Morgan went and sat on the empty chair opposite her. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I wanted your advice.’
Wendy looked at the evidence bag Morgan was holding and shook her head.
‘I’m going to tell you now that it’s a bad idea. Whatever crazy scheme you’re thinking about, reel it in and don’t give in to those intrusive thoughts.’
Morgan grinned at her. ‘We found this phone in one of the barns and it doesn’t belong to the guy who lives there, but…’
‘But?’
‘Well, it could belong to a lost walker or someone; it might not necessarily be evidence.’
Wendy screwed her eyes up so tight Morgan couldn’t even count the frown lines on her forehead, there were that many.
‘You want to take a look at it and see if you can get into it?’
‘Yes.’
Wendy shook her head. ‘You don’t need me to tell you that it’s a big no from me, do you?’
Morgan sighed. ‘I don’t, I’m tired, we haven’t caught a break all day and we don’t know where those two missing girls are. This might have captured something useful on it; it might be our only chance to save them.’
‘Emotional blackmail, that’s low.’
‘I’m not saying take it out of the bag and touch it.’
‘No, then what are you saying?’
‘That we put a tiny slit in the evidence bag, stick a charger in the port and see if we can find anything.’
‘No, you’re going to have to send it up to HQ and mark it urgent.’
‘That’s going to take too much time, Wendy, we don’t know how long they could have left. They could be out there somewhere freezing to death, and we’re going to let that happen because we’re too afraid to look for some clues as to where they could be. Scarlett is sixteen, Wendy, Janey Moore is twenty-four. They didn’t deserve whatever has happened or is happening to them. We owe it to them to at least take a look, and if you find anything significant, we’ll send it to HQ.’
‘You’re really going hard with the emotional blackmail, pass it to me.’
Morgan held out the bag, and Wendy took it from her.
‘We might be jeopardising crucial evidence.’
‘We don’t know who it belongs to; we might be saving their lives.’
‘Have you booked this in?’
Morgan shook her head, and Wendy looked at the bag. ‘You haven’t even documented it and put your reference number down.’
‘I know.’
‘You were going to look at it anyway whether I agreed or not to help you, but you thought you’d share the burden and get me involved anyway.’
‘I just want to help them.’
Before either of them could change their mind, Wendy snapped on a pair of gloves, picked up a pair of scissors and slit the bottom of the bag just enough that she could feed her iPhone charger through it. Pushing it into the charging port through the slit, she placed the phone on the desk, and they both watched it, not daring to breathe and hoping that it was going to charge. An empty battery icon appeared on the screen, and Morgan leaned across and high fived Wendy.
‘I can’t believe that you’re going to take me down with you. What will we do after this? I don’t have any other skills.’
‘I can’t believe you’re so pessimistic, nobody is around. Nobody knows and we might save someone’s life. Sometimes you have to rebel against the system to get the results that count.’
Wendy shook her head. ‘You’re a bad influence.’
