‘Maybe he knew I couldn’t chase him,’ Dario says.
‘I thought he was eyeing up the warehouses. I figured he was waiting to break in. I didn’t hang around. I’m not paid enough to get jumped by some psycho. Maybe his van was busted and he was waiting for help. Who knows?’
‘Could be a different van, darling,’ I say lightly, slipping my arm through Dario’s.
He raises his eyebrows at the worddarling, but doesn’t say anything other than, ‘Yeah, maybe.’
‘We get lowlifes here all the time.’ The guy shrugs. ‘Could have been anyone.’
‘Thanks anyway,’ I say.
‘Welcome.’ He throws us a casual salute. We’re halfway down the road when he calls after us: ‘Don’t you want the number plate?’
Dario sighs. ‘Jesus. Why is he only mentioning that now?’ He turns back. ‘Yeah, it would help with the insurance claim.’
‘Only… don’t mention me,’ the man says quickly.
‘Of course not,’ I say.
He pulls a scrap of paper from his pocket. ‘There you go. Good luck.’
Back in the car, I remember. ‘Wasn’t it a white van that was reported missing a few days ago?’
Dario nods.
‘We’ll check it when we get back.’
I catch him watching me as I start the engine. ‘Darling?’ he quips. ‘Off the cuff?’
‘Yeah,’ I mutter, cheeks warming. ‘Right off.’
He smiles. We drive back in silence.
Later, at the station, we ran the number plate. ‘There’s no match,’ I mutter, deflated. ‘Doesn’t link to the stolen van.’
‘The guy said it was white,’ Dario says.
‘He could have got it wrong. It may have been cream.’
‘Could be a false plate,’ he suggests.
I rub my tight neck muscles. ‘Could be, but I think it’s most likely been dumped by now.’
‘It’s too suspicious not to be connected, though. Right place, fake plate, driver loitering, white van.’
‘If he is our guy,’ I say, ‘then how do we find him?’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Roy Burrow felt a surge of frustration. He wanted action. He hated all this waiting around. As the weekend approached, he hoped the kidnapper would make contact. Dario and Gil had done a good job chasing down white van owners within a 20-mile radius, but all of them had alibis for that afternoon. And besides, they couldn’t even be sure itwasa white van that had taken Joanna. The warehouse worker could’ve got his dates wrong, or maybe the van had been cream rather than white.
What they needed was for the kidnapper to call again.
Meanwhile, Daniel Neal spent Sunday with his wife’s family: ‘Some kind of normality for Joel,’ he said.
There was nothing they could do except wait, but Roy had a gnawing feeling that they had already waited too long. Time was running out.
***
