‘Where’s Ramouter now?’ asked Pellacia.
‘Somewhere on the M23.’ Henley pulled out her phone to check if there had been any more messages from Ramouter.
‘Well, at least we’ve got an ID on Pine.’
‘At best it’s someone who looks like Pine who was possibly putting someone who looked like Delaney into an ambulance.’
‘No CCTV of the car park?’
‘Nothing there. I don’t think the council are that interested in the security of a bunch of recycling bins outside a drug centre.’
‘What about the ambulance service?’
‘I’ve been chasing them, asking them to confirm if there were any paramedics dispatched to the drug centre or surrounding streets on the night that Delaney disappeared. It’s like you said. The evidence is flaky at best. An eye-witness who’s a drug addict is not enough to wipe Naylor and Blaine’s name off the board.’
‘Take a step back,’ said Pellacia as he walked up to the whiteboard. ‘What happens if we use all of our resources on putting together a case against Pine?’
It was the same tactic that Rhimes had used when he could see that his team were at breaking point.
‘If we focus on Pine, then we have no eyes on Naylor and Blaine. Naylor has already slipped away from the officers protecting him and he has access to commercial and private properties because of his work,’ said Henley. ‘And Blaine? Well, he’s Olivier’s little helper. I’d have to be an idiot to think that he doesn’t know how to contact him or vice versa.’
‘Don’t forget Bajarami,’ said Pellacia. ‘She’s your loose thread.’
Henley screwed up her face in concentration. She had to find a way to tighten the noose around her three suspects without jeopardising the lives of her jurors.
‘I’m going to head off to Bajarami’s place,’ said Henley. ‘Eastwood is already on her way.’
There was a sharp rapping on the door. Henley turned around to see Ezra standing outside.
‘Everything all right?’ asked Henley, concerned. The first time that Ezra had come to the incident room he’d stumbled across A3-size autopsy pictures on the wall. He hadn’t been back since.
‘Yeah, I just need to show you something,’ Ezra said. ‘In private.’
Henley looked at Ezra quizzically. ‘What is it?’ She followed him out into the corridor.
‘You need to promise, right, that you won’t get mad,’ said Ezra, leaning against the wall and tapping his passcode into his iPad.
‘Why would I get mad?’ Henley knew full well that whatever Ezra had done would not be admissible as evidence in any court in the world.
‘In my defence, all I’ve done—’
‘What have you done?’ Henley snapped.
‘Take a look.’ Ezra handed the iPad to Henley.
‘It’s subscriber information,’ said Henley as she scrolled through the list of phone numbers. ‘From Olivier’s mobile phone.’
‘Yeah. I’ve been waiting for the phone company to do a subscriber check, but they’ve been saying for the past few days that their systems have been unavailable.’
‘So, what did you do?’
‘It’s best for all of us if I don’t answer that. So, Olivier’s phone is pay-as-you-go. Someone has been paying for the credit, which means that they’ve either been buying top-up vouchers, or they’ve been using their debit card online.’
‘Please tell me that they’ve used a debit card.’
Ezra smiled. ‘That will be the inadmissible-in-court bit. All you need to know right now is that I’ve got the registered card details.’
‘Karen Bajarami couldn’t be that stupid,’ said Henley.
‘She tried not to be. It was registered to one of those cards that you can load up with money and use like a credit card, but she loaded it up using her own NatWest debit card which was registered to K.L. Bajarami.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘A hundred per cent, but there’s more. Now this stuff will be admissible as soon as I get the authorisation application processed.’
‘What is it?’
‘OK. There are private numbers that were calling his phone. So, I’ve unmasked them. The first number is Chance Blaine and the second number—’
‘Please tell me that it’s her phone.’
‘Full two-year contract that expires next March. She pays her bill by direct debit and is always running out of data.’
For the first time since Kennedy’s body was found, Henley felt that she was getting somewhere. The panic was still there in the middle of her chest, but it wasn’t debilitating. She called Eastwood and told her to start the search of Karen Bajarami’s flat without her. She picked up the file containing Pine’s failed attempt to appeal against his sentence. The request for the court transcripts had taken some time, after arguments of who was going to pay for it, Joanna had made a call to someone. Stanford was taking bets over whether Joanna had offered a bribe, made a threat or gone with good old-fashioned blackmail.
Henley read through the transcript. Pine’s barrister had ultimately failed to convince three Court of Appeal judges that Pine’s sentence should be suspended. Pine had been beaten up and raped on his second day in prison. His attacker had then injected him with heroin. Two days later, Pine had suffered a drug-induced psychotic break. Pine was ticking another box in Mark’s profile of the copycat. A victim of a traumatic sexual attack. The problem was that Pine had a clear alibi that ruled him out as a suspect. Henley’s phone rang. It was Eastwood.
‘Hi, Eastie. How did it go?’
‘For starters, Karen Bajarami lives with her mum, who was not best pleased about us rocking up at her front door while she was watching Bargain Hunt.’
‘What did her mum say?’
‘She watches too much telly if you ask me. Started mouthing off that she knew her rights and that she didn’t have to talk to us. I showed her a photograph of Olivier, asked if she had seen him. She said no.’
‘Did you find anything in the flat?’
‘We hit the jackpot. In Bajarami’s bedroom we found the mobile phone box for the same make and model that was found in Olivier’s cell. We also found an itinerary for an EasyJet flight to Malaga for two scheduled for yesterday. Passengers names: Karen Bajarami and Raymond McFarlane. In the wardrobe we found a duffle bag filled with men’s clothes, underwear, all brand new, five grand in cash and passports. Legit passport for Bajarami, fake one for Olivier. If you ask me, I don’t think Olivier putting a fork in her eye was part of Bajarami’s plan.’
Henley looked at the phone number she had scribbled onto a Post-it note. When she had visited Karen earlier, she had seen her mobile phone on the cabinet, among the flowers and get-well cards. Henley dialled.
As the phone rang, Ramouter walked through the door looking dishevelled. Henley put a finger to her lips as he opened his mouth to talk.
‘Hello.’ It was Karen’s voice. ‘Hello,’ she said again.
Henley waited for a couple of seconds.
‘Peter. Baby, is that you?’
Henley put the phone down, knowing that soon she would be placing her handcuffs on Karen Bajarami’s wrists. Unless Bajarami had realised it hadn’t been Olivier on the phone and tried to make a run for it instead.