A fact that I was grimly aware of. ‘Thank you, Laura,’ I said again. ‘I’ll be in touch before the forty-eight hours are up.’ I replaced the receiver, Laura’s warning ringing in my ears.
I couldn’t stay out on the streets armed with nothing more than a paperweight. Lukas had told me about the weapons housed at Supe Squad. If I was going to find Tony quickly, I had to return to the office anyway. I straightened my shoulders. I had a plan. Of sorts.
***
I made it out of Tony’s building and all the way to Supe Squad without seeing Will, Lukas or any knife-wielding maniacs. At that point, I was prepared to count that as a win. Max the bellman’s shift must have ended; he’d been replaced by another man in similar livery but with an entirely different disposition. He glared at me as I walked up to the Supe Squad building and fumbled with the key.
I leaned back from the door and met his irritated gaze. ‘Were you working here last night?’ I asked.
I could tell from his expression that he was no fan of the police and that he wanted to tell me to piss off. Fortunately, he also knew that it was in his best interests to answer me, so reluctantly he bit out a nod.
‘Did you see anybody coming and going from here?’
‘No.’
‘No one at all?’ I pressed.
‘No.’ He folded his arms across his chest. ‘Nobody is ever around here at night. Your lot are part timers.’
I wondered what he expected, given that there was nothing for us to do. ‘Well,’ I said, offering him a dazzling smile, ‘I’m here now.’
The bellman grunted and turned away. I didn’t take it personally and let myself into the building.
The familiar hallway was shrouded in darkness. I found the light switch by touch, flicking it on and exhaling with relief when the weak lightbulb overhead lit up. I didn’t feel comfortable in the dark any more. I wondered if I ever would.
Although I was itching to investigate the third floor and the weapons Lukas the vampire had mentioned, I restrained myself and headed into the main room on the ground floor. I glanced at Tony’s silent computer before walking over to it and, without sitting down, tried to enter a password. This time I typed in ‘Melissa’ and pressed return, holding my breath. I cursed when it didn’t work. Damn it – I only had one more try before I was locked out.
Fortunately, accessing Tony’s files was only one of my ideas. There was another computer and, trainee or not, I could use it to get the information I needed because we’d been set up with our own logins during our first week at the Academy. Anything I searched for would leave a trace, but this was all about risk versus reward.
The easiest place to begin was Tallulah. Tony’s grubby car was far too old to possess a GPS tracking system, but there was more than one way to skin a cat. Within moments, I had the Automatic Numberplate Recognition system up and running. If Tony had driven anywhere in London, the ANPR programme would find him. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t looking for real-time data; ANPR held its records for two years. Tracking Tallulah for the last twenty-four hours, especially within the city, would be ridiculously easy.
I didn’t have a photographic memory, and I’d not paid attention to the grubby Mini’s numberplate yesterday, but she’d been used to pick me up the previous day. It was a piece of cake to plug in the Academy’s address and the time that Tony had arrived. You have to love technology – and Tony’s shoddy, borderline illegal parking methods. In less than five minutes, I had Tallulah’s numberplate.
I typed it into the ANPR system, then picked up the phone while I was waiting for the computer to do its work. Tony’s mobile might be switched off but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still useful.
Every mobile has its own International Mobile Equipment Identity number, one that is unique to each handset. Even if the SIM card is changed, the IMEI remains the same. Whenever the phone checks in to a local base station, it transmits that number. I couldn’t pinpoint the location of Tony’s phone, but I could find out roughly where it was when it was last turned on – and that might make all the difference.
‘Good evening,’ I said into the phone. ‘I’m calling from Supernatural Squad. I need a mobile number traced and tracked immediately.’
‘I need your name and warrant number before I can authorise that action.’
I screwed up my face. I’d hoped that calling from a police department would pass muster. Apparently not. I crossed my fingers and reeled out the information.
‘That’s a trainee number.’
‘Yeah,’ I said quickly. ‘My mentor wants me to practise. It’s his phone that I’m tracking. He seems to think that practising real skills like this will make me a better detective when I finally graduate. It’s just playacting, really.’
‘This isn’t nursery school,’ the woman said, clearly irritated. ‘This service is for genuine police business.’
‘I know, I know. I’m sorry – but I need to do well at this. I’m a hair’s breadth from graduation. If I can get through this last rotation…’
She sighed. ‘Give me his name and number and I’ll see what I can do. I have to contact the network directly, so it might take some time.’
I exhaled. ‘It’s DC Anthony Brown.’ I gave her his number.
‘Wait a moment and I’ll verify that information. I’ll put you on hold.’
As I waited, I checked the computer. The system had done its work. A list of different locations, including several photographs, had appeared on the screen. I ran down them and focused on the last one. Then I frowned. Tallulah had last been registered on St James’s Street just after eleven o’clock last night. That was less than ten minutes’ walk from St Erbin’s Church – and it was around the time when I was being murdered.
I stared at the photo. It was grainy and the image was far from perfect, but that definitely looked like Tony sitting in the driver’s seat.
The phone clicked and the woman spoke again. ‘Take down these coordinates,’ she said. ‘51.5069N, 0.01416W.’
I scribbled them down.
‘He’s certainly messing with you,’ she said. ‘DC Brown’s phone was last pinged by the mast at that location at 11.33pm last night. What’s the bet he’s putting this on expenses?’
My brow creased. ‘What do you mean, putting it on expenses?’
‘Those coordinates are for the DeVane Hotel. I bet he sat in a plush corner and had a champagne cocktail, chuckling to himself about sending you there to look for him. Honestly.’ I could almost hear her rolling her eyes. ‘No wonder Supe Squad has such a bad reputation if it’s full of detectives who swan around one of London’s poshest hotels instead of doing any real work.’
I ignored her last comment and thanked her. The DeVane Hotel made no sense. It wasn’t far from here, but it might as well have been a million miles away in terms of the sort of place I was used to. It certainly wasn’t where I’d expected Tony to hang out. I shook my head briefly. It was within a stone’s throw of St James’s Street, so it had to be right. At least I knew where to go next. Now all I needed was a real weapon to take with me.
I cracked my knuckles and walked into the dimly lit hallway. A wooden staircase with a threadbare carpet runner that had definitely seen better days led upstairs. I gazed up, took a deep breath and followed it upwards.
In the last three months, I’d been fully trained in the correct way to use both a police baton and a Taser. Molly had been keen to go a step further and request firearms training but it wasn’t something that interested me. Police in the UK didn’t routinely carry guns, and gaining admittance to firearm training involved a barrage of tests.
I wondered how difficult it was to get training in the use of crossbows. I had a vision of a teacher dressed as Robin Hood, and a hysterical giggle threatened to bubble out of me. I gulped it back. My emotions were on the edge. I needed to keep my baser instincts at bay if I was to find a way through this mess.
The higher I climbed, the more the stairs creaked. Rather than adding to my unease, the noise was oddly comforting; it gave a touch of normality to my very abnormal day. I focused on each creak and felt myself calming down. In fact, I was so absorbed in the sounds that I almost didn’t hear the knock at the front door. When it filtered through my consciousness that someone was out there, my whole body stiffened.
I took the rest of the stairs two at a time, then swung round the third-floor landing into the nearest room and headed for the window. When I peered down and saw who was standing in the street and frowning at the front door, my heart rate went into overdrive. Again.
Every atom of my body told me to whirl round, sprint down the stairs, fling open the door and throw myself into Jeremy’s arms. The worry etched on his face sent tiny spears of anguish through me. He’d come here late at night to look for me, despite my messaged instructions to the contrary.
I gazed down at him. I didn’t deserve him, and that was why I so determined to keep him out of this mess. I wasn’t about to risk his well-being – his life – even if I desperately wanted his solid, comforting presence. He’d never understood why I wanted to become a police detective, and he certainly wouldn’t understand what was happening now. I twisted my fingers and stepped back so that he wouldn’t catch sight of me if he looked up.
He stepped to the side, his mouth moving as he spoke to the gruff bellman outside the building. I held my breath. If that cantankerous bastard told him that he’d seen me come in less than half an hour ago, I was screwed.
From where I was standing, it didn’t look as if he was being any more forthcoming with Jeremy than he’d been with me. Jeremy’s face spasmed with irritation, then he shoved his hands into his pockets and stalked away. I gazed at his retreating back, continuing to watch until long after he’d been swallowed up by the darkness. I’d have to contact him soon and do whatever I could to alleviate his worries, though I wasn’t sure how I’d manage that.