Remain Silent by Susie Steiner

Author:Susie Steiner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-02-25T17:00:00+00:00

DAY 6

HUNTINGDON

MANON

‘I need parameters for the search for Saulius’s body, and I don’t have any. I can’t have POLSA searching the whole of Wisbech and outlying areas.’

‘No, you can’t,’ says McBain, and Manon can see horrified financial calculations going on behind her eyes. ‘None of the migrants know where they took him?’

‘No. We have to hope the dog walkers of Wisbech have their eyes peeled.’

‘What about a trace on Saulius’s phone? Might still be in his pocket,’ McBain suggests.

‘Given that he died ten days ago, that phone will be as dead as he is.’

‘Still, worth a try.’

Reluctantly, she puts in an application to trace Saulius’s number, but without much hope. When the call data analyst rings her with the results, he says, ‘So, you were right, that phone’s dead.’

‘Thought so,’ she says, wanting to end the call because this was so obviously a waste of her time.

‘But, the good news is, we were able to get the last GPS location for it, and it’s an interesting one.’

‘Send it over,’ she says.

The last GPS signal from Saulius’s phone has placed it in the semi-rural North Brink area just outside Wisbech.

She has driven out of Wisbech along the B198 to see if anything in the vicinity smacks of burial site. It’s a smart place dotted with well-to-do detached properties, and she is struck by how much home improvement is going on. There is barely a house without a skip, a ladder, or a bit of scaffolding outside. She decides to do some light house-to-house work. ‘Having work done madam? Lovely. Can you tell me the nationality of your workmen? Irish? Right, sorry to trouble you.’

At the entrance to one property – a gorgeous detached Georgian house, the kind that might be used as a location for a Jane Austen TV adaptation to denote ‘fallen on hard times’ but is in fact ludicrously delightful – she notices bags of sand.

She rings the doorbell.

‘Just had this laid?’ she asks the owner, one Vincent Guthrie, as they both stand on a pristine block-paved front drive.

‘Yes, about ten days ago. Rather pleased with it,’ says Vincent, rocking onto the balls of his feet, his hands in his corduroy trouser pockets.

‘And who laid this for you?’

‘Chap I dealt with was called Yonas,’ says Mr Guthrie.

‘And where was he from, do you know?’

Mr Guthrie turns his mouth down. ‘Latvia, maybe Lithuania?’

‘Thanks very much,’ says Manon, wanting to make for her car at a run, but forcing herself to make a dignified exit.

On the phone to McBain, she says, ‘Right, so the last connection made by Saulius’s phone places it in North Brink. Phone might have died before continuing on somewhere else, or might have been destroyed, but, and this is a big but, there’s been building work in the area at the same time as the disposal of Saulius’s body. A driveway laid by Lithuanians or Latvians. Bridget from Op Pheasant said Vasil has a sideline in block paving. Nice fresh tray of concrete might be the perfect place to deposit the body.

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