Back in the warmth of the incident room, Aidan relayed what had come in through a 999 emergency call.
‘Okay, so the details as we understand them are that Amie’s mum has been at the house helping out with the kids while Gavin’s having a well-earned rest in our luxury holiday suite downstairs. She says Amie left home at her usual time this morning to go to work. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. At ten o’clock she’s not arrived at work, so work call her mobile and get no response. Lunchtime, they call her home landline and the mum picks up. Says she left for work at the usual time. So now mum’s panicking. She calls her mobile, which work have already tried, but it’s off. She said she didn’t want to cause a panic or waste police time, but the more she thought about it the more concerning it was, so eventually she picks up the phone and calls the police.’
‘Alright,’ Caroline said. ‘Speak to the network. Get cell tracking on Amie’s phone. Let’s find out where it went off grid. You’re ANPR trained, aren’t you?’
‘I am. I’ll run her reg number and see what comes back.’
‘Good work. Thanks, Aidan. If we can track down where she went missing, we can start to look at why. No accidents reported on the roads, I presume?’
‘Not that I’ve heard of. Nothing called in, anyway.’
‘Alright. That increases the chances that this was deliberate, either on her part or someone else’s. She can’t have gone far. She had to surrender her passport when she was bailed.’
‘Good point,’ Aidan replied.
‘So the two most likely outcomes here are that Amie has decided to go on the run, which would be odd seeing as we’d all but discounted her as a suspect, or that she’s been taken. That’s a whole lot more concerning, especially as she either is our killer, or the killer’s still out there. Sara, let’s have another look at the known relationships chart. Work on the assumption that whoever killed Martin Forbes has also taken Amie. Who’d want to harm them both? What are the connections? Let’s start from that point and see where it takes us.’
Sara nodded. ‘Alright.’
Aidan stood up and came back over. ‘Guv, there’s a hit from vehicle mounted ANPR about an hour ago. It picked it up on the A6003 at Preston. Looks like it’s parked up in a lay-by.’
‘Brilliant, Aidan. Thanks. Dex, get your coat back on. We’re going for a drive.’