‘Good. I’m glad to hear that.’
‘And I’m glad that you’re glad. Eat your toast, Daniel. It’s nearly time to go.’
He looked across at Gemma, but she had suddenly found her cereal intensely interesting.
His phone was still off. He didn’t want to risk a call from Ronan while he was with his family. They’d know.
As he’d predicted, and despite his exhaustion, he hadn’t slept. Money was on his mind again. More specifically, how to get hold of some. He knew he couldn’t find all twenty-five thousand, but what if he could at least get into five figures? Ten grand is a lot of money in anyone’s eyes, right? Ronan would have to be pleased with that. And he’d already made a down payment, so that left only £5,700 to find.
Only £5,700.
Easy to say. Not so easy to do.
But he had a plan.
Marcel intercepted Hannah on her way out of the office.
‘Got a minute, boss?’
She tried to read his expression. Tried to figure out whether this was good news or bad. If it was bad, she was going to kick someone in the crotch.
She nodded. Marcel led her over to Trisha Lacey’s desk. Hannah decided that kicking her in the crotch wouldn’t be quite as effective.
‘What have we got?’
‘This is the CCTV from the tip,’ Trisha said. ‘We’re making good progress with the vehicles, but I wanted to show you this one.’ She moved the image on by a few frames, then pointed to a silver car.
‘Okay. What about it?’
‘Let me zoom in.’ Trisha tapped a key a few times, magnifying the rear section of the car. ‘See that plate?’
Hannah squinted. ‘I can’t make it out. It looks like it’s covered in mud or something.’
‘Right. A few of the vehicles have had dirty registration plates, but if we can’t figure them out on the way in, we can usually get them on the way out.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This is from a camera at the entrance to the tip, looking inwards, so it captures vehicles just as they come in through the gates. Now, a few minutes later, we see the car coming out again.’
Trisha worked her magic and found the same car on an image with a timestamp several minutes after the previous one. Now it could be seen from the front. Trisha zoomed in on the registration plate again.
‘Still unreadable,’ Hannah said.
‘Yes. Some of the characters are partly visible, but if they’re what we think they are, they don’t match anything in the system.’
‘You think this was done deliberately? A faked plate?’
‘It could be just coincidence. Maybe the car drove through mud and the registration was accidentally obscured. But there’s something else.’
Trisha used her mouse to move the viewpoint to a higher position on the car, directly over the driving position.
‘The sun visor’s down,’ Hannah said.
‘Yes, ma’am. And I don’t know if you remember, but Sunday was a really cloudy day. There was no reason for anyone to lower their visor. Unless . . .’
‘Unless they were trying to hide their face from the camera.’ Hannah straightened up. ‘Right. Do we know the make and model of that car?’
It was Marcel who answered. ‘Thought you’d ask that, boss, so we did our homework. It’s a Toyota Avensis saloon.’
‘Gold star for both of you. Draw up a list. Silver Toyota Avensis registrations, ranked according to distance of owner’s address from the crime scene.’
‘There could be a lot of them. And it’s possible that the owner doesn’t live anywhere near the scene or the tip.’
‘There could, Marcel. But unless you’ve got a better idea . . .’
‘No, boss. We’re on it.’
‘Thank you. Keep me informed. I want to know the minute you find anyone who seems the least bit iffy.’
‘Iffy. Right, boss.’
‘What the fuck is this?’
Ronan had known this was coming. He’d put up his mental shields in advance.
‘It’s all he had. Every penny.’
‘There are coins in here. Actual coins!’
