Kay wolfed down the last of her tuna sandwich, dusted crumbs from her lap and swallowed before reading through the latest updates from Northfleet.
The Maidstone incident room was filled with phones ringing, people talking across each other, and – somewhere over by the ancient printer and photocopier – loud swearing.
She shook her head in frustration, and forced herself to read the rest of the report.
Despite new information being available, she knew first-hand how long it could take for CCTV footage to be processed, especially when the officers watching it were already working long hours in front of their computer screens.
‘Guv?’
She peered over her screen to see Barnes replacing his desk phone in its cradle.
‘What’s up?’
‘I’ve just heard back from Daniel’s team – Mark Redding’s in the clear. They’ve got a copy on file of the form he sent in confirming that he destroyed his firearms certificate. Apparently, he sold his rifle to a friend within the seven day period after being convicted of drink driving, and they’ve got the matching registration from the buyer as well.’
‘What about Clive Workman?’
‘They’ve got nothing on file to suggest he’s ever applied for another licence after losing his original after that fight, or that he’s been in trouble since. His alibi checked out too.’
‘Bloody hell.’ She huffed her fringe from her eyes. ‘We just can’t catch a break, can we?’
‘Only a matter of time, guv.’
Kay scrunched up her sandwich wrapper and scooted it into the wastepaper basket under her desk. ‘We need to try another angle. We’ve only looked at one demographic so far, and I think it’s time to widen the search.’
‘Are they not having any luck over at Northfleet either, then?’
‘It doesn’t look like it. Not from Sharp’s latest update, anyway.’
‘Are they looking at the illegal weapons aspect as well?’
‘Absolutely. In the meantime, we’ve got to eliminate all of the legal firearms. We can’t simply rule out our suspect being a legitimate owner of a gun until we know otherwise.’
‘What are you thinking?’
She rose to her feet, rolled her shoulders, and then beckoned to him to follow her.
After crossing the room to the whiteboard, she took a moment to read the latest notes Barnes had added, and then turned to her colleague.
‘Daniel told me that there are several groups of people who are considered under the “good reason” process of elimination for firearms certificates. So far, we’ve ignored special interest groups so I want to look at those.’
Barnes frowned. ‘Like who, guv?’
‘Historical re-enactment groups, private collections…’ She paused. ‘We’ve already covered target shooting clubs in the first wave of enquiries in order to get lists of members and eliminated most of those.’
‘Do we count museums within those private collections?’
‘We might as well. Even if our victim and his killer weren’t employees of these places, they might be known to them.’ She lowered her voice, seeing the doubt in his eyes. ‘We’ve got to try, Ian. We’re running out of options.’
‘I know,’ he murmured. ‘All right. How do you want to divide up the work?’
‘Hang on.’ Kay peered past him to where Laura was standing at the door talking to Daniel, and waved her over, then spotted PC Kyle Walker passing with two boxes of paper in his arms. ‘Kyle, what are you up to at the moment?’
He grinned. ‘Being bossed around by Debbie, guv. She’s loving it.’
‘I’ll bet. Tell her I need to boss you around instead for a while.’
‘Will do.’
She waited until he joined them, then set out her plan. ‘Laura, have you and Daniel ascertained whether anyone with a licensed firearm has reported a theft in recent weeks?’
‘Everyone our team spoke to was asked to check their gun cabinets, and we’ve got nothing reported as missing,’ said the detective constable.
‘Okay, I want to spend today filling in the gaps with regard to licensed weapons,’ Kay explained. ‘We won’t rule out illegally owned firearms but we do need to make sure our suspect isn’t someone with easy access to a firearm. That’s why I’d like you both to lead a breakout team and look at local historical re-enactment group members and museums. Concentrate on the larger calibre weapons though, because Zachary Taylor has confirmed the rounds were .308s. Barnes, you’re with me – we’ll make a start on the larger private collections that haven’t been covered through Laura and Daniel’s initial review.’
‘How does this help us identify the victim, guv?’ said Kyle, frowning. ‘If you don’t mind my asking, that is.’
‘Not at all. Although Sharp’s been tasked with leading the search and arrest team, we still need to work out what the connection is between the killer and our victim,’ said Kay. ‘Sharp will be doing the same – something links them, so we have to look at this from every angle.’
She waited while they finished updating their notes, and then reached out to grab Phillip Parker’s sleeve as he passed. ‘Any news from missing persons about our victim?’
The constable shook his head. ‘No one who matches the description of existing mispers on the database, or the national charity one, guv – and there have been no new reports since the incident on Wednesday either.’
‘Our victim could be someone with no family, then,’ Laura suggested as Parker walked back to his desk.
‘Even so, you’d expect him to have friends who’d report him as missing,’ said Barnes. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘None of this makes any sense,’ Kay muttered. She glanced at the clock on the wall above the printer. ‘Let’s get on with this. We’ll reconvene back here for the briefing this afternoon. Hopefully by then, we’ll have some information to share with Sharp’s team over at HQ.’