CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DAY TWENTY SIX: 18th September.
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It took Hunter ages to find a parking spot. He had never seen the police station car park so full. And inside the station was no different. The rear foyer and corridor was crammed with uniformed officers all milling around. He didn’t identify any as regular faces.
Pushing through the double doors into the first floor stairwell he recognised one of the duty group sergeants. He was carrying a clip-board and seemed deep in thought.
“What’s going on?”
The uniformed Sergeant looked up. “Oh, morning Hunter. You mean the Task Force officers? Haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Marcus Hill was attacked last night. He’s in a bad way.”
“Marcus!” Hunter knew Marcus Hill. A few years ago Marcus had joined Hunter’s team as a CID aide, but had then passed his sergeants exams and decided to go back into uniform where he would have the regularity of ‘acting-up.’ He had only spoken with him a couple of weeks ago, when he’d bumped into him in the canteen. He’d seen the smile on Marcus’s face as he’d told him that he’d just passed the last round of sergeant’s boards and was waiting for a suitable vacancy.
“What happened?”
The Sergeant outlined the circumstances. “Fractured skull. And he suffered a bleed to the brain. They operated on him late last night and he’s heavily sedated. We won’t know anything else about his condition until later this morning.”
“Have you got the person who did it?”
The Sergeant shook his head. “He called in a grey Mondeo, that he thought was acting suspiciously, in one of the fields opposite the Crown Inn at Barnburgh, and called for back-up. Then he went status-zero, but it took the first car a good ten minutes to get to him. By that time the Mondeo, and whoever had attacked him, had left. We’ve got everyone available out looking. Task Force are going out to do a thorough search of the area.”
Hunter laid a hand on the sergeant’s shoulder. “Okay let me know how you go on, and keep me updated about Marcus.” He turned and made his way up the stairwell to the MIT room, his thoughts drifting.
Shouldering his way through the doors Hunter immediately felt the atmosphere in this office at a complete contrast to the one he had been greeted with downstairs. This place was buzzing. It brought him back from his gloom.
He slipped off his jacket and wrapped it around the back of his chair. He caught his partners gaze. She was placing a mug of coffee down on her desk.
“Morning Grace. Have you heard about Marcus?”
“Yeah, terrible isn’t it.”
Hunter nodded. He pointed towards his murder squad colleagues who were at their desks, cradling their own hot drinks and chatting excitedly in small groups.
“Something going on that I should know about?”
“That’s appeared this morning.”
Grace thumbed a sign towards the white incident boards at the front of the room. Beside them, stacked on a trolley, was a large flat screen TV on ‘stand-by’ and a DVD player.
“I called in to speak to Isobel first thing and she told me we were in for a treat this morning. She said there’d been a breakthrough — but she wouldn’t tell me what.”
Before Hunter and Grace could discuss things further they were interrupted by Michael Robshaw and Barry Newstead making a noisy entrance. The team watched Barry swagger to the television, his face beaming as he switched on the monitor with a hand held remote, whilst the SIO took up centre stage in front of the boards.
“Okay everyone settle down.” I’m guessing you’ve all heard a whisper that progress has been made in this case, especially after the disappointment we had from the interview with the Hassans.” Michael Robshaw swung his eyes from Hunter to Grace. “And that’s no reflection on you two by the way. We had nothing to go on.” He paused and broke into a grin. “That was until yesterday afternoon.” He began rubbing his hands together. “When Barry discovered what you are about to all see. All yours Barry,” introduced the SIO.
Barry Newstead smoothed a hand down over his loosened tie. He took in a deep breath and made a vain attempt at pulling in his beer belly. “As you know, I was given the task of visiting the security team at Meadowhall to see what, if any, CCTV footage they had of Samia Hassan and see if there was anything of significance which could take the investigation further. Well thanks to the dates, times and precise location which refuge owner Nahida Perveen provided I was able to isolate the cameras which might have captured images of Samia. This is what I have found. The footage is disjointed because I have just taken clips from hours of original CCTV film and cobbled it together onto one disc.”
He took a step back away from the large TV screen and pressed the remote. A section of the interior of the huge shopping mall flickered onto the forty-eight inch screen.
“Okay this is where we first pick up Samia.” He pointed to the television using the remote and homed in on a young, pretty, dark haired Asian woman strolling through the ground floor of Marks and Spencer’s store and out through the entranceway, which gives access to the mall. The murder squad detectives were quickly glued to the pictures playing out over the TV. They witnessed Samia weave her way through a throng of seated people centred round an open plan coffee lounge and then take up a place at an empty table. “You’ll see at the bottom right is the time and date of the footage; the fourteenth of March — a good six months ago. I’ll fast forward it a bit.” He flicked a button on the hand-held and then used the remote to point out another woman joining Samia at the table. “That’s Nahida Perveen. I’ll not go any further but I can tell you they have coffee and are obviously in conversation for about twenty five minutes and then Samia leaves and makes her way back into Marks and Sparks before heading off onto the train.” Barry clicked the remote again. “Okay this is the second piece of footage. We jump forward to the twenty-eighth of July.”
Again images played out of Samia walking through the ground floor of Marks and Spencer’s and out towards the coffee lounge by its entranceway. On this occasion Nahida was already at a table and Samia joined her. Barry speeded up the footage showing Samia handing over a red knapsack and then froze the picture. He turned to Hunter. “I think this is the same knapsack in which you found Samia’s clothing and passport, is it not?”
Hunter nodded.
“Okay there’s not much conversation on this occasion,” Barry increased the speed of the footage for a few seconds then hit the play button. “They’re only together for approximately ten minutes and as you can see they split up and leave.” Barry froze the DVD once again, pulled his eyes away from the screen and scanned the room. He had the attention of every detective. “Now this next bit is very interesting,” he continued, clicking the remote back into play mode.
All eyes in the room watched Samia travel the escalator to the first floor of Marks and Spencer’s, stride through the aisles and leave through the exit doors. At one stage it looked as though she was heading for the ramp to the train station, but then changed direction towards the car park and she also appeared to be continuously glancing behind her.
“At this stage, like you, I was wondering why she was looking around as much as she was so I pulled up footage from other cameras and I found this.” He clicked the remote again, changing the image. The shots were back inside Marks and Spencer.
The picture zoomed in and a grainy image of an Asian male, mid to late twenties, dressed in white t-shirt and jeans, came into focus. He was dodging from one rack of clothing to another clearly acting suspiciously.
“As I pan the shot out you can now see that this guy is following Samia and I’m guessing because of her reaction she has sussed this. Okay I’ll play it out a bit more.”