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‘I’ve had Miles on the blower just a few minutes ago, he’s about fifteen minutes away and, I was surprised to hear, sounding rather sanguine,’ said Ross.
‘Sanguine. That’s not a word I’m used to hearing you use.’
‘Because you never listen, and underestimate me all the time,’ said Ross.
Barney snorted with amusement. ‘Miles was on speaker phone, and he actually used the word. He then had to translate for ’im.’
‘Shut up, you old get, I had to put up with your shite driving for bloody ages, and worse your overactive bowels. Honestly, a canary in a bloody cage would be a good idea, man.’
‘It was the battered sausage and chips with curry sauce, what can I tell you?’ said Barney, rubbing his stomach.
‘Aye, eating that shite and I had to suffer.’
‘You had a bloody full fish supper, with a sausage on the side, so don’t give me gyp about health food, or I’ll tell Mrs Fraser.’ Barney shot him a warning look trying to suppress a smile.
‘All right, settle down you two. We have a burner phone with an unread message, but first, Ross, is this information being locked down? It’s imperative that what has happened doesn’t leak,’ said Max.
‘Aye, totally. Miles knows that there’s been a shooting and an assault on the cop shop but as he was on his way here, he’s happy to wait for an in-person briefing.’
‘’Ow about the phones?’ said Barney, looking at Max.
‘We’ve a simple Samsung, and there’s a weird-looking EncroPhone in the car. What do you suggest, Barney?’
‘I should be able to download the Samsung easy enough. Shite password protection on those. The Encro is a different matter.’
‘Will whoever sent the message to the Samsung know we’ve read it?’
‘Maybe. Hard to tell,’ said Barney, taking the phone, which was sealed in a bag, from Max’s hand and studying it, his face rapt with concentration. ‘If I just download the handset, it may remain unopened, depends what you want to do.’
Max frowned in thought. ‘If we wait too long, he’ll start to getsuspicious, does Miles know about it, Ross? He’s the boss, and we don’t want to piss him off.’
‘He knows you have it, and he appreciates the urgency. We need to come up with a plan. Can we use the phone to reply to the sender?’
Barney thoughtfully turned the burner over in his hand. ‘Again, possibly, but it’s risky and whilst I can bypass the password to download, I may not get access to the actual handset. Also, if Droopy had something installed in the phone, it may auto-wipe, and we’ll lose the lot. If it’s a dirty phone, there may be something vital on it. I say we should just download it first, that way I can safely bypass the security. Once we have a safe download, we can make a decision.’
‘Okay, fine. We’ll do that, Miles will be fine about it. He accepts that this is our best opportunity, and he accepts the need for immediate action. It’s fortunate that we’re in the arse end of nowhere, or the press would be all over this. In fact, I’ll get onto the boss about this now,’ said Ross.
‘Yeah, good call. We can’t totally stop this getting out, but if we leave it suitably brief then our man may assume that their operation was a success, but time is of the essence, let’s get this phone sorted,’ said Max.
‘In the station, I could murder a cuppa,’ said Ross.
‘Sorry, no good. The crime scene manager has cordoned it off, no more entrance into the station.’
‘I’ll get kettle on in’t van then, lads,’ said Barney with a snort.
‘Oh shite, more of your irritable bowel, haven’t I suffered enough?’
When the kettle began to whistle, Max tipped the boiling water into four mugs with teabags in, while Barney sat in the reversed driver’s seat of the van, now parked a hundred metres away from the police station, in a small petrol station.
Barney had inserted a cable into the phone and connected it to a metallic square box. A few moments later he unpacked an SD memory card from a blister pack and slotted it into a small slit on the side of the box. He pressed a few keys on the box, and smiled when a green light flashed.
‘That was a quick download. There’ll be sod all on the phone, I can tell you that,’ he said, handing the phone back to Max, who returned it to the evidence bag.
Barney accepted a steaming mug from Max as he slotted the memory card into his scuffed and battered laptop that was festooned with Leeds United stickers. He whistled tunelessly as he tapped at the keys.
He paused to sip his tea and screwed up his face. ‘Too much bloody milk. Bloody non-Yorkshire folk ’ave no bloody idea how to make a cuppa. Anyway, here we are. Right. No photos, no internet, but he’s been using it for sat-nav. Phone was switched on somewhere north of Inverness and they sat-navved all the way here. He received a WhatsApp en route from someone he’d obviously saved as “Ace”.’
All four sets of eyes exchanged looks as the implications landed.
