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“We’ll need to coordinate with DI Winter at cyber crime, but I’d like someone investigating any or all online presence from then till now to see if it offers any vital clue about where the hell they have all been. There has to be something somewhere. Now that one of them has surfaced, their online presence could have started up again.
“We also need to visit David Hunter’s bank again. Speak to the manager about his version of events; see if he remembers anything fresh. Or has anything else happened recently. I’d suggest someone gets onto that immediately. Banks are notorious for closing early and I want answers today, so whatever the bank manager thinks he’s doing, he isn’t.”
Gardener turned and pointed to the whiteboards before continuing. “As for this lot, visit their homes again, find out everything you can. Speak to the neighbours. I appreciate they have all answered countless questions and they’re probably sick of it by now but they’ll just have to put up with more.
“Information we had said they operated from premises that have actually been closed for years; visit them again. Something might have been overlooked. But until his disappearance, James Henshaw had his wife believe he left for work every day. So where did he go? Where did any of them go?
“I’ve just had another thought,” said Gardener. “Going back to cars. We drew a blank last time on the cars they drove, couldn’t actually find anything. Can someone check all the lease companies and see if they have any vehicles registered to a company called V-Tech or Hammer Studios, like the Overfinch? Or maybe they registered them under DPA, another lead worth checking. These people must have been somewhere, and no matter how good they are at covering their tracks, there has to be a chink in their armour. We just have to find it.”
Chapter Twenty-six
The first thing Anthony had do
ne after leaving the house was catch a train into the centre of Leeds. From there he had found a sports shops and bought a holdall large enough to carry clothes, toiletries, and other items he purchased a few minutes later.
Anthony also needed a phone and the anonymity of pay-as-you-go was perfect for him because they were far more difficult to trace. He didn’t load it up with too much credit in case he needed to ditch it and start again.
Following a coffee and a cake in an Internet Café he took advantage of their facilities to dig a little deeper into his financial situation. He was still flat broke, owned nothing, and, to his further amazement, didn’t actually exist. Someone somewhere had wiped him out. His stomach felt incredibly heavy as he’d even discovered he’d been registered as recently deceased.
So who was responsible?
Anthony didn’t have to think too hard for whom. It had to be the other three. Was it one of them, or were they all in it together? And why? What had happened in the time they had all spent out of the country to bring about such a catastrophic result? Anthony ran a check on his colleagues. No deaths had been registered amongst them.
He saw little point in returning home, so another internet search revealed a number of low budget hotels and guest houses within easy range of the airport.
He’d chosen well, a nondescript, slightly run-down establishment at the end of a tree-lined street. The landlord was more than happy for a cash only arrangement with no questions asked.
He’d only booked three nights in the bed and breakfast, and when Anthony saw the room he figured that was two nights too many. Cheap carpeting, faded wallpaper, windows that wouldn’t open easily, and a bed made from granite with thin sheets – though they were clean. The only two pieces of furniture were an MFI wardrobe with uneven doors and a bedside cabinet ringed with tea stains on top. The room had no Wi-Fi and was not en suite. But what could he expect for £20 a night? God only knew what breakfast would be like.
Eager to rid the place of the musty smell, he managed to force a window open.
Anthony dropped his holdall on the floor and pulled out a packet of digestive biscuits he’d bought at a small store about a mile away when asking for directions. As he put the biscuits down they actually rolled away from him, toward the window. It was then that he noticed the bed was propped up on bricks.
“Jesus Christ, what the hell is this place?” Anthony was distraught to think of the life he had lived for the last few years. More money than he could ever spend, a beautiful home, staying in the best hotels anywhere in the world.
Everything had ceased with the flick of a switch. But with whose fucking finger? He’d only spoken to Michael once, five weeks previously. There had been no mention of things going wrong then. No one had called Anthony since.
He stood up, fuming. He needed to find out what was happening. The reason was almost certainly connected to the hit and run involving David Hunter. All the newspapers on his front doormat attested to that.
Something had come to light. Someone knew about it. It was either one of the others, or all three, and they were trying to sort the matter, or fit him up. But for what: why register his death and clean him out completely if they were fitting him up for something?
The only other option was that an outsider had stumbled across something. Instead of going to the police, maybe he had done his homework, figured out who they were and how much they were worth, and decided on a nice bit of blackmail. Maybe he or she had started with Anthony, intending to wipe out the rest of them in order.
One thing he was pretty sure about, the police were not yet involved, or they had no knowledge of their activities, otherwise they’d all be locked up by now.
Frustrated, Anthony left the hotel and headed someplace private so that he could make phone calls. Half an hour later he found himself in the big open space of Beckett Park.
Seated on a bench he made the first of those calls to Michael Foreman, which went to voicemail. The same thing happened when he tried to call James Henshaw and Zoe Harrison.
Anthony felt like death. Were they ignoring him? Or had something really happened to them? Was the net closing in after all?
Instead of being the first, maybe he was the last.
There was only one person left to call, Rosie Henshaw. She could be a little unpredictable but he would have to call her – see what she knew.
After a hesitation he called her mobile, which also went to voicemail. Seeing as James was the only member of the group who was married with children, life for him was somewhat traditional and he had a landline.
Anthony called that. After eight rings, a somewhat fractured Rosie finally answered.
