‘Yes, Mr Preece, yesterday lunchtime,’ she clarified. ‘Fiona Cowley came here.’
He shook his head as colour suffused his cheeks. His gaze did not meet hers as he offered his answer.
‘I’m afraid I haven’t seen Fiona Cowley for years.’
SEVENTY-NINE
‘But why would he lie?’ Travis asked, as they closed the door behind them.
‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘But this woman is going to great lengths to stay out of our way. Get on to the team and get her address and…’
She stopped speaking when she realised he wasn’t crossing the gravel beside her.
She turned to find him still standing on the clean stone entrance tiles.
He fished inside his jacket and removed an evidence bag.
She frowned as he reached down and removed his right shoe. He showed her the sole. It held a splodge of sticky pink chewing gum, covered in fibres.
‘They just stuck to me,’ he said, innocently.
Now Kim understood the walk around the house.
She smiled as she remembered the piece of paper from the sofa.
‘Happens to you a lot, doesn’t it?’
‘Strangely, yes,’ he said, hobbling across the shale.
Kim tried not to enjoy the idea of a hundred needles nipping into Travis’s foot.
He got in the car and took out his phone. She did the same. There was something she wanted to know.
Doctor A answered on the second ring.
‘Doc, I need a little help on something. The dig, the location, everything. Who exactly was it from the family that gave their consent?’
‘Waiting one minute while I check my paper works.’
Kim drummed her fingers on her leg as Travis wrote down an address.
‘I have it,’ Doctor A said. ‘It was authorised by Miss Fiona Cowley.’
Kim thanked her and ended the call. Three seconds later, so did Travis.
As she glanced sideways, she smiled at the evidence bag in his lap.
‘You know we’ll never be able to use that?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, but aren’t there times when you just have to know?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Kim said, throwing the car into reverse. And right now, everything she wanted to know needed to come from Fiona Cowley.
EIGHTY
‘Hurry up,’ Bryant shouted in his ear.
‘I’m trying,’ he snapped, typing in the date. He was reminded of those dreams where body parts would not respond to the brain’s command.
‘Jack said an hour ago. Try from one fifteen.’
Dawson ignored the command and entered one o’clock dead. He would fast forward until he saw her. He’d spot those knitted Fair Isle tights anywhere.
‘Go slow,’ Bryant said.
‘Shut up,’ Dawson snapped, focussing on the screen.
There were three cameras that covered the exterior of the station. One was directly above the entrance, pointing down to capture all persons going in and out. The second was fixed to the east side, facing the front car park. The other was fixed to the west side, covering the rear of the building. That left two black spots that Dawson knew about.
Silence filled the room as the two of them focussed on the three images running alongside each other. Dawson dared not breathe in case he missed her.
He watched as officers came and went, two civilians entered and left.
‘There she is,’ Dawson said, as Stacey’s familiar figure appeared on the front and west facing camera at the same time.
Dawson wasn’t prepared for the lurch of his stomach on seeing her.
She took two steps forward, moving out of the view of the entrance camera, leaving only the west view on screen.
‘What’s she looking for?’ Bryant asked, rhetorically.
Dawson watched her bowed head as she looked from right to left.
‘No, Stace,’ he said to the screen as the figure began to move to the east, away from the camera view.
If she walked around the corner, she would be beside the shrubbery and lost from view unless she reappeared at the rear of the building.
As she disappeared he clicked on to the camera that covered the rear.
‘Come on,’ he said, urgently, desperate to see her form again.
The timer continued to climb towards the moment they’d returned to the station.
Stacey didn’t reappear.
She had never left the area where they’d found her broken phone.
For a long moment, they simply stared at each other. He saw every ounce of his own fear reflected in his colleague’s eyes.
Dawson swallowed his panic as Bryant stood.
‘We have to see Woody. Now.’
EIGHTY-ONE
‘Stay in the car,’ Kim said, as she pulled up outside Fiona’s house in Fairfield.
Travis nodded. They really were going to have to head back to the office to get him a fresh pair of shoes.
The house was a detached property on a main road used by motorists wanting to avoid the A38. With its post office and general store the area had a village feel to it.
Kim didn’t hold out any real hope of finding Fiona at home. The red Jaguar wasn’t parked on the drive, and she spied no evidence of activity within.
Kim knocked and waited only a few seconds for a response before looking through the letterbox at a short hallway with stairs and two open doors. She listened keenly but there was no sound.
She turned to Travis, shook her head and pointed to the side of the house.
The waist-high fence was broken by a narrow gate, which stood open.
The back of the house was tidy, with a small lawn and a rockery. Three items of clothing hung on a rotary clothes line.
Kim touched them. They were sopping wet, but there had been no rain since the previous morning.
She tried the back door. It was locked. She stepped back and appraised the property. No windows had been left open.
‘Damn it,’ Kim said, peering into the kitchen window.
The room was tidy, with just a plate and coffee mug resting on the sink drainer.
She sighed. Much as she wanted to break in to the property, she knew she didn’t have cause. Fiona Cowley was a grown woman, and Kim had no real grounds to fear for her safety.
She took a step and then paused. A scratching noise sounded from the garden shed. Kim stood still and listened again.
The sound of her mobile phone startled her. She took it out and cancelled the call. Now was not the time to update her boss. She would call Woody back later.
Again she heard the scratching. She put the phone back into her pocket and tried the handle of the shed door.
She opened it slowly.
‘Jesus,’ she exclaimed, as the source of the scratching became clear to her.
The entire left side of the space was occupied by an oversized cage that held an abundance of hay. She stepped closer. The hay was moving.
Suddenly a black-and-white head popped out and squeaked at her.
Kim rolled her eyes. A guinea pig. Beside the cage were containers of dried food and a row of bottled water.
She frowned as the thing moved to the far edge of the cage. Fiona had not come across as the animal-loving kind.