‘And there’s no sign of the car after that point?’ Ryker asked, turning from the screen and to the Met cyber specialist standing behind him. Davis, he’d said his name was, although it wasn’t made clear if that was his first or last name.
‘Not that I’ve had access to,’ he said, sounding as grumpy as he looked.
Ryker wasn’t yet sure whether the grumpiness was because he was standing while Ryker took over his equipment or because it was already clear the guy was being asked to operate with one hand behind his back and so had little of use to tell.
‘You have to understand that that last camera isn’t even our jurisdiction,’ Davis added. ‘We have no direct access and only have that crappy data because Kent police sent it over.’
‘And what exactly is your remit, right now?’ Ryker asked him.
‘I don’t have a remit now. I’ve reviewed everything available to me. License plate recognition cameras, CCTV towers. I’ve plotted the trail of what I can find from the attack at Belmarsh all the way through to this last sighting on the M20. That’s all I’ve been asked to do, and I don’t have any more data to review anyway.’
Ryker got up from his chair.
‘OK, thank you,’ he said, offering his hand to the guy who looked at it a little suspiciously before he took the offer of a handshake.
‘You’re… done?’ Davis asked.
‘Like you said, you don’t have anything else for us to look at.’
He shrugged and Ryker left it there. He and Winter walked out of the room and along the corridor and didn’t speak until they bypassed the elevator and started down the stairs. A little used stairwell with bare, echoey concrete.
‘I know that look,’ Winter said.
‘You do?’
‘It’s your caught-between-two-minds look. It means you saw something there that piqued your interest, but also something that’s pissed you off.’
Ryker humphed in response. He hated that Winter saw him so transparently. No one else did or ever had.
‘MI5 are already pulling the shutters down,’ Ryker said.
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
‘No. They are. The Met is perfectly capable of making this a national investigation, jurisdiction isn’t the issue. They could pull data from every police force in the country if they wanted. If they had the authority. Davis would be swimming in data for weeks, like a pig in shit.’
‘We don’t know for sure that they aren’t trying to make that happen. The data part, not the shit.’
‘Don’t we? Davis just said he’s not going to get any more data to review. Only what the Met themselves have direct access to, and the data he’s had from Kent, which isn’t much.’
‘Enough to conclude the car went that way.’
‘But only up to the first point it disappears?’
‘You’re taking what he said at face value? You’re right, the Met could request access to camera records from every single force in the country, but they won’t get an instantaneous response. The attack was only this morning and I’m sorry to say, Ryker, that these things can take time.’
‘Or not happen at all,’ Ryker added. ‘Or be deliberately stalled. Like the identification of the attackers.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘The woman? The two dead men? DCI Anwah said they haven’t made any progress in identifying them.’
DCI Anwah being the lead detective in charge of the investigation for the Met, who had been gracious enough to greet Ryker and Winter at Scotland Yard, but in the twenty minutes he’d spoken to them before he’d given excuses and hurried off for something or other had given them very little useful information and a lot of obfuscation. Since then they’d spent nearly an hour with Davis but it looked like that was about all the insight they were going to get from the Met.
‘Maybe they really haven’t made any progress,’ Winter said.
‘I was part of the attack. I fought those guys off. So did a dozen armed police officers. The attackers weren’t perfect, and I made it a right mess for them, but they weren’t amateurs. They were well-trained, well-equipped, well-planned. Army, ex-army, police, whatever, but I’m betting they are in the system one way or another and wouldn’t be hard to ID given the two bodies in the morgue.’
Winter kind of huffed at that but didn’t refute it.
‘And the one that got away?’ Ryker countered. ‘The one the woman dragged from the van? I shot them both. They’d have been bleeding all over the scene, never mind the van. So we can add their DNA to the mix to be identified, yet Anwah said nothing at all about that.’
‘Police forces never appreciate the likes of us poking our noses in,’ Winter said. ‘You might be reading too much into this. Maybe they’re just not telling us everything they know.’
Ryker stopped and Winter followed suit. He looked a little wary, as though he was worried he’d awakened a beast and Ryker was about to toss him down the stairs.
A little dramatic perhaps, but Ryker definitely was feeling a lot more on edge now than when they’d arrived at Scotland Yard not even two hours ago.
‘Stop being an apologist,’ Ryker said. ‘I get that the police have constraints, but this is something else. MI5 have their claws in here and they’re shutting things down.’
‘Why do you think they would do that?’
‘To protect themselves. They know more than everyone else does and don’t want the police or anyone else stepping on their toes from here. Maybe they’re even protecting one of their own assets.’
Winter seemed to contemplate that a few moments and Ryker got them moving again.
‘The problem is,’ Ryker added, ‘I don’t know which answer it is, but I do know we won’t find out any more here.’
Ryker pushed open the door on the ground floor and they stepped out into another corridor, the main entrance at the other end, although right the other side of them was a quieter fire exit. Which was why Ryker stopped again.
‘So, we’re done here?’ Winter asked.
‘I’m done here,’ Ryker said. ‘You’re welcome to stay and see if you can break down some barriers.’
‘So now you should probably tell me what lead you’re about to follow.’
Ryker raised an eyebrow in question.
‘I saw the look on your face when you left Davis to it. You saw something on those cameras, didn’t you?’
‘I saw a lack of something.’
‘And that would be?’
‘The car, obviously, after they lost it on the M20.’
‘As Anwah said to us both, the main theory the police are working on is that the attackers took Karaman south toward the coast. That most likely they’d have a boat waiting somewhere in Kent to take them across the channel to France.’
‘Not my theory.’
‘No?’
‘No. It’s a bluff. We have the car heading south through Kent. It was picked up on camera after camera, then… poof. Disappears just off the motorway.’
‘It came off the M20 onto a black spot. The whole country isn’t covered by cameras. Yet.’
‘Of course, they took it into a black spot. It’s the best way to switch vehicles. That’s why the car wasn’t seen again.’
‘OK? So they switched vehicles and carried on toward the south coast.’
‘If they were intent on switching vehicles only, they would have done it much sooner, not after traveling out of London, into Kent, along the M20.’
Winter seemed to consider that for a moment. ‘So you’re saying… what?’
‘That them heading south was a bluff. When they switched vehicles they doubled back the other way. And the fact the police aren’t following that line tells me one thing.’
‘Which is?’
‘MI5 definitely is. In fact, they’ll probably have the Kent police scouring the coastline to keep everyone else looking that way.’
‘Actually, they really do.’
‘Good. Because that helps if I’m wrong.’
‘But I sense you don’t think you are.’
‘Of course I don’t.’
‘So, we’re going to Kent?’
‘We? Since when have you gone out into the field with me? Anyone?’
‘Only since the last time I got you out of prison, actually. I’m going to see if a more direct presence might help keep you more… under control.’
Ryker didn’t like the sound of that at all. ‘Why am I thinking about dogs again?’
‘I have absolutely no idea. But back to the point, we’re going to Kent?’
‘We’re going to follow their route. We’re going to find that car. And with any luck, we’ll then figure out where they really went before MI5 does.’
‘Then let’s get to it,’ Winter said with a nervous grin, like a kid who was about to go on a white-knuckle rollercoaster for the very first – and possibly last – time.
‘Follow me,’ Ryker said, leading the way.