‘I think I just heard a car pull up in the distance. It’s probably uniform and DS Driscoll. I’m going in.’ She swallowed as she stepped into the kitchen, the cheesy smell cloying in her throat and her heart pounding at the thought of what she might find. ‘Jhanvi?’ She took another step and listened for an answer.
56
As PC Smith caught up, Vincent Jordan was left in his capable hands. Gina stepped across the crumby kitchen that they’d only recently visited and it still smelled of cheese and beer and all manner of sickly greasy things that were now coating the insides of Gina’s nostrils. She only hoped that the smell of death wouldn’t be coming next but she’d heard a woman’s voice. Her stomach dropped. It may have just been the voice of one of his visitors but she knew Vincent Jordan had something to hide. It’s possible that the something he was hiding was PC Kapoor. She stepped into the dark hallway, snapped on a pair of gloves and turned on the lights. Glancing back, she nodded over her shoulder at Wyre to stay close. ‘The room we saw him going into, it was this way.’
Gina took a right, past the front door and along another corridor that led to a room at the end of the bungalow. The same room that Vincent had flicked his cigarette out of the window.
‘Jhanvi, it’s Gina and Paula. Jhanvi?’ Gina listened for any kind of response but none could be heard. A shuffling sound came from the room ahead. Taking another step, her foot crunched on something below, broken glass. She spotted what looked like an ornament that had been smashed. ‘Jhanvi?’
‘She has to be here.’ Wyre swallowed.
Gina pushed open the door to the room and pressed the light switch as she hurried through. ‘Police. DI Harte.’ Her shoulders slumped as she stared at an old workbench covered in a mini plastic filing cabinet containing what looked like compartments for screws and DIY oddments.
Wyre took a step forward and placed a hand on one of the slide-out boxes. Gina nodded. ‘Tablets. Lots of them. Looks like Ecstasy.’
‘Where the hell is Kapoor? Check the rest of the building and get some officers in here. This all needs to be bagged up and Vincent Jordan needs to go down to the station right now. Jhanvi?’ Gina left the room and burst into what looked like a cupboard – nothing but clutter, coats and a vacuum. The next room – a scattering of porn magazines next to a filthy mattress on the floor. She hurried back towards the front door and burst into the living room. Again, no Jhanvi. She ran out of the bungalow where Wyre was instructing uniform on what to do next. She jogged to the back of the garden and peered through the shed windows and then the old crumbling garage at the bottom of the garden – nothing.
A flurry of snow shook from the trees as the wind blustered away. They’d caught a drug dealer, nothing more. He had to know something. He had to have seen something or someone. She walked around the back of the garage and leaned against the wall, shivering with her eyes closed. The general noise of everything around her and her thoughts were overwhelming.
‘Guv?’
She opened her eyes. ‘She’s not here, Jacob. Where is she? We’re too late. I know we are. What the hell is happening to Jhanvi right now?’ She clenched her fists and followed him back.
‘Quick update. We’ve found the Collinses, guv. A witness was driving back from his girlfriend’s place in Bridgnorth in Shropshire and he spotted a man pulling a woman from the country road into a caravan, which he thought was suspicious. Police over that way headed over and confirmed that the couple were a Mr and Mrs Collins.’
‘Was Kapoor with them?’
He shook his head. A snowflake landed on his eyebrow. She could see the darkness under his eyes. They were all tired but the night’s work had just begun. ‘It will take a few hours to get them back to us as police there are processing them but they will be brought back to Cleevesford.’
Gina’s phone rang. ‘DI Harte,’ she answered.
‘This is PC Eagleton. We’re at the scene of the Collinses’ caravan. They have been taken to the station in response to the ANPR that was out for them. Your colleague suggested that we give you a call if there was anything else.’
‘What is it?’
‘We’ve found a phone on Mrs Collins with what looked like abusive messages on it.’
‘What phone number have they been sent to?’ Gina gazed at Jacob. ‘Grab a pen.’
He did as asked and waited for her to read out the number. Jacob flicked through a few of his notes. ‘That’s the number, guv. We have found out who NoName is.’
‘You say that phone was on Mrs Collins’s person?’
PC Eagleton verified her statement. ‘It was also a burner phone with only that number stored in it. No other numbers have been stored or called on this phone from what we can see, no incoming calls either.’
‘Thank you.’ As the call ended, the messages whirled through Gina’s thoughts. ‘Can you access the system on your phone and read the messages from NoName out?’
Jacob pulled his phone from his pocket and began to log in. He pressed a few buttons and scrolled before reading them out loud. ‘“NoName: I need to speak to you. Please, Amber. Amber: What we did wasn’t right and you lied to me. Don’t message me again. NoName: Don’t do this to me. Answer your phone. I need to talk to you. NoName: Why aren’t you answering? NoName: There’s someone else, isn’t there? Amber: You’re stressing me. NoName: Me stressing you. Amber: I can’t stand this any more. I’m turning the phone off. NoName: Don’t do that. You can’t ignore me. NoName: Why won’t you pick up? NoName: Just answer your phone. NoName: Stuck-up bitch. There are plenty of others who’d like to have what you have. NoName: Amber, I’m sorry about the last message. I didn’t mean it.” That’s the lot, guv.’
‘So they have a phone taken from Mrs Collins that shares the same messages as Amber’s phone. Where are Madison’s messages or even something that links to Kapoor? So far, I’m seeing an obsession with one person and why did Mrs Collins have this phone? Was she toying with Amber after finding out about her husband’s affair? Maybe we’re reading too much into this. Damn, we need to speak to them. Like always, people are as closed as clams, not caring whether they send us on a stupid little merry dance while our colleague could be being stabbed through the heart as we speak.’
As they reached the bungalow, PC Smith came out with several bags of tablets. The creases at his eyes told her his emotions were strained. His partner hadn’t been found. All they’d found was drugs. During any ordinary raid, this would have been a great result but now, all everyone wanted was Kapoor to be found and that hadn’t happened even though their two main suspects were now in custody.
She shook her head. ‘What are we missing?’ Jacob and PC Smith stood in silence, both of them looking as clueless as she felt. ‘We have to go back to the start. Go back to basics. What holes in our investigation haven’t we plugged? What questions have yet to be answered? Jacob, we’ll head back to the station and deal with Vincent Jordan while we wait for the Collinses to arrive and Smith, we will find her.’ She instantly regretted offering him that reassurance. No one could guarantee anything at this point.
Wyre ran towards them. ‘Guv, Tyrone Heard is in a police car and they’re taking him to the station now. He was found trying to sneak past the police back into his apartment.’
‘First thing I want to know is why he was running away. I knew he was holding something back when we saw him earlier.’
