08 The Night Thief by Joy Ellis

Author:Joy Ellis
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Crime, Fiction
ISBN: 9781804050309
Publisher: Joffe Books
Published: 2021-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

The first thing Jackman did on arriving was to check through the log of overnight calls and incidents. He was still reading it when Marie arrived. Jackman smiled at her cheerful face and decided to leave off worrying about her new boyfriend.

She sat down opposite him. ‘Morning, boss. I gather from the absence of nocturnal telephone calls that our man gave us a night off?’

‘Morning, Marie. Seems that way. Nothing reported from Uniform. In fact, apart from an RTC on the main road and some drunk terrorising a petrol station attendant, the night passed without incident.’ He noticed that she wasn’t wearing leathers. ‘Left your brute of a Tiger in the garage today?’

She nodded ruefully. ‘I saw the weather forecast before I came out. The warm spell is about to break. Heavy rain and high winds coming in later today, so I opted for the car.’

‘At least driving rain will make it more difficult for our Spiderman,’ Jackman said. ‘People close their windows, and drainpipes can be treacherous. If we’re lucky, we could have more than one night off.’ He recalled that bad weather had deterred even Ratty Jones.

‘It would certainly help us. We need every hour we can grab to try and fathom out what happened to send this man off the rails — and to find out who the hell he is,’ Marie said.

‘The thought of some youngster being hunted down by a man as dangerous as this is scaring the life out of me.’ Jackman leaned back in his chair. ‘So, what’s your first move today, Marie?’

‘Well, I’ve located the refuge where Nan Cutler used to volunteer, and I have an appointment with the supervisor at nine thirty. She’s meeting me in a café close to the refuge, so as not to upset the occupants. I’ve given her all I have on Andrea Becker and this woman called Claire and her son, so we’ll have to just cross our fingers that they keep good records.’

‘Let’s hope so. Teddy, whoever he is, is the key to this case—’ There was a sharp knock on his door and a breathless Stacey Smith leaned around it. ‘Sir! The guy who haunts the school gates has been seen at a nearby primary school. I’m on my way, and I’ll update you as soon as I have him.’ And she was gone.

He and Marie looked at each other. Maybe this would be a good day.

Stacey’s visit was followed almost immediately by the entrance of PC Simon Laker, looking almost as excited as Stacey.

‘Sir, I’ve got a picture of our killer.’ He placed a printout in front of Jackman. ‘He triggered a nocturnal wildlife camera that one of the houses close to Peartree Cottage had set up to look for badgers. It’s a high-resolution camera, and the picture quality is remarkable. I extracted this one from a video clip.’

‘Good work, Simon,’ said Jackman. ‘You really are making an effort.’

‘I’ve got a nine-year-old son, sir. I once took him to the County Fair and lost him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.