of support and pressed send.
He grabbed the frame and held it tight. He loved this picture: Alex with her shoulderlength brown hair was positively glowing, while Carol-Anne nestled in her arms, as they both relaxed on holiday. He could still remember taking the picture, and how proud he’d been of his little family. It was the day Alex had told him she was expecting their second child. He lowered the frame back to the desk face down; so much had happened in the six months that had passed since then, yet the pain felt just as raw as the day the sonographer had told them she couldn’t trace a heartbeat. Alex had later admitted to fearing something wasn’t right.
Pocketing the phone, Ray locked his workstation and made his way to the group of ten forming a semicircle around the main board. Perching on one of the desks, Owen handed him his mug of tea, as Trent quietened them down.
‘First of all,’ Trent began, standing in front of the board allowing her to make eye contact with each of them, ‘can we welcome back DS Ray Granger from his trip to Hendon? Ray has been learning the Met’s latest negotiation techniques from an instructor who has been working in Asia and the Middle East for the past decade.’
Ray nodded as his colleagues acknowledged his return. It seemed a bit staged, particularly as he’d only been away for a week, but it was Trent’s way of micromanaging her team.
‘So, when it comes round to the annual pay review, I’ll be delegating to Ray to negotiate on my behalf, and I’ll be expecting a bumper pay rise, Ray.’
‘They won’t know what’s hit them, ma’am,’ Ray smiled.
The group laughed.
‘Onto other matters,’ Trent continued, ‘we’ve had a tip-off that a new crew are smuggling counterfeit goods through the docks. The chief super has signed off a two-week surveillance op with overtime available for those who want to be involved. It’ll mean working all hours, with a view to crashing the ring by the end of the month.
‘I’ll be leading the surveillance, and we’ll be working closely with our colleagues in Organised Crime to identify the main players and set up further surveillance on their activities. The potential return on this one could be in the millions, which is why it’s been sanctioned. I want names on the board by the time I finish today so I can coordinate who’s doing what over the next fortnight.’
Ray pressed a hand to his pocket as his phone vibrated.
‘Everything okay, Ray?’ Trent asked.
All eyes fell on Ray as the phone continued to vibrate in his pocket. Trent was a stickler for keeping work and personal lives separate. She acknowledged that her team all had lives outside of the office, though she didn’t like it encroaching on her time.
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ Ray replied, lowering his eyes.
‘Right, where are we with the armed robbery at the post office in Portswood last Friday?’
An arm shot up. ‘CCTV has four masked men making their escape in a Transit from Portswood,’ DS Jodie Crichton explained. ‘Plates are false. We tracked the vehicle as far as the M3 before we lost sight of it. Having spoken to colleagues in Dorset and Berkshire, this could just be the latest in a string of robberies. It has the hallmarks of raids in Swindon, Bournemouth and Reading. The group are heavily armed – four men and a getaway driver – and only hit post offices, focusing primarily on their foreign exchange booths. One stands watch at the main door, keeping a check on the time via a stopwatch around his neck. He seems to be the one in charge. Each time, when it gets to exactly three minutes, he signals and the rest of the group haul tail out of there. They are very efficient from what I can see, using a different van each time, always with false plates, and always abandoned and torched with no DNA or fingerprints discovered at any of the wrecks or crime scenes.’
‘Do the other teams have any idea who the group are?’ Trent asked.
Crichton shook her head. ‘None, ma’am. The group are masked in all of the footage from the post offices.’
The phone was vibrating again, and this time Ray pulled it out and dropped it into the drawer of the desk he was sitting on.
Trent fired a look at him, before turning back to Jodie. ‘What about MOs of other crews?’
‘Still checking for similarities. I’ll keep you posted.’
‘Ray, you’ve got some free time on your hands. I want you to work with Jodie on this. Okay?’
Ray nodded as the sound of the vibrating phone echoed quietly in the drawer.
‘Good. Owen, what have you got for us in terms of news on the streets?’
Owen Hargrove stepped forward. ‘Uniform have reported a string of muggings in the precinct area of Shirley. Victims have described a tall girl, aged maybe fifteen or sixteen, with long brown hair. There’s also been three burglaries at properties in Hedge End. Can’t say for sure if they’re connected at this stage.’
‘Anything else?’
‘The only other thing they mentioned was the release of Jack Whitchurch, ma’am: convicted sex offender. He’s been released on bail and has been relocated outside of the county; they’re wary of reprisals, and have been asked to keep a watch on his property. We also need to make contact with his previous victims and advise them of his release. I’ll see if uniform can do house visits.’
‘Okay, thank you for the update. Don’t forget, names on the board by tonight. Back to work.’
Ray waited for the team to disperse, and in particular DI Trent, before opening the drawer and pulling out his phone. Five missed calls from Alex, and voicemail. It was unlike her to be so persistent when she knew he was working. Pocketing the phone, he headed for the exit.
Six calls and messages to Ray had yielded no results.
Where the hell was he, and why wasn’t he answering?
He should know that she wouldn’t keep calling unless it was an emergency.
The rain was still heavy. She no longer cared that her hair looked like she’d just stepped out of the shower and that her eyeliner had left streaks down her cheeks. None of that mattered anymore.
Returning to the back of the car, she opened and checked the boot for a second time. She knew it was impossible that Carol-Anne could have figured out how to lower the rear seats and crawl through to the boot, but she was fast running out of ideas about where her daughter could have gone.
She’d never felt so scared in all her life. What if Carol-Anne had somehow managed to get out of the car, and rather than walking towards Alex had taken a wrong turn? What if a car had hit her? Or what if she was out there now, lost and alone and wondering why her Mummy had abandoned her?
Why hadn’t she just taken Carol-Anne to the ticket machine with her? That would be the first question Ray would fire at her, and he’d be right to blame her for the moment of madness. She’d thought she was doing the right thing. She’d locked the car so Carol-Anne would be safe. And then the alarm had sounded. She hadn’t looked away for any real length of time, she was
