Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(43)

‘A few months. It’s our major assessment task. It’s due next week.’

‘Hmm.’ Tox rocked on his heels. ‘Let me look at it.’ ‘What?’

‘I want to look at it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I said so.’ Tox shrugged, the gentle, menacing shrug of a dangerous man. ‘Let me look at it.’

Whitt cleared his throat. He understood why Tox was being mysterious with the youths. If there was footage relevant to the abduction of Caitlyn McBeal, Tox and Whitt would need to confiscate it. And that would take a warrant, and a warrant would take time. A search of the students’ footage was technically illegal. Whitt didn’t like all the muscling Tox was doing. But he couldn’t bring himself to stop what was about to happen. His personal and professional ethics were slowly, slowly degrading.

‘We don’t have to show you anything,’ the dreadlocked boy said. Tox didn’t reply. He reached out and grabbed the nearest handycam, plucking it from the grip of a young woman with green hair. He stood in the sun and started pushing buttons on the screen, flipping through dates on the digital files. The students exchanged glances, wide-eyed. Whitt held his hand out apologetically to another handycam holder. The young man gave a confused glance to their leader and then handed over the camera.

‘Who are these guys?’ someone whispered.

‘Should we … call someone?’

‘What’s this all about?’ one of the girls asked Whitt. ‘We’ve got permits. We’re not doing anything wrong.’

‘We’ll just be a minute,’ Whitt said gently. ‘I’m really sorry.’

‘Any footage of drug-taking on those cameras is strictly staged,’ one of the young people said, eyes on the sky. ‘We’re making a … public awareness film.’

‘Got it.’ Tox showed Whitt his camcorder screen. ‘Ten July. Three pm.’

The two men huddled together, watching the students’ interview on the tiny screen. The camera faced the car park exit, the driveway at the corner of the image. Anticipation churned in Whitt’s chest.

Tox fast-forwarded the footage. The girl on the screen twisted and shivered, her mouth jabbering silently. She was wearing headphones too, doing a sound check. A dark green sedan exited the car park. The footage ended.

The two men exhaled. The students around them seemed to sense that whatever they were looking for was not on their footage. Tox handed the tiny camera back to the girl he’d taken it from.

‘Thanks, guys.’ Whitt smiled. They turned and started wandering away, but after only a few steps he stopped. There was a zinging feeling creeping up from his fingertips. A flush of heat in his throat that even he didn’t know the cause of at first. Suddenly, he realised. It all fell into place. He gripped his partner’s arm.





Chapter 57


‘WHAT?’ TOX GRUNTED.

Whitt’s mind was rushing. He struggled to form words.

‘What?’ Tox repeated.

‘How do we know it was a white van?’ Whitt asked.

‘Linny Simpson said the guy tried to drag her into a white van.’

‘But has anyone else ever said that? Has there ever been a white van connected with the other missing girls?’

‘Well …’ Tox thought about it. ‘No.’

‘It’s always a white van, isn’t it?’ Whitt’s heart was beginning to race in his chest. ‘In the movies. People are always abducted into black or white vans. What if Linny Simpson was right about everything that happened to her except the vehicle?’

Whitt closed his eyes. Remembered Linny sitting before him at the cafe table.

‘She said the van door was closed,’ he looked at Tox. ‘When the guy, the abductor dragged her over to the van, he didn’t manage to get her into the back of the vehicle. It was closed. That doesn’t make sense.’

‘Why not?’

‘He’d have left it open. Surely he didn’t plan to grab her, drag her all the way over to the van, drop her on the ground and expect her to lie there while he pulled the door open.’

‘How sure was she that the van door was closed?’ Tox asked. ‘She took a blow to the head. She fainted afterwards. That’s one of the main reasons the police rejected her story, because they think she was confused.’

Whitt shrugged helplessly. Tox considered Whitt’s words. Then he walked back to the group of students and plucked up the camera again.

‘Hey, we need that!’ one of the girls cried. ‘It’s due next week!’

‘It’s worth a shot,’ Tox said. ‘Let’s get a BOLO on the green sedan. See what turns up.’

Whitt was rubbing the bridge of his nose as they ascended the fire stairs, a headache pulsing behind his eyes.

‘Oh shit!’ he said. ‘My glasses!’

He jogged up the stairs, remembering the clatter of his glasses as Tox knocked him sideways in the struggle for Sandy. He searched between the cars, bent low and looked under greasy tyres. He spotted them deep under a blue Camry. Before he could get down, Tox put a hand on his chest.

‘Not in that fancy outfit.’

Whitt watched as Tox crawled under the car, dragging himself forwards on his belly on the asphalt. He seemed to linger under the vehicle a little too long, the legs of his filthy jeans unmoving.