Tony Hill u Carol Jordan 08 - Cross and Burn

waitress.
    At least driving a Land Rover Defender meant you never mislaid your vehicle in a car park. The high Landie stuck out even among the pick-up trucks and fat clumsy 4x4s. Head down, thinking hard, she set off. Given how full the car park was and how busy the store had been, it was surprising how few people were in sight. A cluster round the burger van, but mostly it was deserted. Unsurprisingly, Gareth Taylor’s red BMW was no longer parked where it had been. She’d obviously lost him.
    As she approached the Landie, Carol raised her arm over her head and pressed the door release button. It was always a bugger, this remote. You had to be right next to the driver’s door before it conceded and the locks clicked open. She decided to let the dog out for a quick pee before they set off for wherever they were going next, so she turned away from the driver’s door to walk round the back.
    That was the only reason she saw Gareth Taylor coming at her with the taser.

64

    C arol’s message had given Paula a dilemma. Tracking Gareth Taylor’s car using the ANPR system wasn’t a problem in itself. But in the byzantine world of contemporary police administration, every search had to be justified. And somewhere down the line, she’d have to explain why she’d asked for this particular search at this particular time. An alert defence lawyer might well pick up on the fact that she had actioned a search at a point when Gareth Taylor’s name had never appeared in the official investigation. ‘Woman’s intuition’ wouldn’t cut it, she knew that much.
    As usual, when faced with intractable problems, Paula sought refuge in nicotine. She sneaked out of the incident room and huddled in a quiet corner of the car park, inhaling and thinking. She couldn’t see any point in coming clean to Fielding. Her DCI was so committed to the idea of Tony Hill that she would reject any lead emanating from him as automatically tainted. But if Paula left her own paper trail in her notebook, pointing the finger at the defence as the source of a tip-off, she might just get away with it. It would have to be a paper trail, though, since there were no texts from Bronwen Scott in her phone and she wasn’t about to give Carol up as her source.
    Satisfied that she’d come up with something that would cover her back, Paula returned to the incident room and sanctioned the ANPR request. Because she was Fielding’s bagman, nobody questioned her authority and the data wheels started turning. She was about to go in search of her boss when DC Pat Cody called her over. ‘Got a funny one here, skip,’ he said, tapping his screen with a chewed ballpoint.
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘We put out a routine request for any female misper reports. A bloke phoned in this afternoon. Control passed the details on to us. I don’t know if it’s owt to do with us, but it’s a funiosity, as my gran used to say. His name’s Rob Morrison and he’s Director of Operations at Tellit Communications’ Bradfield office.’
    ‘Tellit?’ Gareth Taylor’s workplace. Anything unusual connected to Tellit set the alarms flashing on Paula’s radar.
    ‘You know, the mobile phone and data network company? Apparently they started a new Director of Marketing this week, a woman called Marie Mather. She didn’t turn in for work this morning but one of the staff took a call from her husband saying she’d been rushed to hospital with a suspected burst appendix. This Morrison guy decided to send flowers, so he rang Bradfield Cross to find out what ward she was on. And they’ve never heard of her. He tried the cottage hospital and they said the same. Her mobile’s turned off, there’s no answer to her home phone and the number he has for her husband goes straight to voicemail.’ Cody scratched his head with the end of his pen then stuck it in his mouth like a cigar.
    ‘She might be skiving off. Having a fun day out with her old man,’ Paula said, not believing it for a moment.
    ‘She might, except that she’s just started this important new job. “Strategic”, your man Morrison called it. And here’s the thing. She’s thirty-one, blonde, blue eyes, medium height and build and a professional woman. She fits our victim profile to a T.’
    Paula felt a buzz of adrenalin surging through her. ‘Which would mean that the suspect we have in custody isn’t the killer.’ She couldn’t help smiling at that realisation.
    Cody made a face. ‘Not necessarily. I called