Kim was already sitting up straight at the dining table when the first member of her team arrived. This morning briefing would be a speedy one and she wasn't in the best of moods. She didn't like late-night visitors and she especially detested liars. Tracy was both of those things.
‘Morning, Guv,’ Bryant said, removing his overcoat. The casual dress code had been discarded. It was Monday, their first full day of investigation, and he was a detective. That meant charcoal suit, white shirt and tie. The first two were not negotiable but on occasion the third offered a smidge of flexibility. For Bryant, plain clothes directive was not dress-down Friday. Although only forty-seven, there was a lot of old school inside him.
‘Coffee's done,’ she offered.
He took a mug and poured a cup. ‘Helen's an early bird, eh?’
Kim nodded. The FLO had knocked on the front door at five forty-five sharp.
‘Is that the same kid on the door since yesterday?’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘There's a second officer coming to take the day shift and then Lucas will be back tonight.’
‘You talked to Woody already?’
‘Sent him a text.’
Bryant held his coffee with both hands and looked at the photo on the wall. ‘Pretty little girls,’ he observed. ‘And she is rocking that hair.’
Kim smiled as Dawson and Stacey walked in together.
She noted immediately that Dawson had taken full advantage of their distance from the office and was wearing indigo G-Star jeans with a university sweatshirt.
‘In a rush, Kev?’ she asked, staring pointedly at his lower half. Of her team, he was always the one to push her just that little bit.
‘No, Guv, I just …’
She stared at him, hard.
He held her gaze for five seconds before looking away.
‘I don't expect to have to tell you again. Now, get the board.’
Stacey sat at the head of the table and switched on her equipment.
‘Okay, across the top of the board write “Charlie and Amy”. On the left I want the date and time of the snatch. Next column I want the two text messages word for word. On the second board I want lines of enquiry.’
Kim slowed. Dawson was doing his best to keep up with her but was still writing the content of the second text message.
‘First line of enquiry is CCTV. Against that, note Inga. Second is phone numbers that sent the texts. Third is case files from last time and fourth is the list of possible enemies from family members. As a prosecutor Stephen's will be long and possibly most relevant. Next we look at any names from Elizabeth and then the list from Robert.’
Kim waited for Dawson to catch up.
‘Last heading is just the initials “FM”. We need to tread carefully on this one. Investigating family members is going to cause a divide between us and them so I'd prefer they didn't know.’ She turned to Stacey. ‘I want you to dig around their friends, acquaintances, extended family and finances.’
‘But if they’re not to know, how—’
Kim cut Dawson off. ‘That's where Helen comes in. She'll get some names and details without arousing suspicion.’
‘But, Guv?’
‘Yes, Kev?’ she said, giving him her full attention.
‘What if this is the same MO as the last time? What if it's the same people as before? Doesn't that make all this a waste of time?’
‘You know, Kev, I wish I'd thought of that. I know, scrub the board clean and when I next speak to the kidnappers I'll ask if it was them. Sit back, everybody, we're just gonna wait for them to call.’
Kim knew she was being a little harsh on him but some days Dawson’s manner just got under her skin.
‘Kev, even if it is the same kidnappers, these two families were chosen for a reason so there has to be a link.’
He nodded his understanding.
‘So, I want you out there tracking Inga. Speak to neighbours, friends, anybody that might offer a clue to her whereabouts. We know she was involved and that’s how they got the details of the routine. We also know she got scared and decided to bail. She is the priority.’
‘Got it,’ Dawson said.
‘Okay. Stace, what can we get from the mobile phone numbers?’
Stacey pulled a face. ‘Not a bloody lot.’
Exactly what Kim had been afraid of. She waited for Stacey to explain.
‘We can't tell from the text messages which network each phone is connected to. I reckon he'll have a hoard of pay as you go phones with free credit that ain’t registered. And if he's as clever as we hope he ain’t they'll all be on different networks anyway, making it almost impossible for us to approach the providers.’
‘Can't we just track the mobile phone numbers?’ Dawson asked.
For a detective he watched way too much television.
Stacey shook her head. ‘Mobile positioning is a technology used by telecom companies to approximate the location of a mobile phone.’
She placed her own coffee mug and Bryant's about ten inches apart and placed her pencil between them.
‘It's based on measuring power levels and antenna patterns, ’cos a powered mobile phone always communicates wirelessly with one of the closest base stations. Advanced systems determine the sector where the mobile phone resides and roughly estimates the distance to the base station, sometimes down to fifty metres in urban areas.’
‘Well, surely that's a starting point?’ Dawson asked.
Stacey moved the mugs to the edges of the dining table and left the pencil where it was. ‘In rural areas there might be miles between base stations, so a hit on a tower can be pretty useless in terms of location.’
‘But we have the telephone numbers,’ Dawson said.
Stacey rolled her eyes and turned to Kim. ‘Guv?’
‘Because the phones will be switched off, Kev. No tracking technology will work if the phone isn't at least powered.’
‘Do we know for sure …?’
‘Checked them both last night,’ Kim said. ‘They're off, maybe even broken up and thrown away by now.’
Bryant took his mobile phone tower and drank from it.
Dawson was unconvinced. There were days when his tenacity proved invaluable, but sometimes it was wrongly directed.
‘But I read an article about accessing a mobile phone's internal microphone to eavesdrop on the conversation.’
‘Yeah, good luck with getting anyone to sign a warrant on that,’ Stacey said. ‘But it probably wouldn't do any good. I'm betting the batteries ain’t even in the phones.’
‘But can't we do anything?’
Stacey sighed. ‘Oh Kev, we can get permission to position phones in emergency situations but it's pretty clear he's gonna use a different phone for every communication and the phone would still need to be switched on. All I can do is fire off emails to the four main networks with the numbers and see if they'll carry out a search – but we're talking days, if not weeks, and an invoice that will run into thousands from each of ’em.’
Stacey looked to Kim for confirmation.
Kim didn't hesitate. ‘Do it anyway, you never know. We need every chance we can get on this one.’
The room fell silent, enabling Kim to hear activity from the kitchen next door.
She pushed back her chair.
‘Okay, any downtime is to be spent reading through the old case files. We may get lucky with something that was overlooked.’
She hadn't yet assigned herself and Bryant a task.
Kim had a feeling they were going to be taking a field trip.