Текст книги "Scarred for Life"

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

20

Jessica watched from the passenger seat of an unmarked car as either end of the road was blocked off by officers as conspicuous as someone wearing a fluorescent top at a funeral.

‘I don’t remember your operations being this chaotic,’ Izzy said from the driver’s seat, anxiously. Jessica should really have been doing the heavy lifting but it had been Izzy’s case throughout and the sergeant was more than capable. Jessica was only there to take the flak if things went badly. She was in enough people’s bad books as it was, so one more balls-up wouldn’t make much difference.

Jessica nodded towards an officer at the far end of the street arguing with a driver who was trying to make their way along the road. ‘Where did we hire this new lot from? He looks like a duck that’s been sniffing glue.’

The officer started whirring his hand in the air, the universal sign for ‘turn the car around, love’, and then reached for his pocket when the driver began arguing.

‘He’s not going for the pepper spray, is he?’ Izzy said, one hand on the radio.

Luckily it was just his identification which, in fairness to the driver, Jessica would’ve been asking for if she’d been asked to turn around by someone who looked like they belonged on a farm.

With the obvious escape routes blocked, the tactical entry team scurried into place around the rundown semi. The Eccles estate wasn’t the prettiest at the best of times. If tourists had been taken around the area and told it had been deliberately left as it was to provide a snapshot of war-torn, bombed-out 1940s Britain, then their cameras would’ve had plenty to snap at. There were the once red-brick houses now stained with black soot, even though Jessica doubted there was a coal fire anywhere nearby. There were the inexplicable mud piles in front gardens, the pot holes in the road, the random heaps of scrap dotted around, the upturned sofa on the side of the road with yellow foam spilling out, the smashed-up bus stop with the words ‘arse on toast’ graffitied onto it. What was it with spray-painters and the word ‘arse’? Not to mention the fact that Jessica had no idea what the toast reference was about. Perhaps it was some gang thing? Bloody hell, she was getting old.

Even among all that, the house Bones was apparently hiding in stood out as being a dump. The windows and doors across the lower floor were boarded up, with yet more graffiti shining out like a beacon. If your name was Sharon and you lived on this estate, then you certainly seemed to have a varied sexual appetite. Upstairs, the windows were just about in place – well, the frames were. Some of the single-glazed panes had been smashed, with all manner of stone-shaped holes adorning those that were left. Even for an estate agent, this would be a hard sell: ‘The downstairs can be a little dark, while you get the odd draught upstairs. Overall, though, it’s still a bargain . . .’

Luckily for them, a little old lady across the road had spotted someone with a tattooed head sneaking inside earlier. Most people on this estate wouldn’t bat an eyelid but thank goodness for little old ladies.

Behind the tactical entry squad, armed officers primed themselves, looking like a pack of beetles with their rounded black armour and shiny helmets. Across their fronts, their MP5s hung.

‘Christ, I hope they don’t shoot anyone,’ Izzy said.

‘They’re more likely to shoot each other than they are Bones,’ Dave chipped in from the back seat, unhelpfully.

‘If you count the officers with guns,’ Jessica added, ‘we’ve probably doubled the number of automatic weapons on this estate, at least temporarily.’

‘Will the pair of you shut up,’ Izzy snipped, not taking her eyes from the house.

Jessica and Dave exchanged chastened looks like a pair of naughty schoolchildren, but they did at least pipe down. Jessica peered around the rest of the area. There were a few faces in windows and the inevitable camera phones taking pictures to try to sell to the news channels. From where they were parked, they had a clear view of the front and side doors of the rundown house, plus a hint of the overgrown rear garden. Jessica wondered what the people who lived next door must think. That house was admittedly in a little better state, with a frail-looking once-red wooden front door and cracked window frames that hadn’t seen paint in the last decade or three, but the windows were at least intact.

Confirmation came over the radio that everyone was in place and Jessica turned to Izzy for the passing of the baton. ‘Go on then,’ she said.

Izzy looked at both officers, then the house, and then she gave the order: ‘Go, go, go.’ It might be a cliché – but it was a bloody cool one.

Thunk, crash, fwoosh: the boarded-up door splintered in an instant as the tactical entry team jumped to one side and allowed the tactical firearm squad to thunder into the building. Jessica wondered if her department could be rechristened the ‘tactical figuring-stuff-out crew’. Adding ‘tactical’ to the front of anything instantly made them sound better.

‘Please don’t shoot anyone,’ Izzy whispered to herself.

All they could hear over the radio was the doof-doof-doof as boots clattered around the property. Jessica was about to suggest they have a word with the little old lady when her eye was caught by the house next door. The front door was now open a fraction, with the unmistakeable tattooed head of Bones peering out. He took one look at the back of the tactical entry team, now standing around awkwardly, and then tiptoed out like a cartoon baddie who had just been discovered. Before Jessica could say anything, he was running away from their roadblocks towards a patch of grass.

‘Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite,’ Jessica shouted, opening the car door. It might not have been the most informative of instructions but Dave took the hint, half-leaping, half-falling out of the back seat and following her as she set off after their suspect.

The first few metres were definitely the worst. Jessica felt something tighten in her stomach and then the cold air hit her lungs. Was it always this hard to breathe? Her only consolation was that Bones was clearly suffering too. He had at least a hundred metres on her but glanced over his shoulder and stumbled as his hand shot up to his chest. He was wearing jeans, heavy work boots and a thick coat, which must be even worse for running in than her suit was. As he reached the green, Jessica could see Bones was heading for a dingy-looking alley. When they’d rolled in to block the ways off the estate, the overgrown hedges shielding the cut-through had looked like someone’s garden gone out of control; now there was clearly a pathway. Jessica peered over her shoulder and held an arm out, pointing Dave towards the nearby cul de sac and hoping he got the message that there was hopefully a cut-through there too. Meanwhile, she put her head down and ran.

She was definitely faster than Bones but had no idea what type of shape he was in – short bursts of speed she could just about handle; endurance, she didn’t really want to find out . . .

The grass was muddy and Jessica slid for the final metre before regaining her footing on the cracked concrete of the alley. She ducked under the overgrown hedge, batted away a dangling branch and then kicked on again, trying to ignore the building pain in her thighs, stomach, calves and back.

The alley curved right around someone’s back garden and then left again. If Bones had gone over the top of one of the fences, he’d be out of sight already but Jessica stuck to the path until she reached another small grassy area. Large heavy footprints were embedded in the muddy sludge and Jessica followed the long stride pattern into another ginnel.

Run, run, run.

As she rounded another corner, she finally saw a glimpse of Bones. He was leaning against a gatepost, puffing even more heavily than she was. At the sound of her footsteps, he glanced over his shoulder and then set off again, barrelling straight ahead without looking and sprawling over the bottom half of an overturned wheelie bin.

Dave Rowlands emerged from around the corner, looking more surprised than Jessica was. ‘It was all I could find,’ he said apologetically, kneeling and telling Bones to hold his wrists behind his back.

Jessica felt light-headed and leant against the closest fence, hands on her knees, wanting someone to take her home and put her to bed.

‘What is it with you and bloody bins?’ she gasped.

‘He’s twice the size of me! It was outside someone’s back gate and I thought it could be some sort of obstacle if he came this way.’

The only way Bones was twice the size of Rowlands was if you took his padded coat into account but Jessica had neither the breath, strength nor willpower to point it out.

Slowly, she made her way over to the crossroads where Bones was sitting on the ground, hands cuffed behind his back, blood streaming from his bottom lip. ‘Morning, Dougie,’ Jessica said, trying her best not to sound as if she felt close to a premature death.

When he realised she was the same officer he had run from previously, his eyes widened in recognition. ‘You do deals, don’t you?’

‘What?’

‘I’ve seen it on telly – they have all these lawyer blokes who get people off if they know something about something else.’

Jessica rolled her eyes. ‘You’re thinking of the Yanks. We don’t do deals here.’

‘I know something about your case.’

‘Cassie Edmonds?’

Bones licked away the blood from his lip and shook his head. ‘That Potter kid.’

21

Bones spent the best part of an hour in the basement room of Longsight Police Station with the duty solicitor, presumably being told that British police forces do not do deals. Jessica sat in her office with Izzy, trying to pretend that she wasn’t aching in places she’d forgotten existed, feeling particularly smug that this was one investigation that could be crossed off DCI Cole’s list of things that hadn’t yet been solved. The series of pickpocketings was always going to remain unsolved – from the moment the teenager had entered the cafe, Jessica had known she was never going to turn Bex in.

After an interminable wait, there was a delicate knock on Jessica’s office door and the rather defeated figure of the duty solicitor stood in the doorway. He was a familiar face around the station, often dealing with the Friday– and Saturday-night drunks who refused to believe they’d done anything wrong by puking in the street and starting a fight with a stranger. ‘It’s just a bit of bants, innit,’ was the motto of half the morons they booted out the morning after with a slap on the wrist and directions to the nearest bus stop.

Jessica couldn’t stop herself from grinning as the solicitor caught her eye. ‘You did tell him we don’t do deals, didn’t you?’ she said.

The solicitor let himself into the room and closed the door behind him, taking a seat on the edge of the empty desk. His suit was a fraction too big for him and he looked as if he could do with a good night’s sleep.

‘Are we all right to talk in here?’ he mumbled.

Jessica shrugged. ‘I’m not being bugged by MI5 if that’s what you’re asking. Well, not that I know of.’ She peered up to the corners of the room, wondering.

He glanced towards Izzy. ‘Off the record?’

‘Whatever you want,’ Jessica said. ‘Sergeant Diamond is sound. Well, she’s a bit slow at getting out of cars when there’s a chase on but she’s fine apart from that.’

Izzy scowled. ‘Hey!’

The solicitor perked up, lowering his voice and grinning in a way that didn’t suit him. ‘You really know how to find them around here, don’t you? I’ve been looking to do some work up in Lancashire because they only get half the wankers you get down here.’

‘Is that your professional legal opinion?’

‘Something like that. Anyway, Mr, er, Harrison—’

‘Bones.’

‘Yes, him. He claims to have information about the death of Damon Potter. He won’t tell me what it is, so it’s not that I can even give you a steer . . . not that I would . . .’

‘I get it,’ Jessica replied. ‘Did you tell him we don’t do deals?’

‘I told him, but he’s seen it on television.’

‘So what? Godzilla was stomping around New York City on television the other week; it doesn’t mean it’s true.’

‘You know that and I know that – but he’s insistent.’

‘Tell him to sod off – he held up four off-licences with a knife and we found the money at his house. Then he went on the run and left me doubled over like someone twice my age. Believe it or not, I don’t have that much sympathy for anyone that makes me run, especially not in this weather. I could’ve ended up on my arse – did he think of that?’

Another grin flickered across the solicitor’s face before disappearing again. ‘It doesn’t matter to me what he knows and what he doesn’t. He knows you’ve got him bang to rights and he’ll probably tell you as much. He’s hardly the shy and retiring type. I’m trying to help you – if you can give him something, anything, he’ll tell you what he knows. Either way, he knows he’s going down for this, he just wants an olive branch.’

Jessica sighed and exchanged a brief glance with Izzy. Bloody TV shows and the bloody idiots that watch them. ‘I could probably swing it for him to get a Twix? Perhaps a KitKat? That would even be out of my own pocket – and you know what’s happening to the price of chocolate nowadays. In my day you could get a Freddo for ten pence. They’re probably a quid now.’

The solicitor shook his head. ‘Perhaps if I bring him up in fifteen minutes, you might be able to think of something?’

Jessica thanked him for the tip and then waited for him to leave before turning to Izzy. ‘Any ideas?’

Izzy screwed up her bottom lip. ‘Actually I do . . . but I’m not sure you’re going to like it . . .’

Jessica sat on one side of the interview room with Izzy, watching Bones on the other next to his solicitor. He glared down at the Twix and KitKat and then glanced sideways. ‘I’m not telling them for that.’

‘Bollocks.’ Jessica swept the chocolate bars off the table and pocketed them. ‘So what do you want, Mr, er, Bones?’

Bones nodded at the solicitor. ‘I told ’im – I want a reduction in whatever sentence I’m going to get.’

‘How about half a mil in used notes and forty virgins in your cell too?’

‘Really?’

‘No, of course not really!’

With his piercings removed, it was hard for Jessica to look anywhere other than Bones’ hanging flap of skin and large round hole through his nose. It was as if he had an extra nostril. She sighed and leant back in her seat. ‘Look, whatever sentence you get is nothing to do with us. We investigate, we hand the evidence over to the Crown Prosecution Service, they take you to court, we might give evidence, and then a jury decides if you’re guilty. It sounds as if you’re going to confess, so it won’t even get that far. A judge will give you a sentence, then they’ll give you a third off for pleading guilty. That’s it – if I’m really lucky, I’ll be sunning myself on a beach by then.’

‘There must be something you can do?’

Jessica glanced at Izzy. Always with the clever ideas.

‘All right – first, you tell us everything about the robberies, and then I’ll see what I can do before we discuss anything you might or might not know about Damon Potter.’

Bones looked at his solicitor, who gave a small nod, and then he was away, regaling them with the shoddy financial situation of his business. He’d come up with the idea of the temporary tattoo and, at least for a while, thought he’d got away with it. He’d been caught out by the Manchester rain, of course.

With his shop leaking money, his main point of contention was he didn’t want to prove his mum correct by having to shut it down. Apparently, she’d always said he was going to be a failure, and going out of business would show she was right. Quite what she’d think about having a son in prison for a series of knife robberies wasn’t exactly certain. The truth was, they didn’t need his confession because they had all the necessary evidence, but it did make things a little clearer. Jessica clarified a few details of the timings and dates, plus queried what had happened to the small amount of cash they hadn’t accounted for – ‘I spent it, dint I?’ – and then that was one more case officially moved from the unsolved side of the whiteboard to the solved side. Well, if anyone could be bothered to find the pen.

Jessica terminated the interview, stopped the tape and waited until the recording light on the video camera in the top corner of the room had gone off, which she pointed out to Bones.

‘Why have you done that?’ he asked.

‘Because there’s one thing we didn’t mention in interview. We can either include it in our reports, or selectively leave it off. DS Diamond here has a shocking memory and I’m not much better. That whole incident with you running off and hiding for a few days, not to mention scarpering this morning, could be conveniently omitted from our paperwork – or it could be written in big fat red capital letters. You might think that doesn’t mean much but judges take a very dim view of people who try to evade justice. If we can drag them out of the lunch room for long enough, they tend to plonk another six months or so onto a sentence for things like that.’

Bones scratched the hole in his nose and glanced at his solicitor, who nodded a fraction. ‘It’s not necessarily six months,’ he said, ‘but you’d likely get something. Plus it stays on your record forever. After you’re released, if you’re ever arrested again, there’s very little chance of you getting bail because they’d consider you a flight risk.’

‘It’s up to you,’ Jessica said. ‘Personally I don’t care either way, but after all this arsing around, you’d better have something interesting for me.’

‘Can I have the Twix, too?’

Jessica delved into her pocket and slid the chocolate bar across the table. ‘Right, get talking, I haven’t got all day.’

‘On the news, they were showing the photo of the dead kid who was dumped in the bin.’

‘Damon Potter.’

‘I recognised him straight away because he’d been in my shop.’

‘When?’

Bones started counting on his stubby fingers. ‘Sorry, I’ve lost track of days. When did you find him?’

‘Thursday night.’

‘So he would’ve been on the news on Friday?’

‘Right.’

‘It would’ve been Wednesday then.’

Jessica was about to ask why he hadn’t come forward if he’d seen Damon on the day the teenager died but it was a stupid question considering the last thing Bones wanted to do was attract the attention of the police.

‘There weren’t any tattoos on his body,’ she said.

Bones nodded. ‘Rose was off for the morning and I was by myself. He was a nervous kid anyway but I was probably a bit much for him.’ He indicated unnecessarily towards his head.

‘So he didn’t go through with it?’

‘He said he might come back another time, but you get a lot of people who change their minds when they realise you actually have to use a needle on them.’

‘Did you talk to him about anything?’

‘He knew what he wanted, so I was all ready to go. When you’ve got nervous people, you usually try to calm them. You ask about their lives, what they’re into, that kind of thing. He said he was part of some rowing club and studying business. I thought it was a strange mix but you never know with kids today.’

‘Did he seem worried about anything other than the tattoo?’

Bones stuck out his bottom lip, exposing another gaping hole from where he’d had his piercings taken. ‘He seemed happy enough until the needle came out.’

‘He wasn’t worried when talking about the rowing club?’

‘Nope.’

He couldn’t have been that worried about Holden then . . .

‘You said he knew what he wanted . . . ?’

Bones nodded enthusiastically. ‘He had a picture of it – some sort of three-pronged thing.’

Jessica felt that chill again. It couldn’t be. She delved into her pocket and took out a notebook and pen, sliding it across the desk. ‘Can you draw it?’

Bones’ penwork was as crisp and clear as the tattoos on his head. When he turned the pad around and slid it back, there was no doubt what he had drawn: it was an exact match of the logo someone had etched on the top right of the envelope that had been delivered through Jessica’s door.

22

Jessica managed to hide her recognition of the symbol from Bones, the solicitor and Izzy. Somebody knew her address and wanted her to believe that Holden Wyatt was innocent. They’d even drawn a symbol on the envelope that, for whatever reason, Damon Potter had wanted tattooed onto himself hours before he died.

Couldn’t they have picked someone else?

After the interview was over, Jessica found a quiet moment to talk Rowlands through what Bones had drawn. The fact that it was now a part of an official case meant he didn’t have to be quite so quiet about investigating it – even if Jessica did tell him to be as discreet as he could. She didn’t want news getting back to Cole about what she was looking into. If he wanted to trawl through the logs to find it then he could but there was no need to make it obvious.

With Bones dealt with and ready for his court appearance, which he seemed surprisingly chipper about given the circumstances, Jessica was back to investigating the deaths of Cassie and Grace. Forensic results were now officially in for Grace, and endorsed many of the initial indications. The killer of the two women was almost certainly the same person: taller, male, right-handed, thick fingers, comfortable with a knife, and so on. It didn’t add much because that was who they were already looking for.

Just as she was about to go and find him, Archie came hurrying out of the corridor that led to Jessica’s office, Post-it pad in hand, grin on his face. ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he said.

‘Is that why you’re dribbling?’

Archie wiped the non-existent saliva from his face, grin disappearing. ‘I’ve been wading through your taxi list. There’s an ANPR camera a quarter of a mile along the road from where Cassie disappeared. We checked it at the time but it hadn’t thrown up anything unusual. When I ran the list of taxi number plates, there were a few but all on duty, all easy to account for because the offices know where their drivers are. There’s one exception.’

He couldn’t stop himself from grinning. Trawling through endless lists of numbers and names might not seem like real police work but it was how most crimes were solved. For a new constable like him, getting things to move on was as good as it got.

‘Go on,’ Jessica said, suppressing a smile, letting him have his moment.

‘I’ve got a plate registered to a black cab that was definitely off-duty. The driver went past that camera on the night Cassie went missing and the night Grace disappeared, too.’

‘Is there a picture of the driver?’

‘No, the angle’s shite, but we’ve got the name and the plate.’

He was bouncing on his heels, waiting for the metaphorical pat on the head. Jessica gave him a literal one instead.

‘Good boy,’ Jessica said. ‘Now let’s go get a bad guy.’

Linking the cab to Hamish Pendlebury had been the easy bit – finding him was not proving quite so straightforward. He wasn’t at home, and although he was technically supposed to be at work, he couldn’t be raised on his mobile phone, while there was some sort of problem with the radio system that connected the cab office to the vehicle. Officers were keeping an eye on ANPR cameras around the city in case he did pop up anywhere but there was every chance he’d nicked into the offy for his break and was currently sat in a park somewhere having a fag. Or doing whatever else it was taxi drivers did when they weren’t taking the long way round the ring road to get a few more quid from unsuspecting punters.

It was almost dark by the time Jessica, Archie, Rowlands and a uniformed PC – brought along because he looked like he worked out a bit – arrived at the taxi office. It had taken them almost half an hour of driving and walking around to find the place, before realising the door marked ‘Benny’s Lunchtime Supplies’ was actually ‘Tim’s Taxis’.

Jessica eased the frosted-glass door open and entered the reception area. Maroon velvet chairs lined a small room with peeling cream wallpaper and an overall smell of stale shoes. It was what seasoned observers might call ‘a bit of a hole’, with décor that harked back to the types of working men’s clubs that used to be so prevalent in the area. When she’d been in uniform, Jessica once had to visit one on the outskirts of the city. The older members had stuck a piece of white tape across the floor which they insisted females weren’t allowed to cross. When a pair of students had popped in for a cheap drink, the woman had naturally refused to abide by what she saw as an archaic law. After taking a seat on the ‘wrong’ side of the tape, all hell had broken loose, with threats of physical violence, allegations of sexual assault because they’d physically lifted the chair she was in, a riot squad, and two dozen other officers sent in to enforce the peace. When the police had pointed out that the club wasn’t allowed to segregate in the way it had, members had gone to the papers saying it was political correctness gone mad. Within four months, the whole place had shut down.

Jessica was about to stride through to the office at the back when a woman’s voice bellowed: ‘It’s not my fault you’ve not changed the sodding sign.’

A man’s voice shouted back: ‘All right, keep your bloody hair on.’

‘Don’t you fucking swear at me, you dickhead. It’s not my fault the bastard radios aren’t working either – I told you not to buy such cheap shite but it’s always about saving money with you, isn’t it?’

‘If you didn’t spend so much getting your hair done—’

‘What is it with you and my hair? Christ’s sake, you’re fucking obsessed.’

‘Oh, shove it up your arse – there’s enough room up there. Jesus, what is it, your time of the month again?’

Wallop.

‘Ow,’ the man’s voice shouted. ‘Fucking hell, you psycho bitch.’

Wallop.

Jessica opened the door again and slammed it this time. For a second there was silence and then a couple emerged sheepishly into the main waiting room. They were not what Jessica had expected: the woman with the big gob was shorter than she was, thin, tottering on heels, clutching an enormous bag and, in fairness to the man, it did look as if quite a lot of time, effort and backcombing had gone into her hair. The man, who Jessica assumed was ‘Tim’ of ‘Tim’s Taxis’ fame, was a hulk – over six foot tall, nearly as wide as the woman was tall, with long hair down his back that wouldn’t have been amiss in a biker gang. If this wasn’t proof that opposites attract then nothing was.

The woman glanced between the four officers and smiled sweetly. ‘Can you deal with this, Tim, hon?’

Tim had his teeth gritted. ‘Yes, sweetie, you go and get your nails done. I’ll see you at home later.’

A quick peck on the cheek and she was away, somehow managing to keep her balance in heels that would be classed as weapons in some countries.

Tim rubbed his upper arms as Jessica could sense Dave and Archie suppressing giggles.

‘I think someone’s already spoken to you,’ Jessica said. ‘We’re trying to find Hamish Pendlebury.’

With a frustrated toss of his hands skywards, Tim sighed. ‘Our radios have been on the blink. We’ve had to stop taking pre-bookings because I can’t get hold of anyone.’

‘But you also manage black cabs?’

The distinction was important because Hamish drove a black cab – a Hackney cab – which was legally allowed to cruise around looking for business and did not have to keep track of all the bookings it took. The private-hire taxis could only be pre-booked and full records had to be kept of all journeys.

‘We do a bit of both,’ Tim replied. ‘Nowadays you’ve got to dabble where you can.’

‘And Hamish is out in a black cab now?’

‘Right, but I don’t know where. Our system is down. I bought it in second-hand and the guy who fitted it reckoned it was as-new. Can you do anything about that?’

‘I think you’re after trading standards. Do you have any other way of contacting him?’

‘No, it’s not the first time it’s happened. Our private guys have to hang around waiting – either that or we call their mobiles. The Hackney lot go off and do their own thing until we can get in contact.’

‘I know you’ve gone over this on the phone but I need access to your tracking records of who’s on shift and when.’

Tim led them into the back but there was barely space for two of them, so Archie, Dave and the uniformed officer returned to the maroon room and took a seat. Tim showed Jessica how the computer worked and, after she’d wedged herself behind the desk, started fishing for information. ‘Is it, er, serious . . . ?’ he added.

‘Is what serious?’

‘The reason you’re looking for Hamish.’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘But you think he might be in trouble?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Right . . . is there anything else I can help you with?’

‘Getting your radios working would be a good start. If you’ve got a kettle, then I’m sure that lot out there would appreciate it. I think we’re all white without.’

Tim opened the filing cabinet behind Jessica and took out a kettle, heading into a smaller side room, filling it with water and then putting it on top of the cabinet, jamming it into a socket that already had eight different plugs slotted into various extension adapters, which Jessica felt sure was a fire hazard. He hovered behind her, making her feel uncomfortable, mainly because he was so much taller than she was as she sat.

‘Any luck with the radios or trackers?’ she prompted.

‘Oh, aye, yeah.’ Tim edged around the desk and picked up a large metal box with a few speaker holes on the front. He unplugged a cable, turned it upside down, looked at the bottom, and then plugged it in again. ‘Hmm . . .’

Obviously a technical genius at work. Well, at least one on a par with the plonkers they employed to fix – or not – the computers at Longsight.

‘Any better?’ Jessica asked.

‘No . . . I think it might be a loose connection.’

Apparently at a loss how to fix it, Tim dropped to the floor and started to shuffle under the desk, cracking his head on the corner with a solid thwack.