Blacklight Page 15

  Caslin hissed as he ordered them another drink from the bar, “It pisses me off. I hate being told what to do.”

  “Better get promoted then,” Sara said playfully.

  “Tried that,” Caslin replied with a smile. “It didn’t work out too well. And you always have a boss, no matter how high you go.”

  “Let’s finish these and head into town,” Sara said, draining her glass as soon as it was put before her. Caslin raised his eyebrows in surprise and glanced at the clock on the wall. It read 6:45.

  “It’ll be one hell of a night at that rate,” he said sternly.

  Sara shot him a devious smile, “Won’t it just.” She stood up and inclined her head, indicating for him to get a move on. With a shake of his own, he slid the scotch down his throat, replacing the glass on the bar. Sara hooked her arm through his and they made their way out through the lobby. “It’s still warm, why not take me for a walk through the old town,” she said. “Show me what York is all about.”

  Caslin frowned, “I think you’ve been reading too many of those tourist leaflets. You’ll have us on a ghost tour next.”

  “There are ghost tours?” Sara exclaimed. “Fantastic! That can go on the list.”

  “Behave yourself,” Caslin said, smiling.

  The hotel was right in the heart of the city and they were picking their way through the cobbled streets of The Shambles within minutes. Sara seemed genuinely interested in the collection of Tudor façades, often leaning at preposterous angles, as well as the mixture of artisan shop-fronts, displaying their quirky merchandise. For his part, Caslin felt lightheaded. Despite his resilience to the effects of alcohol, built up through years of binging, he was struggling these days and he knew why. His doctor’s appointment was still days away and he knew he would be in trouble before that. Perhaps his alcohol intake would soften the fall but he doubted it.

  Reaching the end of the narrow street they were caught up in a press of people, far more than would usually be found on Low Petergate at this time of day. It took him a moment before Caslin realised this was the protest march, Hunter had talked about. It wasn’t the rabble-rousing scene that he had envisaged. A reserved atmosphere encompassed the group, consisting of both men and women. Even children were present, some walking alongside their parents with others in pushchairs. Caslin pulled Sara to the side and they watched as the marchers made their way towards the Minster. Many carried placards or unfurled banners, held by small groups but all bore the same message, that all women were equal, whatever their background. It appeared as if they had been requested to dress in white, for the vast majority had turned up sporting that colour. Caslin wondered if it was to signify the innocence of the victim, Melissa Brooke. A play on the prejudices often held against those in the sex trade. The thought crossed his mind how times had changed. Twenty years ago, public opinion would have viewed Melissa’s death as largely of her own causing, stopping marginally short of outright blame.

  “What are they protesting against exactly?” Sara asked in a hushed tone, fearful that she would be overheard.

  “Me,” Caslin replied softly. Sara glanced at him but he didn’t elaborate. “Come on. Let’s get another drink.”

  Whatever it was outside that woke Caslin, it had passed by the time he realised where he was. He could still feel the alcohol coursing through him, despite a few hours’ sleep. There was little cloud cover in the sky and he spied the moon illuminating the street outside. Unsure of the time, he looked for a clock at the bedside but there wasn’t one. Believing his phone to be in his jacket and not knowing where that was, he slipped from between the sheets. Sara didn’t flinch as he tiptoed past her side of the bed, grateful for the full moon, so he could avoid the pitfalls of an unfamiliar room in the dark. Gathering up his clothes, he slipped into the bathroom and got dressed.

  His phone had logged several missed calls, all from Hunter. Caslin silently cursed. Turning out the light, he crept back into the bedroom. Sara hadn’t stirred and he paused, taking in her still form as she slept. An occasional flash of green light blinked in the corner of his eye. Glancing over, he saw it emanating infrequently from beneath some clothing on a chair. Moving over, Caslin eased the laptop out as quickly as he dared, casting his eye briefly in the direction of the bed as he did so. Lifting the screen, he saw it was in hibernation and swiped the glidepad, bringing it back into life. The hard drive firing up seemed excessively loud in the dead of night and he momentarily regretted the decision as movement under the sheets suggested he was about to be rumbled. The screen flickered, changing from matt black to a password request and Caslin exhaled heavily. Although not surprised, he was disappointed. Slowly, he eased the screen back down and replaced the machine where he had found it. Casting his mind back to Natalie’s dorm, he wondered if he could recreate Lottie’s trick with the password request but thought better of it.

  With a final, fleeting look towards Sara, Caslin made his way over to the door and teased it open. Ensuring that the self-close mechanism didn’t slam it shut behind him, he found himself in the brightly lit corridor of the hotel. Wondering what on earth had made him think his actions that night were a good idea, he set off to find the lobby, looking up Hunter’s number as he went. Back inside the hotel room, Sara lifted herself up onto one elbow. Glancing momentarily towards where her laptop lay, she rubbed at her eyes before returning her head to the pillow.

  Chapter 16

  “Where the hell are you?” Hunter asked, lowering her voice despite the background noise that threatened to drown her out.

  “I lost signal,” Caslin lied. “Why? What’s going on?”

  “We’ve had a hit from Natalie’s bank account. The first withdrawal came just after midnight.”

  “Where?” Caslin asked, excitement creeping into his tone.

  “Here in York,” Hunter replied. “The person was gone by the time we got a car over there but we’ve pressed the bank for the ATM camera footage. It’ll be here within the hour.”

  “I’m on my way,” Caslin stated, hanging up the phone as he crossed the hotel lobby. With the briefest of acknowledgements to the night porter, he passed out into the street.

  Being the early hours, no-one was about and that included taxi drivers. Caslin had to run to the nearest cab office to get a ride out to Fulford Road. Taking the stairs up to CID two at a time he made it into the squad room with only a light sheen of sweat on his forehead, having recovered from his run through the city centre. Inglis cast him a withering glance as Hunter crossed over to bring him up to date.

  “Five hundred pounds was withdrawn at 00:18 from an ATM in the city centre, we’ve just had the footage emailed to us from the bank’s security office.”

  “That was quick.”

  “We put the bigger banks on notice this afternoon, most have stepped up for us,” Hunter stated. The two of them joined a cluster of officers waiting patiently around a computer screen as the file was first downloaded and then decrypted for viewing. The process seemed to be taking forever and the sense of anticipation in the air was palpable. At last the footage came up and within seconds, everyone let out a groan, almost in unison. Optimists had hoped for an identifiable face but the pessimists won out, as their suspect was clad in black, from a hooded coat to a full-face balaclava, shrouding the features entirely. The video stream lasted for less than two minutes and seemingly nothing useful could be gleaned.

  The air of expectation was replaced with one of deflation as they replayed the footage over and over. The grainy images masked the detail and illumination from the street lighting did little to help.

  “I’ll try and clean it up as best I can,” the tech officer said solemnly, as the footage ceased playing.

  “Do that,” Inglis said. “I’ll brief the DCS but in the meantime, Nathaniel,” he indicated Caslin, “you and Hunter get down to that ATM and see if you can find anything that helps us. I’m not conceding defeat, just yet. If it’s not too much trouble?”

  “Will do, Si
r,” Caslin said, ignoring the last. No answer he could give would satisfactorily explain his absence so he needn’t bother trying.

  Caslin could feel Hunter’s eyes burning a hole in the back of his head as they descended the stairs. Reaching the half-landing he stopped, allowing her to come alongside.

  “If you’ve got something to say, then say-”

  “What are you playing at?” Hunter asked accusingly. “Look, you’re my DI and if you really don’t give a monkey’s about your career, that’s fine, but I bloody well care about mine!”

  “You’re not responsible for me-”

  “Too right, I’m not but when you go AWOL it looks bad and I don’t need to be associated with it, alright? Plus, I end up covering for you and that pisses me off.”

  “I’m not asking you to,” Caslin countered, irritation rising within him.

  “No, you’re not, are you,” Hunter hissed, brushing past him and continuing on her course. Caslin cast his eyes skyward, took a deep breath and followed.

  It was four-thirty in the morning when they reached the ATM on Clifford Street. There were a few early morning deliveries taking place but other than that, the area was deserted. Caslin had to admire the choice of location. They were central to the city but standing at an intersection where five routes converged, leaving plenty of options for a swift departure by vehicle or on foot.

  “What do you think?” Hunter asked.

  “He’s certainly thought about it,” Caslin replied. Hunter nodded as if she had come to the same conclusion.

  “We could get some bodies down here, start knocking on some doors and see who was around at midnight?”

  “Good idea, we might get lucky,” Caslin agreed but he didn’t rate their chances. Looking around them, he could see a couple of restaurants who may still have had employees on site at that time but there was little else. The remainder of businesses in the area would have long since closed for the day. The precinct was only a stone’s throw away but the bars and clubs were deeper into the centre and passing traffic, pedestrian or otherwise, would have been slight. Caslin spied something. “What does that look like to you?”

  Hunter looked where he was pointing, across the street and down Castlegate. She saw what he had, a small camera mounted on the exterior of a three-storey, terraced building. It appeared to be pointing in their general direction. A board, sited above the entrance to the shop front, stated the building was either for sale or available to let.

  “I’ll give the agents a call as soon as they open. I hope they kept it running,” Hunter said although she seemed unconvinced.

  “Oh, don’t be disheartened,” Caslin said with the hint of a smile, “We’re due a break. While you’re at it, let’s get the footage of all the traffic cams in the area last night, maybe we can get a few vehicles to follow up on. This guy isn’t a ghost. He’ll show up somewhere.”

  “You couldn’t get anything from it?” Caslin asked, evidently dismayed at that reality.

  The tech officer shook his head and shrugged, “The quality isn’t good enough to enhance any further. All I can give you is that it’s a white male, probably about six feet in height, due to the position of his head in relation to the screen.”

  Despite spending much of the morning analysing the ATM footage, they still had little to go on. The image tantalised them with the perpetrator but the thickness of the clothing, available background lighting and poor picture quality, all transpired to make the recording almost useless. A full forensic examination of the cashpoint itself proved futile, leaving the team frustrated.

  “This might cheer you up, Sir,” Hunter said as she strode purposefully towards them, having returned from visiting the estate agent’s. “I got this from the surveillance camera on Castlegate,” she said, brandishing a disc held in her hand. “Now it doesn’t cover the bank itself but does show Clifford Street, in the background.”

  They waited as Hunter put the disc in to the computer and brought up the recording. Once again, the quality was poor but as she fast-forwarded through the footage to just after midnight, they saw what she was excited about. As the time index hit 00:15, a vehicle appeared in the bottom corner of the camera’s view, although barely in shot. It was white, or grey, in colour and had stopped near to their bank on double yellow lines. Everyone waited in silence as the digital counter ticked along, past the time that the ATM was used to access Natalie’s account.

  “Come on, come on,” Caslin mouthed quietly, hoping the vehicle would drive into shot, rather than reverse away.

  “Here it comes,” Hunter said as the vehicle moved off, passing directly through the camera’s viewing angle. Several people gave a whoop of delight as the car crossed the screen and continued in the direction of Bridge Street and a route across the River Ouse.

  “Does anyone recognise the make?” Caslin asked.

  “Looks like a Japanese SUV to me,” Holt offered.

  “Let’s see if Tech can do a better job cleaning this one up,” Caslin said aloud.

  “Right, new point of focus,” Inglis said. “I want to know where this car went after this point. Utilise any resource we can find, traffic cameras, CCTV, petrol stations, find it, track it and see if we can get an index. There can’t have been too many light-coloured SUVs driving around town in the early hours. This is our guy, find him. Nathaniel, does Natalie’s boyfriend have a vehicle registered to him.”

  Caslin shook his head, “No, nothing on file. Perhaps we should have a look at any other MisPers in the local area where witnesses mentioned a similar vehicle, there might be an index recorded. You never know.”

  “Agreed, get someone on it. Likewise, as soon as we can identify the model I want DVLA records for all those registered in this area.”

  “That’ll be hundreds, if not thousands, Guv,” Hunter said, regretting mentioning it almost immediately.

  “Better get to it then,” Inglis replied. “Nathaniel, do you want to speak to the Bermonds or leave it to family liaison?”

  “I’d rather speak to them later, Guv. Once we have something concrete,” Caslin said, silently hoping that they would.

  The team set about their new tasks with a renewed vigour that had been sorely lacking in the previous few hours. Caslin walked into his office, a faraway look on his face. He failed to realise that Hunter had followed him in, until he sat down. Her presence startled him.

  “Something on your mind?” she enquired.

  “Just thinking, why that particular ATM?”

  “Well you said it yourself, ease of access as well as multiple exit routes. Does it need to be any more complicated than that?”

  “Perhaps,” Caslin mused openly, “but everything he has done so far, has been meticulously planned. There is so little evidence left behind, it follows that this must have been also.”

  “Unless she is in on it, then there wouldn’t be a lot to leave behind.”

  “Even so, they would know we’ll be watching the money. Why access it in York at all? Surely, this will be the hottest place to be, they would know that. This has been executed so well, they would know that.”

  “So, why then?” Hunter asked.

  “I’ve no idea,” Caslin said honestly, appearing perplexed. “It’s a risky move, that’s all. Arrogance, maybe?”

  “Rubbing our face in it?”

  Caslin chuckled, “There have been stranger things done, that’s for sure. Hell, it’s probably nothing. Maybe I’m reading too much into it.”

  “I thought you might want to read this,” Hunter said, passing Caslin a copy of the local paper. The front page detailed the candle-lit vigil, held outside the Minster on the previous night, the culmination of the protest march. Hunter left him to it and headed off to assist with obtaining, and then trawling through, all the digital data that they could muster. For the first time, Caslin felt that they might actually be getting somewhere now that they had a tangible lead to follow. Scanning the headline and the image of a sombre Suzanne Brooke in the newspap
er, Caslin couldn’t help but think of Melissa. He said a silent prayer that they would have more success in finding Natalie, whichever direction the investigation took.

  With that in mind, he called Iain Robertson to get an update on the search of the wildlife sanctuary. They hadn’t located any more remains on the previous day and Caslin wanted to give Alison Taylor a decent chance of identifying those she had in her pathology lab.

  “Anything for me, Iain?”

  “I wish I could say yes, Nate,” the scot replied stoically. “We’re going by fingertip, and we’ve widened the search area thirty percent, but we’ve turned up little else. We do have some clothing, a pair of knickers that may belong to one of the victims but besides that, nothing.”

  “Okay, any signs of damage that you can make out?” Caslin asked, thinking back on Dr Taylor’s comments.

  “None that I can see but I’ve bagged it and they’re on their way to the lab. I’ll let you know.”

  “Quick as you can, Iain. And the river?” Caslin asked.

  “Upstream and down, one mile with the former and so far, two with the latter but I have nothing for you. I’m sorry. It’s very disappointing from my point of view.”

  “No need to apologise, Iain. Call me if you do find anything else, though,” Caslin said before saying goodbye and hanging up. He hoped that Alison would have better news for him later that day. His mobile began to ring and taking it from his pocket he saw that it was Sara. Staring at the screen for a few moments, he watched as the call was passed to voicemail and he blew out his cheeks before tossing the phone onto the desk in front of him. Waiting for developments had never been one of his strong points, so Caslin decided to be proactive. Scooping up his phone once again, he called Alison Taylor. She answered within a few rings and appeared unsurprised at the caller.

  “Intuitive, Inspector Caslin,” she stated playfully.