The Kill Call

set Beck Hurst and Luke Irvine to phoning other hotels in the area. There were plenty of them, but at least it wasn’t the height of the tourist season in the Peak District, when strangers passing through for a night or two were so common that they might hardly be noticed.
    ‘And once you’ve covered the hotels, start on the B&Bs,’ she said.
    Unlike Patrick Rawson, Clay hadn’t used his credit card everywhere, or his movements would have been traced by now. Here was a man who had learned the lesson about dropping out of sight, then.
    Normally, Fry would have had hopes of tracking his movements by his mobile phone. When a mobile phone was turned on, it was constantly transmitting its position to the nearest tower, identifying itself to the network by its electronic serial number. Phone companies were required to keep records to assist criminal investigations. But in a rural area like the Peak District, the region covered by a tower could be pretty large. Another bit of technology that was more useful for catching criminals in a city.
    In this case, the disappearance of Patrick Rawson’s phone, and the fact that Clay’s had already been turned off when she’d tried to call him herself that morning, convinced her that she was dealing with someone who was aware of the technology.
    ‘Have we got anything from the mobile phone company yet?’ she called. ‘When did Clay’s phone log off the network?’
    ‘Wednesday afternoon, about two thirty. But they say they can’t narrow down the position of the handset better than a radius of a mile or two. And since then he could have gone anywhere, with his phone switched off.’
    ‘It’s Friday now,’ said Fry. ‘He could have reached Australia since Wednesday afternoon, for heaven’s sake. Erin Lacey has a bit of explaining to do, when I get to speak to her.’
    ‘I wonder what she thought her father was up to,’ said Murfin.
    ‘Well, what’s the betting she suspected that he was involved in Patrick Rawson’s death?’
    ‘And she was giving him a chance to get away?’
    ‘That, or a chance to come home and give an account of himself.’
    Fry felt sure that Michael Clay was no longer in Derbyshire. Why should he be? If Clay was involved in Patrick Rawson’s death in some way, he’d had at least one accomplice. Someone local, too, with access to horses.
    Clay hadn’t been in Derbyshire for very long, but long enough to make his mark. No one had yet been found who admitted seeing him, which was predictable at this stage. Even his own daughter had been reluctant to talk. Yet someone must certainly have crossed his path. They needed to get more public appeals out in the media, but that was a slow process. Time lost again. It was so frustrating.
    ‘What sort of area are we looking at from the mobile phone signal?’
    ‘Let’s work it out.’
    They pored over the map. Even with masts sited at Sir William Hill and Calver Peak, the potential area for Michael Clay’s last-known location covered the whole of Eyam, Birchlow and Foolow, as well as Longstone Moor and eastwards towards Calver.
    ‘We’re looking for a car again, aren’t we?’ said Hurst. ‘Mr Clay drives a blue Mercedes.’
    ‘The details have already been circulated.’
    ‘Just a minute,’ said Cooper. ‘Does this mean that Michael Clay wasn’t the second man having dinner at Le Chien Noir on Monday night?’
    Fry shook her head. ‘He can’t have been, if the daughter is telling the truth now. Erin Lacey says he drove up to Derbyshire on Tuesday.’
    ‘Didn’t the description fit?’
    ‘The manager at the restaurant was very vague in his description of the second man. Very vague. It could have been almost anyone – one of the other contacts in Patrick Rawson’s phone book, perhaps.’
    Murfin put the phone down from a call to Clay’s bank.
    ‘Well, that could explain why Mr Clay wasn’t registered at any of the hotels. It seems he’s been paying rent on another property. Right here on our patch, too.’
    ‘Well, well. Have you got the address, Gavin?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Let’s go, then.’
    ‘Wait just a second.’ Cooper held up a hand. ‘Diane, I can see you’re convinced that Michael Clay is implicated in Rawson’s death somehow. And you think you’re going to go chasing off and arrest him. But stop for a minute. Isn’t it also possible that we have two victims now? Two victims, but only one body.’
       
    Eden View was a nice double-fronted stone property on the