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‘I already checked with your boss, Nurse Kandasamy. He confirmed that you were doing the morning shift on the day Mark Burrows died. And the overnight shift the day Alice Rogers died. Which means you weren’t here and you just lied to me.’
Kangna barely acknowledged what Jane was saying. She started to check her nails instead, as though she was some memsahib dismissing a servant’s whining. She flicked chipped polish from one of her nails before looking at Jane with bitterness and venom.
‘Very clever, Inspector. You think you have me as your scapegoat? Well, let me set you right, my dear. OK, I wasn’t at the hospice, but only because I am forced to work a second job. Because nobody in your country wants to do what I do. I do agency carer visits, to people’s homes, because their own children don’t want to do that for them. That’s where I was during those times.’
Jane stifled her reply that, actually, she was doing precisely that for her own mother. She wouldn’t give Kangna Kandasamy any personal information she might later use against her. Jane felt her earlier conviction waver, but there was still something off about this woman.
‘I will need details of the agency and a contact name for someone who can verify your schedule. And if you are lying, Kathy, I will be back.’
In response Kangna picked up a stack of books only to drop them very loudly on her desk, as though she was dismissing her. You’ve picked the wrong person to piss off, Jane thought, as she left the hospice.
Heading back to her car, Jane got an urgent message from DS Johnson.
‘We have the van’s number plate.’
Chapter 31
Excitement was buzzing in the room as the team crowded round DC Chan’s computer. This could turn out to be a crucial breakthrough, the van potentially full of forensic evidence.
‘We sat down with tech,’ DC Chan was telling Jane. ‘We played around with DS Johnson’s ghost number-plate idea and managed to narrow down the list of vans that were evading ANPR. We fed them the algorithm DS Johnson used previously so they had a head start.’
‘It’s out of date now,’ DS Johnson said apologetically. ‘But it meant they didn’t have to start from scratch, so saved themselves and us a shedload of time.’
‘Discounting legitimate vehicles,’ DC Chan picked up the narrative again, ‘we ended up with a list of thirty white Ford Transit Couriers that were for one reason or another not getting scanned properly. Either partial number plate matches or completely invisible. They tracked each of the dodgy vans and on van number eleven, they got a hit.’
‘I asked them to focus on cameras I know are revamped,’ DS Johnson said. ‘The ones able to override the ghosting effect. One set near the railway station picked up our vehicle.’
DC Chan slowed down the images of the van as it moved across the main road, past the traffic cams DS Johnson had alluded to.
‘There, can you see?’ DS Johnson said.
Zooming in on a grainy image, DC Chan tried to enhance the pixels so they could get a better look.
‘There’s definitely some damage over the left front wheel. It’s too hazy to get an exact match at this stage but the coincidence of a hard-to-read plate and the damage, it’s telling me this is our van.’
The conviction in DS Johnson’s voice was clear.
‘Do we have a name?’ Jane asked, as the rest of the team pressed in around her.
‘Yes,’ said DC Chan. ‘Dorothy Basil, aged sixty-two. Lives in Nelson.’
DC Chan tapped away furiously, the computer beeping in protest. Moments later, she showed Jane a picture of Dorothy. Jane stared into the face of the woman who obviously wasn’t their killer.
‘Check out her family history, see if she has any relatives, grandkids or anyone else who might have access to the van.’
‘Yes, ma’am, although it’s most likely our killer’s probably stolen her plates,’ DS Johnson said.
‘I know but let’s not assume,’ Jane insisted.
DC Chan tapped more keys, checking the results on her screen.
‘She’s in an assisted living facility, doesn’t look like any relatives are around. The plates belong to a white van she owns though. She worked as a delivery driver until she retired a couple of years ago.’
‘Get local police out there to check what happened to it. Really good work.’
‘We can start tracking through ANPR now to find out the van’s movements,’ DS Johnson added. ‘We’re no longer just looking for a random white van with damage on one side.’
Jane badly missed the overzealous CCTV coverage London had. Up here once you hit the numerous residential areas you were left with tracking via a scant number of traffic and security cams. Still, she couldn’t hide the boost she was feeling. They had their link, the van at both murder scenes. The same modus operandi. In her mind she pictured Kangna Kandasamy behind the wheel, navigating her way through Burnley. Had she ever moonlighted as a carer for the owner of the facility Dorothy Basil was living in? Nelson wasn’t too far away, maybe her carer patch extended that distance? She needed to update Sameer, try and get his help to unlock her work records.
