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On the way back to the station, they’d discussed the two men, agreeing that Satish Patel in particular had seemed extremely nervous and twitchy.
‘Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they had something to do with all this,’ Mike muttered darkly as they pulled into the station car park.
But once all the checks had been done – The Bellingham Hotel contacted, the happy discovery that they kept their CCTV footage for up to two months meaning that the images from New Year’s Eve and the following day could be studied – the story told by Mary’s two work colleagues stood up. They were indeed seen checking in to the hotel just after 3.30pm and leaving again half an hour later, only to return shortly before 1am and not emerging again until nine o’clock the following morning, this time dressed in running gear. Their rooms had been on the fifth floor, and the hotel’s security manager had been insistent that they could not have left and re-entered the building during the night without being seen.
‘The only other way out is through alarmed fire doors, and there are cameras on those too,’ he said. ‘And unless they’re Batman and Robin in disguise, there was no way they went out through their bedroom windows, is there?’
With the time of Lisa Turner’s murder estimated to be between two and three in the morning, it seemed that Edward and Satish were in the clear, much to Mike’s disappointment, a feeling shared by DCI Linda Lake, who had, for a few short days, hoped to finally have a decent lead in her case.
Following the arrival of the Diary Killer’s latest communication, which implied that somebody knew that Mary had been looking into flights abroad, Steph had as promised also ordered checks on her laptop and tablet. The forensic computer analysts had, as feared, found spyware on both, which they believed had been installed remotely, probably via an email which Mary had innocently opened.
‘It means that whoever sent it was able to track what you were doing online,’ Steph explained to a horrified Mary. ‘So he was able to work out that you’re considering going away around the 1st of April. He’s a clever one, that’s for sure. But don’t panic – it’s all been removed now and a rock-solid firewall’s been installed. Just don’t openanythingfrom anyone you don’t know, OK? And the guys are going to contact you and give you some more advice about how to keep safe online going forward. You shouldn’t have any more issues, I hope.’
What the analysts hadn’t been able to do, though, was give the Operation Shearwater team any information whatsoever aboutwhoinstalled the spyware, or from where, and so although some peace of mind had been restored for Mary, the investigation was still no further forward. There’d also been an extensive look at what was now known as ‘the parent connection’, but no evidence had been found that Gregor Ellis, Alice Turner, or John Holland had ever even spoken to one another, never mind met at any point. The theory had not been discarded – it was still the only half-decent one they had – but everyone had begun to lose faith, and in the past couple of days morale had reached rock bottom.
Now, on the monitor in front of Steph and Jess, the face of DCI Bryn Lewis bears a grimace.
‘We have just two weeks now until he’s threatening to strike here in Cardiff,’ he says. ‘As we’ve discussed previously, we’re still intending to warn the list of possible victims we’ve compiled, probably about a week out, to give them time to make some plans. It’s a massive gamble, we know that, but if we get it right, and can save a life …’
His voice tails off, and he rubs his eyes and sighs. Jess turns to look at Steph, and for the first time today Steph sees a spark of energy in her eyes.
Maybe she needed the food and coffee to get her going, she thinks.
‘Two weeks. It’s not long, is it?’ she says, and Jess shakes her head.
‘It’s not.’
Then she pulls at the collar of her shirt and adds, ‘Is it me, or is it hot in here? Can we open a window?’
Steph nods.
‘It is hot, actually. It’s always too hot in in this bloody place. Drives me mad. Go for it. Open them all, if you like.’
Jess smiles and stands up.
‘Anyway, two weeks until Cardiff,’ she says over her shoulder as she heads over to the windows.
‘Which means about six weeks to us in Cheltenham. God help us all, eh?’
