Wordless, Mason reached for the small cube of tissues at the edge of the desk and offered them to her. Sophie took one and mumbled a thank you to Mason, who slid the box back to the edge of the desk.
‘Okay, Sophie. I understand.’ Jenna did understand. That need to connect, to know she could still see her best friend, her sister. To believe they were still alive. The denial that she could possibly be dead. Jenna had experienced the emotions herself, suffered the same hope and doubt and desperate desire for it not to be true. She kept her hands loose in front of her, eager to offer the young girl comfort, but aware that she needed to extract information from her before Sophie broke down altogether. Unable to ignore the slight edge of anticipation, Jenna waited for Sophie to give her eyes a delicate dab before she met her gaze. ‘When you're ready, in your own time, carry on.’
Jenna placed one hand over the top of Sophie’s trembling one, the wet of her tears warm in direct contrast to the iciness of Sophie’s skin.
Sophie’s voice shuddered out. ‘When you look at someone’s profile, you can see when they were on WhatsApp. I wasn’t looking for that, so it took me a couple of minutes to notice.’ She hitched in a shaky breath. ‘The app says that Poppy last looked at WhatsApp at 2303 last night, that’s when we were on. That’s when we were talking to each other. She was there at the same time. Watching. Tracking our conversation before we switched to video.’
Sophie’s forlorn clutch at the possibility that her friend was still alive squeezed Jenna’s heart.
Without wanting to give her false hope, Jenna pulled the phone closer to her and leaned in to get a better look. She tapped on Poppy’s name and a photograph of the beautiful, blonde-haired young girl appeared inside a circular frame on screen.
Jenna stared at the faded text that indicated when WhatsApp was last seen. She picked up her pen and with considered calmness wrote Sophie’s name down on the notepad in front of her. She underscored it and made a note of the time registered on the WhatsApp that someone had last looked at Poppy’s phone.
She slid the phone across for Mason to verify and caught the quick movement of his left eyebrow as it flicked upwards in a cool acknowledgement.
As she slid the phone back across the table, Sophie scrunched the tissue into her fist. ‘I don't know if you know how WhatsApp works.’
Jenna bestowed her with a gentle smile. Sophie probably thought she was too old to understand, but she used WhatsApp all the time to keep in contact with Fliss and Adrian, Mason and Ryan. Although she tended to shy away from groups. Too much shit to wade through when she just wanted a quick answer.
She slid her attention back to Sophie.
‘When somebody is typing their reply, this message up here…’ Sophie tapped the screen with the very tip of her sharp acrylic nail, ‘…says typing, in italics.’
Aware of that, Jenna could only nod her head in agreement.
Sophie dabbed at her eyes. Tears almost forgotten in her desperation to get her point across. ‘Well, while I was looking at her picture, the word typing appeared.’ She stopped, her gaze sharpened on Jenna as though willing her to understand.
Jenna couldn’t see the word typing, she’d not been privy to what Sophie may have seen the night before, either in reality or because her mind craved the comfort of believing her friend was alive. ‘What did she type?’
Sophie’s mouth turned downward. ‘She didn’t. After a few minutes, the word disappeared, and nothing came up on screen. I waited. I waited for ages. After nothing appeared, I sent her a message direct, not on the group chat.’ Sophie tapped the screen. ‘I didn’t want the other girls to see in case they thought I was mad.’
Fear of ridicule or recrimination, Jenna wasn’t sure which, reflected in Sophie’s eyes. She pushed the phone towards Jenna again.
Poppy.
Are you there?
Please let me know you’re alive.
I love you, babe.
Jenna stared at the screen until her eyes burnt, but if she looked up, she knew they’d all see the wash of tears in her eyes.
Sophie’s messages were the last in the thread.
Jenna blew out a cooling breath and raised her head when she was ready. Not for one moment did Jenna dispute Sophie’s words, but with no knowledge of the young girl’s reliability she could only take the evidence in front of her. That evidence clearly showed that whether Poppy was alive or dead, someone had used her phone. A phone they believed had perished in the fire along with the occupants of Kimble Hall.
The seriousness with which Sophie had taken the matter and the sensible manner in which she conducted herself with the support of her mother gave Jenna concern. This wasn't some hysterical teenager.
Jenna placed her hand over the phone and drew it closer. ‘Sophie, I’m really grateful to you for coming in. I do take this very seriously. I need to ask you if we can take your phone as evidence.’ It was the only evidence of contact and although Jenna was asking out of politeness, the cold, hard truth of it was she was quite within her rights to seize the phone if Sophie refused.
Eyes rounded with shock, Sophie turned to Trudy Maxwell. ‘Mum?’
For the first time, Trudy moved, her mouth springing into a wide, false smile and Jenna understood the strength of will it took for the woman not to cry. ‘Of course. It’s not a problem. We’ll call at Tesco and buy you one of those burner phones.’
Sophie rolled her heavily laden eyes as only a teenager could. ‘Mum, it’s not a burner phone, we’re not druggies.’
Trudy glanced at her watch and pushed away from the table. ‘We’ll let you follow up your investigations.’ She offered her hand in a firm shake to both Jenna and Mason with Sophie following her cue. ‘We appreciate your time. Thank you.’
As Sophie and Trudy made their way over the small bridge onto the car park, Jenna turned to Mason. ‘Get hold of our mobile SPOC and see what they can establish. We’ll need the forms filling in for RIPA.’ She didn’t need him circumnavigating the system of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, they needed to conduct an interception of communications through the single point of contact who would follow the lead through from start to finish tracking the results and keeping on top of the case so it didn’t get lost in the system.
Jenna handed the phone to Mason, they still needed to adhere to the regulations. ‘Make it quick. DI Taylor can sign it off.’
‘It’s going to take a few hours to process.’
As they made their way back upstairs to their offices, Jenna nodded, processes and the time they took were essential, and frustratingly beyond her control. ‘Sooner we can get the request in, the better.’
Mason held the door into the corridor open to let her through, then kept abreast of her as she lengthened her stride.
‘You think Poppy is alive?’
Jenna stopped at the door to the main office and turned. ‘I think we have one body short of a family set and we have evidence that someone, somewhere has accessed Poppy’s phone. We now need to know who and where.’
37
Tuesday 21 April 1025 hours
‘Sarge,’ the voice on the other end of the phone was a gruff whisper. ‘I’m not sure you’re going to believe this, but I have someone else asking for you in connection with Poppy Lawrence, concerned parents, Mr and Mrs Abbott. They say their son is missing.’