Daniels slept badly, haunted by girls falling through the air, girls trapped underground, girls coerced into the sex trade. Unable to get back to sleep, she hauled herself out of bed at five a.m., showered and got ready. Downstairs, she made toast and ate it in the kitchen, thinking about the skydiving flyer Carmichael had found among the items crime scene investigators had seized from Freek’s vehicle. Jessica Finch certainly had the means to pay for such a course, not so Amy Grainger. Or did she? According to her father, she shared an independent streak with the missing girl. Not content to live off her parents or get sucked into a loan, she’d worked hard in order to pay her way through university. But still . . . was it likely she’d saved enough spare cash to finance the adventure that had ultimately led to her death?
Stranger things had happened.
Deciding to keep her mind open to that possibility, Daniels couldn’t get to work fast enough. Dawn was her favourite time of day. She could get into the major incident room before it resembled a circus. Time to think, to mull over the previous day and plan for the day ahead, list what had to be done, by whom and in what order. From the start of this murder investigation there had been few scene issues going forward. No known forensics on the dead girl. Nothing meaningful thrown up in the house-to-house. No bloody witnesses. A recap on the sequence of events that led up to the disappearance of both girls was called for. That way Daniels could pin down the timeline before re-interviewing Freek, an event she suspected would result in God knows how many other follow-up enquiries.
Trace.
Implicate.
Eliminate.
She was still thinking about TIE actions as she let herself into the MIR. Pulling up sharply, she checked her watch, genuinely believing she’d misread the time. Core team members were already there: Gormley, Carmichael, Brown and – heaven forbid, even Maxwell – were huddled round a desk discussing the previous night’s covert op and Carmichael’s subsequent discovery of the flyer.
Gormley began snoring loudly, insinuating that she was late. Daniels grinned, took off her coat and flung it on a chair, telling everyone how pleased she was to see them, adding that they had a shitload of work to do, explaining what she had in mind. Fetching herself a coffee, she invited everyone to get comfy and direct their attention to the murder wall.
Jabbing a button on the remote control, she brought the digital screen to life and scrolled through a number of options before finding what she was after: a split screen containing detailed analysis of the last-known movements of Amy Grainger and Jessica Finch, together with a map plotting the geographical areas where they’d both gone missing.
‘I’d like to begin with Amy, who, as you all know, was seen by her parents at seven thirty on Wednesday the fifth of May, just as Coronation Street was coming on TV. She was heading to Durham City to meet friends . . .’ Daniels used a pointer on screen as she spoke. ‘. . . So she’d have used this bus stop, just round the corner from her home, less than five hundred metres away. Now,’ Daniels took a breath, ‘the 15A arrived at the bus stop on time at seven forty-two. CCTV on the bus confirms that only one elderly man got on. Paul Palmer was traced and spoken to during the house-to-house very shortly after the discovery of Amy’s body. He knew Amy well enough to speak to her, and claims she didn’t arrive at the bus stop that day. Furthermore, he didn’t see her while he was standing there, nor did he see anything untoward that he can remember. She could’ve phoned for a taxi, but local firms say not. At seven thirty-nine, Amy’s phone was switched off. In all probability, that’s when she was taken. My guess is she turned right, not left, when she left the house.’ The room fell silent. ‘What? You didn’t lie to your parents when you were her age? I bloody did, all the time.’
Daniels used the pointer again. ‘There’s CCTV on both sides of the road here and here. She wasn’t picked up on either camera. But she wouldn’t be, would she? Because she was waiting for the bus here before the parade of shops—’
‘For a bus that could take her to Sunderland, twenty minutes away,’ Carmichael said. ‘It’s obvious she was taken off the street in a vehicle of some description within minutes of leaving her house.’
‘A fingertip search found no signs of disturbance or struggle,’ Maxwell reminded her.
‘So what?’ Carmichael bit back. ‘If she responded to the flying club’s advert, doesn’t mean she ever actually made it there. Or maybe she did and she’d got to know someone there well enough to accept a lift. Her killer, for example.’
‘At eight o’clock at night?’ Maxwell queried.
Carmichael nearly spat out her tea. ‘You think they let you jump on the first lesson? They have to pass the theory first.’
‘Lisa’s right,’ Daniels said. ‘Amy accepted a lift from someone she knew. It’s the most plausible explanation. I want to move on to Jessica now. A day earlier, on Tuesday the fourth of May, Robert Lester took Jessica home at around eight p.m. CCTV at the entrance to her flat confirms that. They entered at eight-o-six, Lester left on his own at eight thirty-four. About half an hour later, captured on the same CCTV, Jessica leaves the flat at nine-o-seven. She turns right heading towards this Nat West cashpoint where she makes a withdrawal of twenty pounds at eleven minutes past nine. Unless she climbed up the fire escape – and there’s no earthly reason why she should – Jess never made it back to her flat. In my view, that’s a fair assumption to make, and is supported by the fact that her cashpoint receipt wasn’t found there. This is unusual in itself because she was meticulous about keeping her records straight. In fact, it’s the only missing receipt, according to the statement supplied by her bank. Jessica’s phone goes dead at nine thirteen and I’m certain that’s when she was taken. Now it gets interesting . . .’
Switching her attention back to the murder wall, Daniels changed screens. Again, the screen was split: one side displaying a detailed map, a network of phone masts stretching the entire length of the country, on the other, a smaller version, spanning an area from Adam Finch’s Mansion House in the south to Housesteads in the north.
‘On sixth May, both girls’ phones were switched on again within seconds of one another directly above the centre of Newcastle at three-o-three in the morning. Together, they pass between several phone masts and from that we are able to calculate that they were travelling in excess of a hundred and forty knots.’
‘The journey to Housesteads?’ Carmichael was thinking aloud. ‘That’s grim.’
Gormley shook his head, a look of pure loathing on his face.
‘Both Amy’s phone and Jess’s were switched off again directly over Housesteads presumably when he . . .’Daniels could hardly bring herself to say it out loud, ‘. . . when the killer threw Amy to her death. That is where her phone record terminates.’
‘It’s as if he’s pinpointing the spot for us,’ Carmichael added.
‘Sick bastard,’ Gormley mumbled.
‘And Jess’s phone?’ Brown asked.
‘Is switched back on at around quarter to eleven on Thursday the sixth of May just hours after Amy’s body was found. It makes a journey by road . . . we can tell that from the speed it was travelling . . .’ Daniels picked up a road map and superimposed it over the phone mast grid. ‘As you can see here, it travelled from a position very close to the Mansion House to Newcastle along the A1. It’s my opinion that whoever had it was following Adam Finch to the mortuary where he met myself and our former guv’nor to view and identify our body—’
‘Which we later discovered was Amy and not Jess,’ Carmichael said.
‘Exactly.’ Daniels scanned the faces of her team. They were utterly focused, no sign of their enthusiasm waning. She moved on. ‘Jess’s phone was next used at three thirty p.m. on Thursday the sixth of May when Adam Finch received a text from it.’ Daniels took a breath. ‘I was standing right next to him at the time, so I know he didn’t make that call. I remember thinking that it ruled him out altogether, unless he had an accomplice. He’s an objectionable prick, I know. But none of us believe he’s involved any more, do we?’
Heads shook but nobody actually spoke.
It was nice to know they were on the same page.
‘What we need now is to check the cameras on the A1 northbound to find out whether Freek’s BMW or any other car was following Finch during his journey to the mortuary and back. Neil, get on to traffic management. Have them pull the relevant tapes. I want them handed over asap. Andy, call Robert Lester and tell him I want to see him. Don’t be specific. Just say I want to ask him some more questions. When you’ve done that, give the Graingers a call. I need to know if Amy ever expressed an interest in skydiving. On second thoughts, go round and do it in person. You OK with that?’
Brown nodded.
‘Good. Lisa, get me everything you can dig up on that flying club. As soon as Hank and I are finished with Stephen Freek we’ll be paying them a visit.’