Ramouter enlarged the image on Henley’s phone. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked. ‘She reminds me of Ethan’s teaching assistant.’
‘Apparently that is the woman who was leading the vigilante group in Manchester and has now moved down here,’ said Henley. ‘According to Eastwood and Stanford she and her partner were the ones who picked the victims.’
‘Do we have names for them?’ Ramouter asked.
‘Mika and Elliot. Even though the sketch is good I’m not too keen on stamping it with a Crimestoppers logo and releasing it to the public until I’ve got something a little bit more solid in terms of identification.’
‘Maybe Kaiden Longley will be able to enlighten us.’
‘It’s gone past eleven and he hasn’t shown up yet. Copeland called and confirmed that he’s not at home,’ said Henley as Ramouter pushed open the door to Ezra’s room. ‘His wife is in a panic and convinced for some inexplicable reason that we’re responsible for his disappearance.’
‘Ez, have you heard from Kaiden?’ asked Ramouter.
‘Nope,’ Ezra replied as Henley passed him a brown bag containing his breakfast. ‘First the big boss insists on dropping me home and picking me up and now you’re bringing me sustenance. I should get approached by criminals more often.’
‘Don’t even joke about it,’ said Henley, handing out coffees. ‘So, what did Kaiden send you?’
‘I’ll tell you one thing; this guy is paranoid. He encrypted everything he sent me last night which I had to spend most of the morning, well, decrypting,’ said Ezra, carefully unwrapping his bagel.
‘So did you get in?’ Henley asked.
‘Of course I did,’ Ezra said his mouth full.
‘Ezra, we ain’t got all day,’ Henley said.
‘Look up at the big screen, it will be easier than you watching over my shoulder.’ Ezra typed and brought up a list of files. ‘This first batch are case files. I checked and they’re all London court cases.’
Ramouter and Henley approached the screen.
‘Our victims are on here,’ said Ramouter. ‘Nathan Hall, Sian Fox-Carnell, Tabitha Ashcroft.’
‘Ezra, open the Nathan Hall file,’ Henley ordered.
‘Bloody hell, everything is here,’ said Ramouter. ‘Section 51 letter from the CPS to Hall’s solicitors, full case papers. Ezra, open the file named CC, please.’
‘These are downloads from the Crown Court digital case system,’ said Henley. ‘Certificate of trial readiness, witness list for the prosecution and defence. Hall’s bail application, trial forms completed by the judge.’
‘How the hell did Kaiden Longley get hold of this?’ asked Ramouter. ‘The court wouldn’t send Soteria copies of witness statements or a completed plea and trial preparation form. All they would need is the defendant’s personal details and bail address.’
‘Ezra, is there any way of finding out where these documents originated from? They don’t look like scans,’ said Henley.
‘They’re not. They were downloaded straight from the system,’ Ezra answered.
‘We need to check how many of these cases are active,’ said Ramouter. ‘The case files of our four victims are here. There are … how many are there, Ezra?’
‘In that batch fifteen, but I still haven’t gone through everything,’ Ezra said as Henley’s phone rang.
‘It’s Stanford,’ Henley said, stepping out into the corridor. ‘Hey, you. What’s going on?’
‘What isn’t going on?’ said Stanford. ‘Eastie worked her magic and convinced Karim Messenger to see us.’
‘What did he tell you?’
‘That he thinks the man who he knew as Elliot worked for the court. He just can’t tell us which one. He met him once with Mika in a park and he said that he could see a purple lanyard around his neck. He could only see the top of it, but he said that he could see the letters HMC before this Elliot pulled up his collar.’
‘Just missing the letters T and S at the end. Her Majesty’s Court and Tribunal Service,’ said Henley.
‘We were thinking of attempting to talk to the court staff but we’re looking at a minimum of four courts if we include the magistrates, Manchester Crown Court and Manchester Minshull Street Court. I’m not sure how far we’ll get without getting permission from the resident judge to talk to the court staff.’
