Human Remains

part-way through it and had lost track, diverting on to a story about someone’s dog that had eaten a prawn sandwich containing a hidden anti-anxiety tablet and had to have its stomach pumped (apparently the stomach contents were also found to contain a mysterious diamond ring that nobody recognised, and a Roman coin), and then eventually picking up the thread of the original story about a friend of his who’d accidentally overdosed on his Valium and ended up asleep for five days. None of which was true. I listened to it all, rapt, mainly because it meant I didn’t have to say anything.
    Irene and Sam seemed to deal with him by talking between themselves – they’d heard it all before, after all. Every once in a while he’d come up with a new one and then they would both listen with smiles on their faces, waiting for the joke.
    When we sat down to eat the roast, Brian started off on a story of a funeral he’d been to, of a colleague whose hobby had been ventriloquism. Irene gave him a look across the table and brought the anecdote to an unexpectedly abrupt halt. After that we sat in silence.
    ‘I’m going to go out for a bit,’ I said after we’d eaten.
    They all looked at me in surprise.
    ‘I’m coming with you,’ said Sam, standing.
    ‘No, it’s alright. I just need… um… a bit of fresh air.’
    Before they could argue I was out of the door and unlocking my car.
    The police station car park was mostly empty, which was unsurprising given that it was nearly four o’clock on a Friday afternoon. They were all in the pub, or on the way home, or playing snooker in the club across the road. I parked in one of the Intel bays.
    I made my way up to the Incident Room and did not see anyone on the way, but when I opened the door there were three people in the office – all of them on the phone. I vaguely remembered being introduced to them all on that first day, but none of the names came back to me. I sat down at the desk Frosty had given me and logged on at the workstation. Once the system had granted me access, I opened my email and saw that there were four hundred and twenty-seven new messages. That wasn’t bad going. I sorted the emails by sender and concentrated on the ones from Frosty. There were five with the subject headings ‘Billings’, ‘More billings’, ‘Billings for 872 number’, ‘Billings for 481’ and ‘Sorry last lot I promise’.
    I sighed with something that might have been pleasure. I’d worked on phone data before; other people might see it as endless lists of numbers, endless spreadsheets with no apparent meaning, but I loved it. It was the knowledge that somewhere, buried deep in tens of thousands of numbers, dates, times and durations, there was a pattern: useful information hidden inside, waiting for me to find it.
    I opened the first email. There were several spreadsheets attached to them, identified by mobile phone numbers. The message read:
    Annabel
Don’t know when you’ll get a chance to work on these but if you can sort them out for us it would be great. These are the billings for the phones found at the properties so far. We’re still waiting on the others. Rachelle’s looks interesting. As you know, we never found the mobile phone that she took with her when she left her parents’ house. This one was a basic PAYG. The phone downloads have been authorised and we’re waiting for those too.
Andy
     
    I started up a new spreadsheet to record all the information, listing the victims’ names, phone number, the date range of all the billings and the phone type. Most of the columns were blank but with a bit of luck I’d be able to fill them in as I went along. I opened all the emails and added the details from the remaining spreadsheets. There were billings for the phones found at all the most recent addresses, as well as a name that gave me a jolt – Shelley Burton.
    After an hour or so everyone in the office had left and it was dark outside. It made it easier to concentrate and it wasn’t long before the pattern crystallised and began to make more sense.
    There were some major differences between the billings of the victims. Judith Bingham, Noel Gardiner, someone I hadn’t heard of called George Armstrong who’d been discovered while I was away, some of the others – they all had phone billings that looked normal – they made and received several calls over a prolonged period of time. There were texts, missed calls and voicemails.
    As soon as I looked