Mags Richardson grabbed Warren the moment he set foot back in CID. It was late afternoon, and the toast and marmalade he’d had at Bernice and Dennis’ seemed a long time ago. As much as he loved custard creams, he’d needed something more substantial. The franchised coffee shop that had taken over from the station’s canteen had sold out of anything Warren considered remotely edible hours ago and he’d been forced to seek sustenance from the local garage.
The excitement on Mags’ face meant the sorry-looking ploughman’s sandwich he’d finally settled upon could wait. Half of it would be going in the bin anyway, after he’d dismantled it and discarded the superfluous lettuce, tomato, cucumber and red onion.
Richardson had moved her workstation next to Pymm, so the two of them could work more efficiently. Judging by the piles of printouts, and the fact that all three of Pymm’s screens were filled with data, the two sergeants had been busy.
‘Forensic IT have been going over that security footage from the massage parlour on the morning of the murder, and we think we know what Malina was doing at the reception desk after the attack. But I warn you, you’re not going to be happy,’ said Richardson.
‘Go on,’ said Warren, warily.
‘The keyboard, mouse and monitor for the desktop computer are also connected to the digital video recorder for the surveillance system. They use a switch to swap between the two.’ She looked apologetic. ‘I’ve watched the footage back in slow motion and it’s clear that she flicks the switch before she starts typing.’
‘For fu …’ Warren bit his tongue. It was hardly Richardson’s fault. ‘And nobody thought to tell us this before?’
‘Sorry, Boss. Don’t shoot the messenger.’
Warren sighed; he had a good idea where this was going.
‘The video surveillance system is a pretty basic system: two cameras, the one we’ve already watched from the front of the parlour, and another over the back door, which has supposedly been broken for weeks.’
Warren noticed the qualification in what she said.
‘You don’t think it has been broken for that long?’
‘Nope. According to the techs, this CCTV unit is really simple. The disk has enough space for about four weeks’ footage from a single camera. Plug in two cameras and it’ll store about two weeks from each input. You can add up to four cameras and it records on a rolling system – the newest footage overwrites the oldest footage. If you disconnect a camera, the system automatically allocates that unused disk space to one of the other cameras and overwrites what was there before. The system tries its best to fill as much of the disk as possible.’
‘OK, so what’s the discrepancy?’
‘Silvija Wilson claims that the rear camera has been broken for weeks. If that was the case, the stored data from the working video camera in reception should have overwritten the unused hard disk space from the broken camera.’
‘And it hadn’t?’
‘Nope. In fact, almost exactly half of the disk is empty.’
Warren would be the first to admit that he wasn’t a technical expert, but even he could see what Richardson was getting at.
‘The camera was broken that morning, and the video footage deleted. Before we got there.’
Warren was irritated by the delay to what could be crucial evidence, and he ordered Richardson to light a fire under IT and get the deleted footage recovered as a priority – he figured they owed them a favour now.
In the meantime, it was clear that the two sergeants had more to show him.
‘I finally got the call logs and cell-tower positioning data back from Silvija Wilson’s work phone. I really wish criminals would stick with the big four mobile phone providers; it’s taken ages to get an answer from that dinky little network,’ said Pymm.
‘Well you’ve got it now,’ soothed Warren. ‘What’ve you found?’
‘It’s early days, but I’ve managed to unpack some of the data.’
Warren moved around to see Pymm’s screen.
‘What am I looking at?’
‘This spreadsheet shows the calls to and from that phone for the last twelve months.’
‘OK.’
Pymm pointed to a series of entries highlighted in yellow. ‘I haven’t identified every number yet, but these are the calls that she received from Malina that afternoon.’
Both the twelve-minute call immediately after the killing, and the two-minute call whilst Malina fiddled with the security system, were listed.
‘OK, that confirms that we have the correct phone data.’
‘Well there’s a bit more. These next entries take place over the next two hours, before Malina called her aunt on her personal mobile phone to let her know what happened.
There must have been over a dozen calls, to multiple numbers. Some lasted seconds, others several minutes.
‘Is this a normal level of traffic for this phone?’ asked Warren. There was no point getting excited over her day-to-day business calls.
‘No. This number usually only makes or receives a handful of calls a week, mostly from the same half-dozen numbers. I took a quick look at her personal mobile phone, and she receives and makes many calls each day, from lots of different numbers. That’s the phone that Malina and Biljana also usually call. I haven’t even started properly identifying the callers yet, but it looks to me as though the unlisted number is a private line that only a few people know about, and she actually conducts most of her business on her personal phone.’
Warren contemplated what he saw on the screen. Two phones, one of them public, one of them clearly private, and she had obviously taken some measures to keep the private phone unlinked to her. Why? Her nieces had stored the numbers on their phones under ‘Aunty – job’, implying that it was to do with her work, and that had been the number that Malina had immediately rung when the murder took place.
Warren’s gut was telling him that this phone was the key to unravelling what had happened that afternoon.
‘We’ve also tracked Silvija Wilson’s movements on the day of the murder,’ said Richardson.
‘First of all, the cell-tower location data shows that Silvija Wilson’s unlisted work phone and her personal phone always move in tandem,’ said Pymm.
‘Which proves that the unlisted phone is definitely hers,’ said Richardson.
‘Good, that should stop her playing silly buggers and denying the work phone belongs to her,’ said Warren.
‘It looks as though her day started exactly as she said it did,’ continued Pymm, pointing to one of her screens. A large map of Middlesbury and the surrounding villages was covered in red dots, joined by dotted lines. Floating textboxes showed the timestamps.
‘She was at home until just after 7.50 that morning. She sent a text message to Malina, then travelled – presumably by vehicle judging by the speed – to the girls’ flat. It took her about eight minutes. She spent just under five minutes there, before leaving. Both of the girls’ mobiles moved with her.’
‘Picking them up for work,’ interpreted Warren.
‘Exactly. All three mobiles arrived at the massage parlour at 8.25. The traffic would have been building up with the school run at that time.’
That fitted with the sisters’ account that they arrived at work at about 8.30.
‘The girls’ mobiles stayed at the massage parlour until they left after being interviewed following the murder. They then returned home at 17.30 with their aunt. They stayed there until they were picked up later for their formal interview.’
‘OK.’ He looked at the two women. ‘Don’t keep me hanging – what are you not telling me?’
‘Look at Silvija Wilson’s two phones.’
Warren squinted at the timeline.
‘The car’s movements are confirmed by ANPR cameras along the route,’ said Richardson.
‘Bloody hell.’
‘And look at the call logs for her two phones,’ said Pymm, pointing to a second screen.
Warren switched his gaze. ‘Bloody hell,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll get DSI Grayson to authorize search teams along that route. Mags, get a team down there to seize any CCTV.’
He turned, about to head towards Grayson’s office.
‘Oh, just one more thing that I thought you might be interested in.’
Warren stopped. He knew that tone of voice. ‘You’re worse than bloody Columbo,’ he muttered.
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ Pymm pointed to another highlighted entry. ‘This number called her “job” phone about once a week. She occasionally called it. Does the number look familiar?’
Warren squinted at the number, before standing up sharply.
‘Find Silvija Wilson and arrest her.’