‘Just give me a sec.’ Eastwood ran to the printer and collected a large bundle.
‘Where’s the boy wonder?’ Stanford asked as he pointed at Ramouter’s empty desk.
‘En-route to King’s …’ Henley paused as she scanned the first page of the bundle that Eastwood had just placed in her hand. ‘Avon and Somerset, Cleveland Police?’
‘Police Scotland?’ Stanford exclaimed as he flicked through the pages in his hand. ‘These seriously haven’t just come in this week?’
‘No,’ said Eastwood as the sound of the intercom buzzer rang out. ‘These are all the requests we’ve received since January of this year.’
‘As you know, there was an internal review of the SCU after the Streeter case,’ said Pellacia. ‘You would have thought that having it in writing and I quote “the SCU’s performance, efficiency and effectiveness exceeds expectations”would have made some people happy but it wasn’t enough.I was ordered to the Yard on Monday for a bollocking. I was told that the SCU was being too selective and ignored legitimate transfer requests.’
Stanford picked up a red pen and struck it dramatically acrossthe page. ‘I’m sorry but a dirty nonce flashing in service station toilets in Bury St Edmunds is not a case for the SCU. Bunch of jokers.’
‘I agree but—’ Pellacia stopped midsentence as the office door suddenly swung open, slammed against the wall and Ezra ran into the office.
‘Ezra what’s going on?’ Henley asked.
‘I wanted to warn you,’ Ezra answered. ‘Two officers from the Met Intelligence Bureau are on their way to see you now. Right now.’ They could hear the lift hydraulics as it ascended. ‘I’d literally just walked in, when the buzzer went,’ Ezra’s eyes darted towards the door, ‘I opened it and there they were, looking like the Men in Black and they said they wanted to see you, Henley. I said that I didn’t know if you were in and that I wanted to see their cards. The man accused me of obstructing so I dashed off as soon as I heard the lift open and—’
The door to the unit swung open for a second time. Pellacia stood and straightened himself to his full height. A white, stocky-built, bald-headed man in his late thirties, dressed sharply in a navy suit, walked in. His partner, a tall Asian woman, her dark hair pulled tight into a bun and dressed similarly in a charcoal trouser suit with her white shirt buttoned up to the collar, was close behind.
Pellacia crossed quickly to the middle of the room, effectively blocking both officers from proceeding any further. ‘You are?’ he demanded. The male officer pressed his lips together as he shoved his hands into pockets and rolled back his shoulders.
‘DS Liam McLaren and this is DC Dao,’ he said.
‘It seems that you’ve both forgotten how to address a senior officer,’ Pellacia said sternly, taking a step towards McLaren.
‘I have no idea who you are,’ McLaren answered smugly.
‘I find that very difficult to believe, considering that you’re standing here in my unit. No one finds themselves here by accident.’
‘Ah, DCI Pellacia,’ DS McLaren replied with a tut and an overdramatic shake of the head.
‘What can I do for you and why have you turned up without notice?’
‘We’re dealing with the disappearance of Sian Fox-Carnell, sir,’ DC Dao replied in a clear effort to diffuse the tension.
‘And they sent you from the Met Intelligence Bureau to deal with some scrote breaching bail? Someone doesn’t like you two much,’ said Stanford.
DC Dao glanced over at Stanford, subtly gave him a side-eye and turned towards Henley who had remained in her seat, quietly observing the exchange.
‘The last recorded GPS entry from Fox-Carnell’s tag places her outside your home yesterday afternoon,’ DC Dao said to Henley. ‘We would like to discuss that meeting with you, ma’am.’
‘It wasn’t a meeting,’ Henley replied.
‘You may not call it a meeting but clearly something took place between the two of you that may have triggered her disappearance,’ said McLaren who clearly wasn’t used to sitting quietly on the sidelines.
‘Clearly something took place,’ Henley repeated disapprovingly. ‘But you should know better than to make assumptions and jump to conclusions.’
‘What I do know is that due to someone’s—’
‘Aren’t you forgetting something, sergeant,’ Henley cut in. She stepped away from Ezra and joined Pellacia. It had been a long time since Henley had found herself in a pissing match with an officer who didn’t respect her rank and her unit. She wasn’t having it.
‘Ma’am.’ The skin on DS McLaren’s neck flushed red, his contempt of Henley clear. ‘As I was saying, we’re—’
‘Assuming,’ Pellacia interrupted this time. ‘And that’s where investigations usually falter when detectives, out of their depth, fail to assess the facts.’
‘Ma’am,’ said DC Dao, almost apologetically. ‘As you can appreciate, the first seventy-two hours—’
