Page 117

Murray nodded.

Outside the window, the moors rolled away beneath low cloud. Beautiful. Empty. Full of places to hide things.

Harrison looked back at the board. “Vehicles don’t just vanish.”

“Not without help.”

“Exactly.”

He rubbed his temple. “Get me a list of every vehicle recovery firm, breakers yard, salvage operator and scrap merchant within ten miles of Hartswick.”

“There’s one on the industrial estate. Blackridge Salvage and Autos.”

“Blackridge?”

“Aye. Told you, owns most places round here.”

“Right. Send uniforms there today. Ask whether a silver Ford Fiesta’s come through in the last two weeks. Get the registration circulated again while you’re at it.”

“Yes, guv.”

“And expand it to neighbouring districts. If someone wanted rid of that car quickly, they wouldn’t necessarily use the nearest yard. They’d use one they can trust to be discreet.”

“Understood.”

Harrison glanced once more at the map, eyes on the empty stretch of roads where Lauren’s trail vanished. Too many blind spots. Too many private tracks. Too many places for a vehicle to disappear.

“Let’s find the car,” he said. “It’ll tell us where she went.”

Murray gave a sharp nod. “I’ll get on it.”

Harrison then turned back to the victim board. “Did Vice come back with anything more specific on the tattoo?”

Murray flipped another page in her notebook. “Only that outreach workers had apparently seen similar markings before.” She frowned as she scanned the report. “Nothing formal. No recognised gang identifier or organised crime marker. But one intelligence note mentions the tattoos being associated with people attending so-called ‘private hospitality events.’”

Hospitality?

Interesting choice of word.

Harrison drifted his gaze over the board again, thoughts turning over fast. He couldn’t put it off anymore, nor hope the link would land on his desk. So he said, “There’s another possible overlap.”

Murray looked up. “There is?”

“Maybe.” He took a sip of coffee to buy himself a moment before saying the name aloud. “Brodie Simmons.”

“The barman?” Murray frowned. “From the King’s Arms?”

“He came up during the Emily Fisher enquiry.” Harrison kept his tone deliberately neutral. “Originally from Hull. Minor priors. Some history of sex work.”

Murray seemed to accept that immediately enough and flipped open her notebook to start writing but Harrison stopped her before the pen hit paper.

“Leave it for now.”

She glanced up.

“I’ll go speak to him first before we officially add him to the enquiry.” Harrison set the coffee down beside the folder. “At this stage he could know absolutely nothing, and I don’t want half the station suddenly treating him like a suspect because he used to turn tricks in Hull.”

Murray nodded. “Right.”