Nearing mid-morning, Samantha was beach-weary; covered in sand, chilled and tired. She rose and strolled casually along the beach. She waved to Nick as he sat on a surfboard out beyond the breakers, waiting for a ride. She saw it coming—the large wave—but Nick was too busy looking at something to his right. She suppressed a smile as he was dumped by the wave, head over heels—or board over heels, in this case. All the time, she made small motions on the sand with her feet, feeling for anything out of the ordinary; any odd little bit of dropped evidence. Occasionally, she leant down and picked up a small pebble or a shell, examined it and carried on, casually strolling around the area.
There were few on the beach at this hour; several joggers, a family with young children—the parents pressured into going to the beach—and a number of walkers, particularly senior residents taking their daily exercise. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Then, everything changed.
Mitch’s phone rang and he glanced at the screen. “Nick,” he answered, rising from his desk to pace as he talked.
“Something interesting,” Nick said. “There’s an Asian guy here, don’t know if it is the same one that was in Gunston’s holiday snaps, but he’s sitting pretty much in the same place and he’s looking out to sea using a set of binoculars.”
“This is good,” Mitch said, excited.
“Yeah. We’ll try and get pics and send them back ASAP. Hang on …”
“What’s happening?” Mitch asked.
“I’m just posing for Samantha while she takes a photo. It’s a lovely happy snap of me with the Asian dude in the background of the shot. Hope she got my best side. What am I saying, they’re both good.”
“The back of your head’s the best,” Mitch offered. “So what’s he doing now?”
“Wait up, I’ve got to turn around subtly,” Nick said. “Same thing. He just keeps looking at his watch, and then back out to sea, now he’s checking his phone again. Anyway, got to go, I’m going to paddle out and do some surfing; see if I can see anything beyond the wave breaks. Sam’s going to continue taking snaps and frolicking on the beach, despite the wind factor. We’ll keep an eye on him and send the shots now.”
“Excellent, thanks Nick. Watch out for sharks and keep me posted.”
“Will do,” Nick hung up.
“Mrs. Ying rang, she can see us at two p.m. today,” Ellen stuck her head in the door of Mitch’s office. “She still lives in the same house.”
“Even better,” Mitch said. He glanced at his watch. He had thirty minutes up his sleeve before the conference call. “I’m going down to see Henri. What are you working on?”
Ellen waved a file at him. “I’m still trying for more surveillance tapes from surrounding buildings. A year ago is a big call, but you never know. Plus I’m trying to get the guest list for the gallery exhibition night. Someone must have photos on their cameras.”
“Good thought. I wonder if Jessica’s grandmother would have any photos of Jessica at uni,” Mitch said.
“Maybe. Jessica might have posted some shots to Facebook if I can find an old account,” Ellen said, moving out of the way as Mitch exited his office.
“Excellent, thanks Ellie. I’ll be back for the conference call at noon,” he called as he headed down the stairs to the lab offices below.
There wasn’t much that Henri Spalter—head of the science division, professor of science and Mitchell Parker’s stepdad during his teen years—didn’t know. It was Henri that Mitch credited with sparking his interest in his current line of work. He took the stairs two at a time and arrived at the labs to find all hands on deck. Henri’s two young lab assistants looked up to greet him as he passed. Henri had his back to Mitch and was studying something on his computer screen.
“Hey Henri, got a minute?” Mitch asked.
Henri turned and beamed at him. “Mitch, my lad, always got time for you. Coffee?”
Henri kept a special brew that he only pulled out for visitors.
“I’ve only got twenty minutes, but I’m sure I can manage one in that time … especially your coffee.” Mitch inhaled the aroma as Henri began spooning it into the percolator before Mitch had finished accepting.
Henri offered coffee to his two assistants—the younger, Jared, waved an enormous takeaway coffee back at him and Tom held up a caffeine-loaded can of soda.
Henri turned back to Mitch and shook his head. “These young ones …”
Mitch grinned and pulled up a stool.
“I want to pick your brains about passport and visa forgeries.”
“Mm.” Henri shook his head. “Difficult thing these days, particularly since September 11. What’s happened?”
“Those binoculars Gunston found …”
“Yes, the ones with the two sets of fingerprints,” Henri said.
“That’s them.” Mitch accepted the coffee as the first cup dripped through. He inhaled it appreciatively, adding milk and waiting for Henri to fill his own cup. “The prints for William Ying and Danny Huang were on the binoculars. William Ying has been missing for a year and Danny Huang’s not even in the country supposedly. Those fingerprints on the binocular casing could be years old, couldn’t they?”
Henri nodded. “But they’re not,” he concluded, sitting opposite with his coffee.
“How do you know?” Mitch sipped the hot brew.
“Well, there are ways to tell. Oddly, the fingerprints of some blood types will disintegrate before others,” Henri said. “But, staying on track, fingerprint age is determined by studying a number of factors: physical, chemical, biochemical …”
Mitch nodded, urging him to continue.
“Because the papillary fingerprints degrade in stages, you can determine the blood group and the age of the fingerprint. You determine this by the varying ridges’ thickness in a fingerprint, the width of the valleys, the number of pores.” Henri stopped. “Basically, it was easy to compare because the two sets of fingerprints were different ages. William Ying’s were recent. My guess would be that he held those binoculars within the last week or so.”
“And Danny Huang’s?”
“Almost as recent … probably about three months old.”
Mitch stared blankly at his coffee and began talking to himself. “A week or so … so William Ying and Danny Huang have both touched those binoculars within the last three months. William has disappeared but hasn’t left the country and Danny hasn’t entered it. William was spotted on the beach with the binoculars, so odds are Danny is here in the country somewhere and is working with William or he’s sent them to him … but why? There’s no shortage of binoculars here unless they have a feature that is unique. They could have been given to him from someone else, but then their prints would be on them.”
Henri brought him around. “So you’re wondering if Danny Huang could be in the country on a false visa.”
Mitch nodded.
“Anything and everything is possible,” Henri said. “As our technology improves for scanning and protection, so too does the technology for creating forgeries. It’s a catch-22. Is Danny Huang currently in his native country, which is …?”
“China,” Mitch informed him. “I’m trying to find out now, just waiting on a call back. And William Ying never left the States, he just went missing.”
“I remember his case,” Henri said. “Should we be worried about this Danny Huang?”
“He has a criminal record for a range of violent and political crimes.”
Henri nodded. “Then if Danny is clever and in the country, he’ll find someone who can be him or vouch for him at home in Beijing. Just as importantly, you need to know who he is here because he’s obviously not Danny Huang.”
Mitch nodded. “If we don’t have some date range of when he might have entered the country it could mean days and days of trawling through airport footage.”
Henri nodded sympathetically. “Or you could just get Marcus to run the facial recognition software for the past six months.”
Mitch grinned. “Yeah, well there’s that. I love technology.”
“You’re looking thinner, Mitch,” Henri said.
Mitch rolled his eyes. “You always say that.”
“But seriously, when was the last time you ate?”
“Now,” Mitch rose. “Thanks for the coffee and sounding board, Henri.”
“Coffee doesn’t count as a meal,” Henri called after him.
Samantha and Nick sat in the very pink and frilly surrounds of their B&B waiting for Mitch’s conference call. Samantha pulled on a light knit jumper over her shirt. Nick, oblivious to the cold and wearing only a T-shirt and shorts, concentrated on his chicken and salad sandwich.
“C’mon, it’s a lovely sixty-eight degrees out there.” Nick gauged the temperature.
“That’s right,” she agreed, “with a chill factor of even less. What maniac goes to the beach at this time of the year?”
Nick shrugged. “The water was lovely and warm this morning.”
“I think we should change accommodation.”
“Too pink?” Nick looked around.
Samantha made a face at him. “I’m pretty sure that Asian man is staying at the motel on the beach. We need to be in a room near or opposite so we can watch his comings and goings.”
“You’re right. We’re going to draw attention to ourselves if we keep spending every hour of every day on the beach.”
“It’s kind of desperate,” Samantha agreed. “That place right on the beach will let us watch all that is going on from our room.”
“Yeah,” said Nick as he looked around, “what was John thinking?”
The phone rang and Nick leaned forward to press the speaker button. Samantha rose and, bringing her sandwich and tea, came closer to the phone.
“Good morning, Charlie,” Nick started, “and Ellie.”
Mitch laughed. “Very funny.”
“How was your morning?” Ellen asked.
“Cold and windy,” Samantha said matter-of-factly. “So, the pics we sent through of the Asian guy…could you identify him?”
They could hear Mitch shuffling paper.
“Well I’m not sure,” Mitch said. “There’s an ugly guy in the front of the shot …”
“Nick?” Ellen offered.
“Ah, so it is,” Mitch finished. Ellen laughed.
“Now they’re a comedy team,” Nick said. “Lord help us.”
“But seriously,” Mitch said, “Marcus is still running the shots. I need more from you. Where is this guy staying?”
Samantha looked to Nick. “We were just discussing that before your call. Nick saw him go into the motel on the beach; might have just been going in for lunch but I’m guessing he’s staying there. We need to move out of here and get up there.”
“We need to stay at the place right on the beach so we can monitor without attracting attention,” Nick summed it up.
“Agreed,” Mitch said. “Sam, after this call find out where you want to stay and call it through to John to book.”
“OK,” she said. “But you want us to break into his room, don’t you?”
“Yes, and fast. As soon as you find it and he leaves to go sightseeing, or to dinner, whatever.”
Nick exhaled. “We’ll get some surveillance started on him; we haven’t seen him since earlier this morning.”
“Also try the nosy shop owners, tour groups, slip some notes to the porter at the hotel—and just get a name. If it is William Ying—and the fingerprints seem to suggest he was the last person holding those binoculars—then he has to be using an alias surely.”
“Right,” Samantha said.
“What about you two, what have you found?” Nick asked.
“Plenty and nothing,” Ellen answered.
“Yep, know that feeling,” Nick agreed.