‘And was he taking people the other way?’
‘What, you mean out of the country? Khalil would take anyone anywhere if the money was right. I think – and don’t quote me on this – that there’s always a drip feed the other way. Y’know, people going back, thinking the Continent might offer a better deal, but border control couldn’t care less about that flow so we don’t investigate it. Listen, hon, I’ve really got to go.’
‘Just one more thing,’ Manon says. ‘His drop-offs and pick-ups – did he operate in Cambridgeshire?’
‘Yup,’ says Bryony. ‘All up and down the eastern coastline – out of Felixstowe, across to the M11, down through Maidstone, and out of Dover. Should we be interrogating Khalil on this, asking if he knows anything about the Hind girl?’
‘Not yet,’ says Manon. ‘Gimme a bit more time.’
‘Right, look, I’ve really got to—’
‘Yes, yes, sorry. Thanks, love. Bye.’ Manon lays her phone down on the desk.
Her email box says one new message. She puts her headphones on and listens to the audio file.
After a sprint around MIT, she locates Harriet in Stanton’s office, sunken-eyed, clicking about at the computer. Manon is panting so hard, she almost can’t get the words out. Harriet looks up.
‘What is it?’
Is this a panic attack? Why won’t her words come out?
‘What, Manon? Speak.’
‘Audio file,’ she gasps. ‘Audio file.’ She is pointing at the computer.
Harriet opens up the email Manon has forwarded to her inbox and plays the audio file. She and Manon do not take their eyes off each other. The voice – patrician, superior, commanding. ‘Meet me at the usual place.’
‘It’s him,’ says Harriet.
‘I know,’ says Manon.
‘It’s fucking him,’ Harriet says. ‘What date was this recorded?’
‘Sunday eleventh of December.’
‘Right, I’m authorising an ANPR trace on his plates on Sunday eleventh of December. We need to link this Dent number back to him. I’ll bet he wasn’t using his normal mobile to make that call, so it’ll be a PAYG, paid for in cash. Let’s get a date and location for its purchase – Hampstead High Street, I’ll put money on it – and let’s get our voice experts matching this recording with the recordings of our interviews with him.’
‘Shouldn’t we run it past Stanton—’
‘Fuck Stanton.’
Wednesday
Manon
She and Harriet have been shown into a waiting room that resembles a lounge in a country house hotel. Two leather Chesterfield sofas face each other across a Persian rug. The smell of brewing coffee. On a polished coffee table are arranged copies of Country Life magazine and Homes & Gardens, and a generous vase of flowers. Around the corners of the room, large lamps are lit.
‘Officers,’ says Ian Hind, coming out from his room and bringing with him the haste of the busy professional. ‘What a surprise. Do you have an update for us? Wouldn’t it be best to talk at home with Miriam?’
‘Is there somewhere we could speak in private?’ asks Harriet.
‘Yes, of course. Rosemary,’ he says, peering out to where his receptionist sits at a desk in the lobby, ‘no interruptions, all right? Do come through.’
He shows them into another stately room where he takes up a seat in a leather chair beside his desk.
Harriet and Manon remain standing.
‘Sir Ian,’ says Harriet, ‘I wonder if you could tell us where you were on the night of Sunday eleventh of December.’
‘The eleventh of December? Well, now, that’s two months ago. I’d have to consult my diaries, ask Miriam. Off the top of my head, I have absolutely no idea. At home, probably. I usually am on a Sunday night.’
‘You see, our cameras have snapshots of your car driving up the M11 towards East Anglia that night, in the direction of March, where your country house is.’
He taps the steeple of his fingers a couple of times, turns his mouth down, looks at them blankly, as if in confusion.
‘Yes, yes, that’s right – I popped to Deeping. There were maintenance issues to do with the house—’
‘Which you forgot to mention.’
‘I can barely remember making the trip, to be perfectly honest with you, but now that you mention it …’ He gives them a condescending smile. Then looks at his watch. ‘Is there a significance to this, because I have a patient in ten minutes and I must look over their notes.’
‘One more thing, Sir Ian,’ says Harriet. ‘You have stated that you didn’t know Taylor Dent.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And yet you left a voicemail message on his phone saying, “Meet me in the usual place,” on the eleventh of December, which was the date on which he was last seen.’
‘I’m sorry, what message?’
‘Here, I’ll play it for you,’ Manon says, opening an email on her smart phone and playing the sound file.
‘Meet me. At the usual place.’