‘He’s created one hell of a safety blanket,’ Stacey said.
‘Agreed, but it doesn’t help us get a warrant,’ Penn answered. ‘Don’t think any judge is going to accept “cos we think he’s a bad egg” as justification for turning his life upside down.’
‘I sure would like to get a look in Butler’s computer to check for indecent images,’ Stacey said as her phone rang.
‘Hey, Paddy,’ she said, putting him on speakerphone. She’d left a message for the lead cyber techie to give her a call.
‘It’s booby trapped,’ he said, knowing exactly what she’d been calling about.
‘He’s booby trapped his phone?’
‘Yep, we got around the facial recognition, but behind it was a password screen.’
‘And you can’t bypass it?’ Stacey asked.
‘Not come up with a way yet. There’s some kind of app on there that kicks in if you try to access the information through the back door. Wipes the whole bloody thing. There’s no app this tight on the market.’
‘He writes them,’ Stacey offered.
‘Aah, that explains it. I’ll keep trying, but if I can’t get that password, I risk losing everything.’
‘Don’t do that,’ Penn called across the room. With the absence of any hard drive or computer, this could be the only link to Grace they had. His fierce guarding of the phone with the self-destruct app screamed that there was something on there to find.
‘How many characters?’ Penn asked.
‘Eleven,’ Paddy called out louder, realising he was talking to someone on the other side of the room.
‘Okay, leave it with me,’ Penn said.
‘So, we done on the matching up or what?’ Stacey asked Penn after ending the call from Paddy.
Penn passed over his printed sheets of Butler’s projects.
‘If you go any further before we get the results back from Wyley Court, we could have the boss digging up half the West Midlands before you know it.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘No, you’re right, Stace, but I need to get back to Harte’s timeline. We’re not gonna get Grace’s location from the phone. I need to narrow it down.’
Harte’s phone records had shown no activity on his phone from when he’d pinged a tower close to his home at 8 a.m. Monday, and then pinged another three miles away from the station ten minutes before he’d walked through the door.
He took a plain piece of paper and started making notes. His brain worked better if he could see it in black and white.
Grace Lennard had been abducted at 2.30 p.m.
‘I’ve got a nine-year-old girl who went missing in 2002,’ Stacey said to no one.
Harte had arrived at the station at 4.30 p.m.
‘She’s a perfect candidate for Harte’s MO.’
Penn tried to block out his colleague’s musings as he wrote down ‘30 mph’ as the average speed. Now to try and convert speed and distance, taking into account both locations.
He heard his colleague’s exclamations of ‘oh shit’ as he reached into his drawer for his headphones.
Sixty-One
‘They’re here,’ Kim said, impatiently jumping out of the car.
From the second Rory Duncan had understood her intention, his face had lost every ounce of colour.
He had reached for his phone and so had she. They had walked away from each other like duellists, her trying to action what needed to be done and him trying to stop it.
Her first call had been to Woody, where she’d warned him of the possibility of a complaint from a convicted sex offender.
‘Always good to know when they’re coming, Stone,’ had been his response.
She’d explained her reasons and told him what she needed, and he had taken care of the rest. Her requests were starting to arrive right now.
The first vehicle contained racks of metal fencing.
Once Rory Duncan had understood that he couldn’t stop what was happening, he had switched to damage control mode and they had reached a compromise. The inside part of the site could remain open to the public, but all outside access would be prohibited. A fence would be erected to stop members of the public wandering around the outside of the building.
Rory Duncan appeared beside her as the excavator came rolling into the car park. The man looked as though he was about to cry.
‘If just one customer impedes the work, Mr Duncan, we will close the place down completely.’
‘I understand,’ he offered miserably.
She chose not to inform him that should they find anything looking remotely like human bones, the whole site would be shut down anyway. The poor guy had dealt with enough.
The excavator was followed by a loader and behind that were squad cars.
Bryant headed off to brief them.
Mr Duncan’s hand went to his stomach. ‘Oh dear, all this is really making me feel unwell.’
Kim didn’t care to think how the discovery of human remains might affect his delicate constitution.
The vehicles continued to arrive and were attracting the attention of visitors both entering and exiting the site.
A man in jeans and T-shirt with a satchel had stopped to speak to Bryant.
‘Is that your guy?’
‘Yes, yes, that’s Bradley,’ he said, with relief, heading off to meet him.
Duncan had called the guy from some kind of historical integrity site, to oversee works and ensure that the least amount of damage was being done. She understood Duncan’s concern for the fountain, but it didn’t trump her concern for what may lie beneath it.
Duncan was headed back towards her with the man named Brad. She turned her back and walked away as her phone began to ring.
‘Go ahead, Stace,’ she said, covering her other ear against the sound of voices and machinery.
Other than the odd word, she was struggling to hear. She ended the call and travelled towards the car, grabbing Bryant en route.
‘What?’ he said after excusing himself.
‘Need to get somewhere quiet to call Stacey back.’
‘Why, what did she want?’ he asked, opening the car doors.
They both got in, closed the doors and blocked out the noise around them.
‘Dunno – couldn’t hear a bloody word,’ she said, scrolling to the last caller. ‘But I think she was trying to say something about finding another one.’
Sixty-Two
‘Are you kidding me?’ Kim asked as they drove through the Nimmings car park entrance to the Clent Hills.
‘As I wasn’t the one to give you the information, I’m guessing that’s aimed at Stacey, and I suspect she wasn’t kidding.’
‘Do you know how many times I’ve bought coffee from here?’
‘If you seriously want me to have a guess I will, but I’d say we’re talking in the hundreds when you’ve brought the prince for a walk.’
Bryant always used her pet name for Barney because of her treatment of her four-legged friend.
Awful to think she could have been standing on remains every time she’d done so.
‘So what did Stacey say?’ Bryant asked, making no move to get out the car.