‘The secret might lie in Heather Garbutt’s financial records,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We’ll know more as soon as we’ve spoken to our consultant.’
‘When she says “consultant”, she means my daughter,’ says Joyce.
‘And that’s pretty much where we are,’ finishes Elizabeth.
‘You heard back from Connie Johnson?’ Ron asks Ibrahim.
‘Nothing useful yet,’ says Ibrahim. ‘She said something about knitting, but her Wi-Fi is quite patchy. She has complained to the Home Office about it.’
There is a knock at the door. The Conversational French class which uses the Jigsaw Room after them is early. Elizabeth resolves to give them a piece of her mind.
Chris and Donna are looking at a map of Fairhaven on the wall in their Incident Room.
There is a pin in the map, showing Bethany’s apartment, and further pins showing the location of the CCTV cameras that had been checked on the night of her death. Her car hadn’t triggered a single one until she got to Shakespeare Cliff. They are trying to plot her route out of Fairhaven, to see where she might have stopped. Once she was out of Fairhaven, a camera-free route was pretty easy. Just take the back roads. But in the town itself? Much harder.
Where on earth had she been for those missing hours? And who had she met?
‘It’s impossible,’ says Chris. ‘There are so many cameras in Fairhaven, and she could only take Rotherfield Road or Churchill Road. No other way out of town that takes you towards Shakespeare Cliff.’
Strictly speaking, they are supposed to be investigating the death of the man in the burned-out minibus, but they are still waiting for a forensics report, so they thought they might spend the morning looking at the Bethany Waites case. Also, Elizabeth had asked them to. Elizabeth has access to many things, but not the exact position of every CCTV camera in Fairhaven.
Donna starts to plot a course from Bethany’s apartment, avoiding the cameras. At every corner she turns, there is a camera. It’s like a maze, with no way out. ‘And the cameras were all working?’
‘For once,’ says Chris.
‘Whatever happens,’ says Donna, tracing a finger along the map, ‘I can’t get past Foster Road. She must have driven down it, but I can’t take a left out of it, and I can’t take a right out of it without hitting a camera. So how does she do it?’
Chris goes over to his computer and opens the Google Street View of Foster Road. ‘Let’s see if there are any little cut-throughs we can’t see on the map.’
They scroll along Foster Road. It is largely residential, some big apartment blocks, some Victorian terraced houses, a small parade of shops. No obvious cut-throughs.
‘Stop there,’ says Donna. She takes control of the mouse now, and she revolves the image on the screen. It shows a large, modern apartment building called Juniper Court. On the left-hand side of the building is a ramp, leading down to the security grille of an underground car park.
‘Worth seeing if there’s an exit at the back of the building,’ says Donna. She navigates the arrows along Foster Road, up Rotherfield Road, past the CCTV camera, and then right into Darwell Road, which runs along the back of Juniper Court.
‘You’re very quick at this,’ says Chris.
‘I spend a lot of time on Rightmove,’ says Donna. ‘Looking at houses I can’t afford.’
And there it is. The back of Juniper Court. Another ramp leading underground, this one with a NO ENTRY sign on it. The exit of the underground car park.
‘If she’d driven through the car park, she could have taken the right turn onto Rotherfield Road and missed the cameras,’ says Chris. ‘It’s the only way.’
‘Two possibilities, then,’ says Donna. ‘Either she’s deliberately trying to avoid the cameras. Which is unlikely, given she wouldn’t know where all of them were.’
‘Or …’ starts Chris.
‘Or …’ continues Donna, ‘the person Bethany Waites went to meet that night lived in Juniper Court.’
‘And that could be our killer,’ says Chris.
‘So Bethany leaves her building at ten fifteen, drives five minutes to Foster Road and into the underground car park at Juniper Court. Several hours later …’
‘With somebody else now in the car with her …’
‘… she drives out of the exit onto Darwell Road, then right onto Rotherfield Road and heads towards Shakespeare Cliff.’
‘We’re geniuses,’ says Chris. ‘Let’s take a little trip down to Juniper Court, see who lives there.’
‘I ag–’
The door opens, and DI Terry Hallet walks in, a sheet of paper in his hand.
‘Thought you’d be interested in this, Guv,’ says Terry Hallet. ‘Given who you were asking about the other day?’
Terry shows the piece of paper to Chris. Juniper Court will have to wait for now. He looks at Donna.
‘Change of plan. We’re going to see some old friends of ours.’
‘Well this is a pleasant surprise,’ says Joyce, ushering Chris and Donna into the Jigsaw Room. ‘Don’t you look well?’
‘Hello, all,’ says Chris.
‘We have wine and biscuits,’ says Joyce. ‘There’s red to go with the bourbon creams and white for the Jaffa cakes.’
‘No Jammie Dodgers, even though I asked,’ says Ron.
