Loose Tongues by Chris Simms

Author:Chris Simms [Chris Simms]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2018-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTY

It took the senior team until late morning to finalize how the investigation would now move forward. As the allocator made his way closer to Sean, the phone on his desk rang. ‘DC Blake speaking.’

‘This is a good one,’ Troughton announced quietly. ‘Don’t let me down.’ The line went dead.

‘DC Blake?’

Sean replaced the receiver to see the allocator scanning his printout.

‘It’s highly likely there are some non-council sources of CCTV footage yet to be recovered from the vicinity of the first victim’s residence. It’s now vital we have it for comparison with footage from the surroundings of the other victims’ homes.’

Sean nodded. ‘Have we the locations of any cameras?’

‘No. You’ll need to get on Street View and complete a visual audit of shops and businesses close to where she lived. Get on the phone to each one. If any have street-facing cameras, tell them to not record over the tapes and pass the information in Inspector Troughton’s direction.’

Sean turned to his monitor and clicked on the web browser.

Just before lunch, an officer who sat on the far side of the incident room made his way over. ‘DC Blake? I’m DI Levine.’

He perched himself on the edge of Sean’s desk. The man was somewhere in his forties, shortish brown hair swept to the side.

‘Talk me through the couple who saw this white van, can you? I’m due to question them in more detail.’

‘Lou-lou and Ettre,’ Sean replied. ‘They’re quite a double-act. Italian, I’m pretty sure.’

‘You’d say they were on the ball?’

‘Definitely. If you’re going back, I’d take some images of vans’ side views. They might be able to narrow it down to a make or model.’

He tapped his notebook against his thigh. ‘Good thinking, cheers.’

The rest of the day was spent ploughing on with the CCTV survey. When it got to six o’clock, most commercial premises had reverted to out-of-hours answerphone messages.

He reached for the ceiling, feeling the tendons in his forearms stretch. After rotating his shoulders, he stood. His hips felt stiff. He looked down at his chair. How many hours have I spent welded to it? Too many. He had the urge to be out running. The local park or even a pavement. Something to get his blood flowing properly.

Officers who’d been on outside enquiries were beginning to drift back in. Sean looked on enviously as they retook their seats. Magda wandered through the doors and slumped in her seat. He caught her eye and mouthed a word. Coffee?

She nodded her thanks.

When he got to her desk, she’d removed her shoes. One ankle rested across a knee as she kneaded her foot with both thumbs. The nylon of her tights crested and flattened with each circular movement. ‘My poor plates of meat.’

Aching feet, Sean thought. That would be nice. He noticed how muscled her lower legs were. Images of a weightlifter appeared that he quickly banished as unfair. ‘No luck, then?’

Her head shook. ‘You?’

‘Same. Hours on the internet and phone.’

She let her foot drop to the floor and started flexing her toes back and forth.

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