‘Imagine if you’d said that over the radio, the fuck’s sake bit. That’s what I was smiling at.’
She grinned at him. ‘It happens occasionally. Once Scotty called me bitch and we both got called back to the sergeant’s office. We were on a point to point, but it dropped out so our private conversation was suddenly on air for the whole of south Lakes to hear.’
Brett shook his head. ‘No way, did you get in trouble?’
‘Nah, thankfully, it was Madds who really didn’t care. He just said he had to try and sound like he did for the control room inspector.’
Amber parked the van on the double yellow lines outside of the old public toilets. ‘This used to be a toilet block.’
‘It looks amazing, you’d never guess.’
‘Yeah, it does look good. Whoever thought of buying it to rent out had their head screwed on the right way. Come on, let’s get this over with, at least you can tick missing people off your PDR module list.’
‘Is it normally this busy for people disappearing?’
‘Sometimes, mainly teenagers who didn’t go home on time. Occasionally there are genuine mispers and that’s heartbreaking for the families. Poor Scarlett’s family is going through it. I can’t imagine how hard it is to get a knock at the door to say that your daughter’s friend has been murdered and she’s now missing.’
‘Yeah, poor dad. I get why he’d go there; I’d want to myself.’
The oak door opened and Amber recognised Sandra. She smiled. ‘Hey, how are you?’
Sandra smiled back. ‘I’m sorry to cause a nuisance, but I wasn’t sure what else to do.’ She opened the door to let them inside.
‘What makes you think they’re missing and not just taking advantage?’ asked Brett.
‘I’m not a hundred per cent certain, but it’s been four days since they should have checked out, and all their expensive stuff, iPad, laptops, etc. are still here. No sign of them though.’
‘We’ll look into it. Do you have their names?’
‘Just the lead booker. She is Janey Moore; her home address is in York. I got that off a letter she left next to her laptop.’
Amber nodded and began to look around. It felt empty as if nobody had been back here for a few days. The shower was dry; as were the towels that had been discarded on the floor; there was a pan of shrivelled up pasta on the small hob, the sauce all dried and stuck to the sides of it.
‘Brett, can you write down the address?’
‘What do I do with their stuff?’ asked Sandra.
‘Is anyone else due to check in?’
Sandra shook her head. ‘Not for a couple of weeks.’
‘Right, can you leave everything as it is for now? Just until I’ve spoken to my sergeant and see what he thinks we should do. I mean there’s no signs of a struggle or forced entry, is there?’
‘No, it looks like they went out but just didn’t come back.’
Amber turned to Brett. ‘You can start calling the nearest hospitals and see if Janey was admitted. She could have been in an accident or hurt herself, that would explain why she didn’t come back.’
Brett was scribbling everything down in his notebook. They all had fancy mobile phones they were supposed to use, but Amber had got him a spare pocket notebook and told him to use it and then, when he had more time, to transfer everything onto his tablet. He paused and looked up. ‘Do we need to get CSI here?’
‘Not right now, we don’t know where Janey is. There’s nothing to suggest anything sinister has gone down here. Let’s go back to the station and run some background checks on her. Speak to family or friends and take it from there.’
‘Roger that.’
Amber rolled her eyes at Sandra, who smiled at her. ‘Thanks, Sandra, Brett is keen if nothing else. Can you keep people out of here just in case this takes a turn for the worst?’
‘I’ll give you the key, then you can come back if you need to.’ She passed the keys to Amber.
‘Thanks, I’m going to write a note for Janey in case she comes back, asking her to get in touch with me so I can clear this up.’
