‘You’re not,’ she reassured him. ‘Everything we did this afternoon was on my authority. Don’t worry, I’ll make that clear if there’s any comeback. You just concentrate on checking those fingerprints against what we have on file.’

  ‘Got it,’ he said, but he still looked worried and was noticeably quieter on the return journey.

  ***

  When, at last, he got home from police HQ, Nick Waters was not best pleased to find his wife had gone out. He’d been more than ready for a showdown about loyalty and discretion, but the house was empty except for a single line scrawled on the back of an envelope to say she had gone to see her sister. Muttering, he clattered round the tidy kitchen – for all her faults, he couldn’t call her lazy – and got a beer out of the fridge. Spotting a packet of ham, he decided on a cheese and ham toastie, and took a malicious pleasure in leaving the kitchen looking as though a bomb had hit it: dirty cutlery, greasy plate, messy grill pan, cheese and breadcrumbs everywhere. His phone pinged just as he sat down with the toastie and another beer. Flicking through screens he saw he had a message from his new clients.

  New merch wot & when?

  He took a bite of cheese and ham and thought while he chewed. Then, wriggling a little on the battered sofa, he managed to extract his notebook from his hip pocket, and flicked through the notes he’d made several weeks earlier. He was still ruminating on the possibilities when his phone pinged again.

  ??

  ‘Hold yer horses,’ he muttered to himself, not happy with the impatience on display but, swallowing the last of his beer, he wiped his greasy hands on his jeans and picked up the phone again.

  Range Rover 21/8, he replied. Surely he could get hold of Jacko by then.

  OK. 7/8, was the answer.

  Damn! 2 soon, he messaged back.

  7/8 or 0, came back.

  He sighed, thought again, and messaged: OK 7/8. If he couldn’t get hold of Jacko at short notice, he’d have to drive to the collection point himself.

  The notes he’d made when he scouted out the possibilities were adequate for him to work out timings. If the collection was at or near the last one, in time and geography, he would need to start the distraction at around 10pm Thursday night. At least his target was a bit closer to the collection point this time. Only snag was, if he had to make the delivery, he had a long journey home on Friday morning. Judging by the experiences of today, the cops would be round at his within hours. Briefly, he considered whether the risk was too great, but decided he wanted to do it. Needed to do it. He’d just have to set up some sort of alibi. Perhaps Mick could help with that.

  32

  4 August 2020 – evening

  Greg was on his way home when his phone rang. He answered on hands-free, and if anyone had been in the car they would have noticed his lips thin and his knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. At the next opportunity he left the dual carriageway and crossed over to take the lane travelling south, back toward Wymondham.

  Once parked outside Norfolk police HQ again, he sat for a moment considering his options and giving himself time to think through what he wanted to say. Then he stalked into the building and straight to his office. One of the Chief Superintendent’s secretaries was hovering in the corridor and followed him in.

  ‘Before you say anything,’ he said, holding up a hand, ‘I know. Margaret wants to see me. I’ll be along as soon as I’ve established the facts.’ The girl looked as though she was minded to argue, but took a second look at Greg’s face and thought the better of it.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell her.’

  Greg picked up his phone. ‘In my office, now!’ he said when his call was answered. Then he put the phone down. He heard the footsteps coming down the corridor, the moment when they hesitated outside his door, then the quiet knock.

  ‘Come in,’ he said. And Jill entered, looking rather pale. She stood to attention in front of his desk.

  ‘Take a seat, Jill.’

  ‘I’d rather stand, Boss, if you don’t mind,’ she said, staring straight in front of her.

  ‘OK. As you will. Now explain to me what you thought you were up to.’

  ‘As you know, sir, I’m convinced that the woman in that property, Mrs Joanne Hamilton, knows more than she’s saying. I recognise that we don’t have sufficient evidence for a search warrant, nor enough to justify a search without a warrant, so I went about collecting more evidence.’

  ‘And in doing so, you conducted an illegal search,’ said Greg. ‘You’re too experienced to make such a rookie mistake. You have years in the force, even if only months as a sergeant. You know you can’t just follow instinct or your gut! I concede either might help steer you. I agree that sometimes what we call instinct is a subconscious recognition of what the evidence is telling us. But, we do nothing without evidence. And we follow due process. Otherwise, we’re no better than a lynch mob. You know that!

  ‘Worse, you not only put yourself in the shit, and damaged the good name of Norfolk police, but you took a raw forensic scientist with you and put his career at risk too.’

  Still at attention, Jill was holding it together, just. There was a suspicious moistness forming in her eyes.

  ‘No blame lies with Alan Thorpe,’ she said. ‘I take full responsibility. He acted solely under my orders.’

  ‘Which might help a bit,’ conceded Greg. ‘But not a lot. He’s still going to come in for criticism, even if you know and I know it’s unfair. I warn you, Ned’s going to be out for your blood. And I have to see Margaret now. Do you have anything to tell me that will help?’

  ‘No, Boss,’ said Jill, still staring at the middle distance.

  Greg sighed and stood up. ‘Go home, Jill,’ he said. ‘I don’ t want to see you for at least two days.’

  ‘Am I suspended, Boss?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet. We’ll see what Margaret has to say.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Boss,’ said Jill, then shut up before she lost it.

  ‘Go home,’ Greg repeated, and headed for the stairs to the next floor and Chief Superintendent Tayler’s office.

  ‘Go straight in,’ said the same secretary he had seen earlier. ‘She’s expecting you.’

  Margaret swung round from facing the window as Greg entered, her fluffy brown hair in its usual chaotic state.

  ‘This is a mess, Greg,’ she said. ‘If this Mrs Hamilton goes public with her complaint, it’s going to attract all sorts of attention, and none of it wanted. What on earth was DS Hayes thinking? She’s experienced enough to know better.’

  ‘I know,’ said Greg. ‘Just what I told her. In all honesty, Boss, I blame myself. I knew her partner had taught one of the children and I should have seen she was too close and getting too involved personally. The Covid pressures haven’t helped either, and I should have seen that too.’

  ‘Stop with the self-flagellation,’ ordered Margaret. ‘Or you’ll have to get in the queue. I probably put too much pressure on your team too. But none of this helps. What we need now is a plan to deal with the fallout.’

  ‘Do you think it would help if I went and apologised to Mrs Hamilton,’ asked Greg, but whatever Margaret’s reply might have been was interrupted by the door opening precipitously.

  ‘He wouldn’t wait,’ said the secretary as Ned stood framed in the doorway, the lanky Al Thorpe lurking self-consciously behind him.

  ‘You need to know this,’ said Ned. ‘The children’s fingerprints are all over the inside of that boat.’

  33

  Later that same evening

  Ned’s announcement landed in their midst like a B-52 with failed engines.

  ‘You’re sure?’ asked Greg.

  ‘I’m sure. Al may be new to this, but he’s thorough. And I’ve double-checked his comparisons with the prints we lifted at the children’s own home. There’s no doubt. There are clear palm and fingerprints from the boy, Jake, on both the steering wheel and the engine housing. The girl’s prints are smudged on the gunwale but clear on the engine housing and under the rear seat. The children were definitely in that boat.’

  ‘Thank you, Ned,’ said Margaret. ‘Let me have a copy of your report on my desk asap, please.’ Ned took that as his dismissal and started to usher both the secretary and Al out of the room before him.

  ‘Ned, stick around a bit, will you?’ said Greg. ‘We may need your team tonight.’

  ‘Got it,’ said Ned, and closed the door behind him.

  ‘Oh boy,’ said Greg. ‘Jill was right.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Margaret. ‘But in all the wrong ways.’

  ‘Where does this leave us?’ asked Greg. ‘We now have evidence that the children were on that property, and the second sighting of them by the garage hand was probably right too. We need entry to that property and we need it now. Am I OK to conduct a Section 17 search?’ he asked.

  ‘Your justification being…?’

  ‘To save life,’ he replied. ‘The children have been missing for one hundred and thirty days and this is the first evidence we have of where they went after the last confirmed sighting. Given the message received by Tim Simmons, and the fact that they only seem to have had very limited access to the telephone network, I think it’s reasonable to conclude they’re being held against their will, and that means they’re at risk.’

  ‘We can run it past the legal team,’ said Margaret, ‘but much as I would love to say yes, I’m not sure it holds up. There are too many assumptions and guesses. OK, the children were in that boat, but where they went after that is anyone’s guess, and even that is evidence we came by improperly.

  ‘I think you should make an application for a warrant. If you can persuade the duty magistrate, then you’re good to go. Make that your priority for now, and put Ned on standby for crack of dawn tomorrow.

  ‘And don’t do a Jill on me, Greg. Don’t put your career on the line as well.’

  Reluctantly, Greg had to acknowledge the sense of her advice. He nodded his acquiescence, and went off to write the most persuasive application for a search warrant of his entire career so far.

  In fact, back in his office he decided two phone calls were his top priorities. First, he let Chris know that he wouldn’t be home that night. At least he left a message for her, as she wasn’t picking up either the landline or her mobile. He remembered she’d said something about a busy day, and assumed she too was still on duty. Making a mental note that they really must schedule some rest time together soon, he dialled again.

  ‘Jill,’ he said, ‘you were right. The children had been in that boat.’ He listened in silence for a moment then added, ‘I’m afraid that doesn’t let you off the hook. You’re still in trouble for breach of the rules, but I thought it only fair to let you know. I’m now drafting an application for a warrant.’ He listened again, then added, ‘It won’t be until tomorrow. I’ll let you know what’s happening.’

  It took some time to set out in precise detail the background to the children’s departure from their family home and the reasons for it, what was known about their journey to Ormesby and the sightings in the village. That left him with the tricky bit to draft. He had at least three goes at describing Turbo’s ‘evidence’, the incomplete data from the phone masts and, most sensitive of all, the explanation of how and why the outbuildings and boat had been accessed and fingerprint evidence collected. At the end he read it through again, and sighed. He felt that he had, at best, only a fifty–fifty chance of getting this past a magistrate. He picked up his phone to the duty legal adviser.

  ‘I believe Margaret may have warned you this was coming,’ he said. He could hear a TV in the background and the sound of muted voices.

  ‘Yes,’ was the response. ‘Hang on, let me go to my study.’ The background noise faded as Greg listened. ‘Have you forwarded your form to me?’

  ‘Yes, just now,’ said Greg. ‘It’s urgent, I’m afraid. I’ll need to knock up the duty magistrate.’ There was silence for a while, then the lawyer came back on the line.

  ‘Worth a try,’ he said, ‘but I have to warn you, I think you only have a fifty–fifty chance. Some of it is a bit thin. OK, you have my go-ahead. The duty magistrate is…’ There was a pause, and then he said, ‘That’s not good. It’s Terence Batley-Shaw.’

  ‘Oh damn.’ Greg knew the man. Honest, hard-working, but pernickety over detail. ‘It would be, wouldn’t it.’

  ‘Good luck. I’ll send the form on to him and give him a ring to let him know a decision is needed asap. Stick close to your phone; he’ll probably have questions for you.’

  ‘I don’t have to go and sit in his kitchen then?’ said Greg.

  ‘Not now. You can thank Covid for that.’

  On his way through the office to brief Ned on developments, phone firmly clutched in hand in case of calls, Greg was surprised to see Jill at her desk, earnestly scrolling through images on her three screens.

  ‘I thought I’d sent you home,’ he said, only part of the stern tone actually real.

  She looked up, startled. ‘Sorry, Boss,’ she said. ‘Yes you did, but you didn’t actually suspend me and I had an idea I wanted to check out. So…’ And she waved at the screens.

  ‘I should send you straight back home,’ said Greg, but relented at the look of horror on her face. ‘OK, you can stay as long as I do. As soon as we have a decision from the magistrate, I’ll be away and so will you.’

  ‘OK, Boss. It’s a deal.’

  While he was waiting, Greg made himself a super strong mug of black coffee and, with a bit of foraging, found some chocolate hobnobs. Suitably armed for a long wait, he didn’t know whether to be pleased or worried when his phone rang and the number on the display was that of Mr Batley-Shaw JP.

  ‘I’ve read your application,’ said the senatorial voice on the line. ‘I have some questions. I can see that the children were in that boat at sometime, but I don’t see why you’ve concluded they’re in the house associated with it. Talk me through your evidence.’

  Greg went through everything they had, making as good a case as he could. He had a sinking feeling that it wasn’t going to be enough.

  ‘Yes,’ said the magistrate. ‘All that’s in your application, and I understood it all. I’m sorry to say, Chief Inspector, that I don’t think you’ve made your case. I’ll have one last look through all the paperwork, but I think it has to be no.’

  Greg put the phone down, wondering how he was going to break the news to Jill. But he found he didn’t need to. She was standing right behind him and had clearly heard every word. That being so, he was surprised she didn’t look more depressed. If anything, she looked excited.

  ‘I’ve something you need to see, Boss,’ she said. ‘Come this way, quick.’ She seized his arm and almost hustled him along to her desk. ‘There,’ she said, and pointed at one of her screens. ‘Look there.’

  He peered at the slightly blurred image. It seemed to be of a boy, filmed from above, dressed in a cowboy outfit. The lighting was poor, but there seemed to be a girl in the background.

  ‘Now watch,’ said Jill, and she pressed play. The image became a video, and after maybe half a minute, the boy looked up toward the camera. Jill froze the image and pointed to one of her other screens. ‘I captured that image and put it through the facial recognition software. It’s Jake Mirren. Confidence rating over eighty per cent.’

  Greg sat down beside Jill and looked from one screen to the other. ‘Anything to identify the location?’ he asked. ‘Any markers?’

  ‘One. The image is taken from a mummy website club. Not Mumsnet but quite similar. The person who posted the image has the username frankiesmum135. But the IP address is Joanne Hamilton’s.’

  Greg shot to his feet. ‘You’re sure about this? Because if you’re wrong, it won’t be just you that’s toast, it will be me as well.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Jill.

  Greg fumbled with his phone and rang Mr Batley-Shaw. ‘Before you make a final decision, I have another piece of evidence which has just been identified. I think you’ll want to see it. May I send you that further information?’

  There was a certain amount of humming and hawing at the other end, then the answer was ‘Yes. But make sure all the paperwork is correct before I sign it off. You’re sure it’s significant?’

  ‘It’s game-changing,’ said Greg into his phone, and rang off. ‘Jill, come with me. Help me summarise what you’ve got, then I’ll send it off to Batley-Shaw.’

  ***

  Organising a complex raid is always demanding. Organising a raid when significant numbers of your forces are either isolating or sick adds a whole new dimension. By the time Greg had uniformed officers, plus as many of his immediate team as he could muster – which came down to Jill, Jenny and Steve – plus Ned and the SOC experts, it was pushing midnight.

  ‘If you’re wrong, the timing will make the whole exercise look even worse,’ Margaret warned.

  ‘And if we’re right and something happens to the children while we delay, it would be a disaster,’ countered Greg.

  Margaret held up her hands in surrender. ‘Just want to make sure you’re confident of your grounds,’ she said.

  ‘I am,’ said Greg, and devoutly hoped that was true.

  With a local team keeping what he hoped was a discreet surveillance on the property, and the emergency safeguarding contact at the local council on speed dial, they all set off for Ormesby and a rendezvous by the village green. Close enough to the target, but not so close that their presence would be visible to Mrs Hamilton – always supposing she was up at this late hour.

  ‘No blue flashing lights, no sirens,’ Greg had warned. ‘You know the plan.’

  Shortly after the cars and vans arrived by the green, Greg got out of his car to check everyone was present and correct, then sent two squad cars to seal off the approaches to their target. Next he checked the readiness of the sergeant with the big red key. Jenny was accompanied by Turbo, and the rest of his team were all appropriately equipped and protected by stab vests. They’d reviewed risks and concluded that firearms support wasn’t justified.