She is squinting and peering, turning this way and that. ‘There!’ she says to him, pointing.
‘What?’ says Davy.
‘There, can’t you see it? Poking out of the ivy.’
On a brick wall opposite the BP garage, camouflaged by glossy foliage, is a camera – trained on the forecourt. ‘Let’s see what’s in that one.’
Manon
Back in the department, she says, ‘There you go, Colin, knock yourself out,’ and places Graham Garfield’s MacBook Air on Colin’s desk.
He lifts its sleek grey lid, saying, ‘What’s he been up to then, dirty dog?’
‘It’s his web browser history we’re interested in.’
‘All leaves a trace,’ he mutters, clicking about as if he’s owned the laptop all his life. ‘Download takes time though, going through all that data.’
The room is quieter than when they left. It seems deflated with collective exhaustion but Manon is fizzing. She wants that film, because whoever Edith was calling the day before she disappeared must hold the key, and Manon is about to get him, about to see his face. It can’t be Taylor Dent, unless you can top-up from beyond the grave (the phone companies are probably looking into this possibility) but it could be an associate of his.
Kim is passing round a tray of Thornton’s Milk Assortment, so broad and thin it bends, crackling in her hand.
‘We bumped into Helena Reed. She looked pretty torn up about the Crimewatch stuff. Need to keep an eye on her,’ Manon says to Harriet. Kim’s mouth is already working on a chocolate – slow, bovine ruminations – but before passing the box on, she takes another.
‘Not for me,’ says Harriet, taut as ever, perching on a desk, then up again, rounding her shoulders and pulling up her bra strap. ‘OK, let’s send a liaison officer round this arvo. They can stay with her over the weekend. Make sure you put in the paperwork, all right, Manon? Who gave us those, anyway?’ she says, nodding at the chocolates.
‘Some old bird handed them in to reception.’
‘Christ, it wouldn’t be hard to take out the whole of Cambridgeshire nick – you lot’ll eat anything.’
‘Where’s the menu guide thingy,’ Colin asks, the box having at last come his way.
‘Speed it up, Brierley,’ says Stuart.
‘I think I’ll have … No, hang on. Yes, a Nut Caress.’ With a full mouth, he says, ‘Nothing dirty among his documents so far. Looks like he and Mrs Garfield had a nice time in Broadstairs, mind.’
‘When’s that CCTV footage coming in?’ asks Harriet.
‘Any minute now,’ says Manon, clicking refresh on her emails. ‘Council said they’d have it to me within the hour.’
She creates a new email, types in DI Haverstock, and his address at Kilburn CID fills out automatically. Just a note, she types, to say if anything significant comes in on the Dent enquiry, can you email me? Just keep me up to speed, that’s all. Then she hits ‘send’.
She glances at Colin and Stuart – Colin half-clicking around Garfield’s laptop, with the odd sideways look at Stuart’s new iPad.
‘I just can’t get to grips with it,’ Stuart is saying, swiping at the screen and frowning, to which Colin says (chewing, glasses pushed up onto his bald pate), ‘That’s normal with a new gadget. You have to hate it for a time. That’s how it is.’
‘Here we go,’ Manon says to the room, opening up the new email which has just appeared in her inbox. It seems an age while the footage downloads, Harriet perching, then up again, pulling at her bra strap. Manon’s mind is feeling along the possibilities: an associate of Taylor Dent; a lover they haven’t been told about; a drug dealer whose previous convictions will be all over their system. They gather round Manon’s screen: Harriet, Davy, Kim and Colin. The grainy grey images flick and turn, one car then the next. ‘What was the timing again, Davy?’
‘It was topped up at 6.02 p.m.,’ Davy says.
Manon jumps along the timeline with her mouse, watching the tiny yellow numbers change in the corner of her screen. 5.59 p.m., and there is a figure in a familiar denim jacket with small round spectacles, hands pushed into his pockets, white hair tied in a ponytail.
Friday
Miriam