don’t do anything else without my say so. Ever. Got that?’
Dan nodded and Adam turned back to look at the road ahead, a couple of police cars guarding it.
‘Anyway, I don’t suppose I’ve got much choice as we need your help,’ he went on. ‘I’d have been surprised if you hadn’t taken a copy of the tape. I’m used to you bloody devious hacks by now. It’s worse than working with criminals. We’ll sort out what bit you can run later. But there’s going to be a price.’
‘Sure,’ said Dan trying not to let his relief show. The conversation hadn’t been anything like as fiery as he’d feared. ‘You know I’ll do whatever I can to help you find Nicola. What is it?’
‘Eleanor and Michael still haven’t come up with anything from the clues Gibson gave us. So I want you to appeal for more help on air tonight. And this time we’re going to be waiting overnight in your office to see if we can trace the call. With luck, the combination of that and finding his car might just lead us to him.’
They drew up in a corner of the car park, the rows of vehicles like a spectrum of colour, all obediently awaiting the return of their masters. Gibson’s car was surrounded by the familiar cordon of police tape, a couple of uniformed officers on sentry duty. One held up the tape and Adam ducked under it, Dan limping behind.
The driver’s door was open and a woman in a white overall was leaning inside, examining under the seat. A couple more white-clad figures worked on the other side and one was under the car at the front poking and scraping at the tyres. It was a red Ford Escort, about six years old, a couple of hints of gathering rust around its doors.
‘Any leads, Janey?’ asked Adam.
The woman didn’t turn around from inside the car and her voice was muffled. ‘Not that I can see straight away, sir. We’re checking for fibres now in case there might be something revealing, and seeing if there’s any distinctive mud on the tyres, but at first glance it doesn’t look like it. It’s definitely the car he used, though. There are traces of fibres on the passenger seat from the grey coat Nicola was wearing. They’re very distinctive and match some we took from her bedroom.’ She turned round and pointed to a sealed plastic bag on a white sheet laid out beside the car. ‘We also found a couple of long blonde hairs. I’m pretty sure they’re Nicola’s, but that’s subject to confirmation by the labs.’
‘We can take a shortcut on that, sir,’ came a familiar voice behind them.
They both turned around to see Claire walking towards them. She was holding a DVD.
‘I’ve just been checking the airport’s CCTV. It shows Gibson and Nicola driving in here, then it picks them up walking hand in hand towards the airport terminal. They don’t go in. They walk past and up that road by the side of the airfield.’
Claire gestured to a lane running alongside the airport, giving Dan a hint of a wink as Adam turned and stared. ‘The CCTV loses them before you can see what they do,’ she added. ‘It’s only trained on the area around the terminal.’
‘Good to have you back with us, Claire,’ said Adam, ‘and good work too. Where does the road go to?’
‘There are a few more houses up there sir, but it’s a dead end after that. It goes on for about half a mile or so, then peters out into a little country lane.’
‘Where does the lane go?’
‘Take your pick, sir. There are several footpaths that run off it. A couple head back towards the city, the others out on to Dartmoor.’
Adam stared at the road. ‘We know he planned all this carefully,’ he said slowly. ‘So he could have left another car up there for his getaway. Or he could have gone out onto the moor somewhere. That would fit with the quiet in the background of the message he left us. What’s your guess, Claire?’
‘I don’t think he’d want to risk walking far with Nicola, sir. He’d have to have some transport waiting. But by the time he’s driven here and switched cars, that must take up 15 to 20 minutes. Which would only leave him half an hour or so to run before he knew we’d be onto him.’
‘Exactly,’ replied Adam thoughtfully. ‘Which means our search radius has just halved. I’m sure he’s not holed up anywhere around the airport, but get the TAG teams to do a search anyway. And check for tyre tracks too, although that’s probably going to be a waste of time given the drizzle. But we’re closing in on him, aren’t we? We’re getting closer. The question is, what exactly is this deadline he’s been on about and why? And how much time have we got?’
Dan looked to the north, at the dark and brooding tors of Dartmoor’s hills, their rocky outlines softened by the drifting mist. The opaque light had turned the wilderness a uniform sweep of grey. Miles of secluded loneliness, thousands of possible hiding places.
‘He’s on the moor,’ Dan muttered softly. ‘And he’s waiting for us to come to him.’
Chapter Seventeen
THE NEWSROOM FELT SOULLESS without the scurrying journalists and technical staff, Dan thought, as he sat on the edge of a desk. It was as though it had lost its voice. It was never quiet, always filled with someone shoutin
g a question or command, telephones with their continual electronic trilling, the burble of computers. But tonight the only sound was their breathing. They’d tried to chat a couple of times to pass the hours but the conversation quickly ebbed, as though they feared they might frighten away that which they were hunting.
A tangle of wires led from the answer machine to a laptop computer, by which stood Zac Phillips, renowned as the most talented of Greater Wessex Police’s technical crime – or Square Eyes – division. He fidgeted with the laptop’s touchpad as his eyes bounced back and forth, from phone to screen. Green waveforms danced on the display. He’d explained what it meant earlier, in more detail than any of them could take in. Adam summed it up simply. It was working and it was waiting.
Eleanor and Michael sat side by side at the desk. She was reading a book. He was staring at Zac and the screen, occasionally smiling shyly at anyone who caught his eye. Adam wanted them there in case there was another cryptic clue. The undefined deadline was gnawing at him. Dan could see it in the way he stalked back and forth across the newsroom, twitching at every slight sound that could have been the phone readying to ring. If there was a clue, he wanted to start work on it now.
The search teams were in bed, resting ready for the morning, but strictly on call, mobiles by their sides. If they got their breakthrough tonight they would go without hesitation. They didn’t know how long they had. They couldn’t risk wasting any time.
Dan had brought a book too – some detective fiction he thought would be appropriate – but he hadn’t managed to read a page. Who needed imagination and fantasy when you had a case like this?
He’d been interested in what he’d learnt about Michael and Eleanor. He was a cruciverbalist – a crossword addict, he’d explained – and a cryptographer – a code-breaker too. He started doing puzzles at his grammar school in Milton Keynes when the class had been taught about the neighbouring BletchleyPark, the old Second World War Enigma code-cracking centre. He had a natural talent and became the youngest ever winner of the Daily Bulletin’s annual crossword puzzle competition. Aged just 20, he had beaten thousands of others and completed the championship grid in under seven minutes. His ability had attracted the attention of what he referred to only as the “government”, and he’d been working for them ever since.
Eleanor was very different. Before she retired, she’d been a professor at KentUniversity, specialising in pure mathematics. Kent police were faced with a serial rapist whom they couldn’t catch. She’d read a newspaper report about the case and noticed a pattern in the dates and times when he struck. It was something complex that Dan couldn’t follow, but to do with prime numbers. Her work had helped catch the man and see him sentenced to life in prison. She’d been added to SOCA’s list of experts and was often called on when there was a crime, which could involve an element of pattern or riddle.
The pair had now worked together on several cases, she said. Three in fact, added Michael, pointing out they’d got results in two, a success rate of 66.6 per cent recurring. This case was important because he wanted to get the average up to 75 per cent, not see it fall back to 50. Dan had noticed Adam’s irritated shake of the head at their joviality. All he could see in the detective’s mind was Nicola and a ticking clock.
The phone rang, startlingly loud in the empty office. As one they all jumped, eyes spun and fixed on the screen that Zac was monitoring, his face lit green by the display.
‘We’ve got a trace,’ he whispered. ‘It’s an Exeter number.’
‘That’s in the target area,’ hissed Adam, leaning over the laptop. ‘Just …’
‘Doing the grid on the address now … homing in on the location … just need a few more seconds …’
The answer machine kicked in, Craig’s resonant voice. ‘This is Wessex Tonight. We’re sorry but the newsroom is unstaffed at the moment …’
Dan looked questioningly at Adam, pointed to the phone, but the detective shook his head. He wanted to let Gibson talk to the machine. It was a tight call Adam had said, but if he knows we’re here, he’ll probably hang up straight away. He left a long message last night. Let’s hope he leaves a similar one tonight, gives us plenty of time to trace the call.
‘ …but if you leave your name, number, and a short message, then we’ll get back to you,’ the machine recited, followed by a long electronic bleep.
‘Got it!’ whispered Zac as a map flashed up on his screen. ‘It’s just outside Exeter. It’s …’ he paused, looked at the expectant faces surrounding him, frowned. ‘It’s the headquarters of the fire service.’
‘Wanted to let you know we were called out to a small fire in the thatch of a cottage at Topsham, just outside Exeter,’ came a cheerful voice from the machine’s speaker. ‘We put it out with minimal damage. Apart from that, it’s been a quiet night. All the best to you.’
Adam let out a long hiss. They settled back in their seats. Dan shifted his weight to try to ease his ankle. It was throbbing again. Maybe he would have to go to see the doctor. It didn’t seem to be getting any better. He didn’t like not being able to take Rutherford for a run. Plus, was it his imagination or could he feel his waistline growing because of the lack of exercise?
He checked his watch. It said almost five to two. He looked at the newsroom clock, radio controlled and always accurate. Quarter past. He went to wind the Rolex but stopped, didn’t see the point. It would always run slow no matter what, and he was used to adding on the missing minutes. Damn that jeweller, his own gullibility and desire to be flash. Quarter past two, but he didn’t feel too jaded, despite the chaos of the day.
Lizzie had professed herself “pleased” with the story he’d produced, quite an accolade on her less than fulsome scale. He’d kept the discovery of Gibson’s car a secret, but put in a long section of the tape recording of his call. Even if he did say so himself, it had sounded chilling and made for compulsive viewing. Lizzie had sent a pointed email to the secretary of the region’s Royal Television Society, making sure that she watched tonight’s programme.
After a long debate with Adam they’d agreed he could use the part where Gibson talked about Nicola being safe, thinking she was playing a game, and the section where he talked about whether he was a psychopath. It sounded highly dramatic and it wouldn’t compromise the investigation. Dan sat in the studio to do his live update, mentioned the SOCA experts had been called in before finally appealing for Gibson to get in touch again, just as Adam had asked.
So, now the question. Would he? Earlier in the evening, Dan had been confident, even convinced. Gibson hadn’t been able to resist it before. But now, sitting in the dark and silent newsroom, starting to feel cold and the first heavy pull of the tentacles of fatigue, he wasn’t so sure. Gibson was a clever man. He must surely have guessed they’d be waiting, ready to trace his call?
He thought about Claire, imagined her curled up in bed in her flat, wondered when he’d next have the chance to lie beside her. This weekend, it would have to be. They hadn’t had enough time together lately, and he didn’t want them to forget the enjoyment of each other’s company. That way lay the disintegration of the relationship, if they forgot it was worth trying. He’d take her and Rutherford for a walk and then have some dinner. That was if his ankle was up to it. And if they’d caught Gibson and found Nicola.
Zac was running his index finger lovingly over the laptop’s touchpad, Eleanor calmly reading a book, Michael staring at the floor, one knee jigging up and down. Adam gazed at a health and safety poster on the wall, then began stalking repeatedly across the newsroom again. Dan thought he looked like an expectant father.
He checked the clock. It ticked around to half past two. Dan hadn’t realised how loud it was until he heard its relentless motion in the silence of the night.
The phone rang.
‘Withheld number this time,’ whispered Zac. ‘But it’s a mobile.’
Adam was by the screen. ‘This is it.’
‘Do I answer it?’ asked
Dan.
‘Only if he specifically asks you to. If he’s going to ramble on, let him. It gives us more time. Come on Zac.’
‘It’ll take a few mins. It’s more complex to trace than the fire station call.’
‘ …then we’ll get back to you.’ ended the voice on the machine.
‘Come on,’ hissed Adam bending over the computer.
The answer machine beeped and a familiar voice crackled out, but cheerful this time, almost bubbling.
‘Hello, everyone, listening in live, no doubt, trying to trace me. I’m not quite ready to see you again, Adam and Dan, so I’ll make this brief. That was a nice report tonight, Dan. Here are your penultimate – yes penultimate – clues. What elements make up a band of gold and in what order, and remember the rose! What’s in a name? See you very soon now, but don’t forget – your time’s running out.’
The machine beeped again as the call was cut.
‘Well?’ spat Adam, leaning over Zac. ‘Well? Did you get him?’
Zac tapped away at a couple of keys. ‘Well?’ urged Adam again. ‘Come on!’
A map flickered onto the computer screen. It was the south west peninsula. Colours spun, some of the land shaded red, most of it blue. The image changed, zoomed in to Devon and more colours covered the screen.
‘Well?’ hissed Adam savagely, his fists in knots.
Zac pressed a final key, leaned back, breathed out heavily. ‘No, we didn’t get him.’
‘Bollocks!’ bellowed Adam, standing up and yanking his tie even further down his neck.
Zac looked up at him. ‘But we did narrow it down quite a bit,’ he said, pointing at the screen. ‘Look here. This is Devon.’
The phone rang again. ‘Ignore it,’ growled Adam. ‘I don’t want to hear about any more bloody thatch fires. Zac, show me what you’ve found.’
‘Well, as I was saying, this is Devon. And if I zoom the screen in a bit, you’ll see I can narrow the area down to …’
‘Hey, whoa, wait, listen!’ yelled Dan.
‘Hello again my friends,’ came a familiar voice from the answer machine.
