Sitting at his side, Detective Sergeant Gina Riley replied, ‘Let’s just hope Mrs Hobson’s right.’

On screen, the front door of Mrs Hobson’s house was covered, and the image extended beyond the corner of the front elevation of the old lady’s house and on to the top end of Heath Road.

Hendricks took off the pause and raised his hands to show his colleagues two pairs of crossed fingers.

A blue Orion travelled from the one-way lane leading from Allerton Road into Heath Road.

A fat drop of rain smashed on to the lens of Mrs Hobson’s CCTV camera, turning the world it observed into a blur. A gust of wind flattened the moisture. The blurred view of the corner of Heath Road changed in an instant as the slowed-down seconds crawled by.

Hendricks looked at the clock on the screen’s corner as it reached 3:30:00 pm and back to the screen, where a piece of discarded newspaper was being bullied by the wind, rolling from Heath Road across Mrs Hobson’s path.

‘It’s coming!’ Riley spoke sharply and Hendricks paused. She pointed at the top of the screen. ‘It’s the front left-hand corner of the van. 3:30:11 pm. Go on, Bill…’

The left-hand side of the white van came into view.

‘Look!’ said Cole. ‘Look in the window on the passenger door.’

Hendricks paused.

‘There’s someone in the passenger seat,’ said Hendricks.

‘Keep it rolling, Bill. Let’s see what happens as it passes the old lady’s house and off into Heath Road.’

The three watched as the van disappeared out of view.

‘We’ve got a partial number plate. That’s all we need,’ said Cole. ‘I’ll track its progress using Automatic Number Plate Recognition. If it’s turned left or right on to Mather Avenue it’ll be easy to follow. Even if it carries on across the junction to the rest of Heath Road, we should be OK. I’ll get on to it as soon as we’re done here.’

Hendricks rewound the footage back to 3:30:11 pm.

‘Let’s watch out for the passenger, Bill,’ said Riley.

They watched the van come into its fullest view. Hendricks paused.

‘This is the best we’re going to do for the licence plate.’

‘Last three digits,’ said Cole, repeating them silently over and over in his head. ‘ZDS,’ he said out loud.

Slowly, the passenger turned his face towards Mrs Hobson’s house, as if his attention was subliminally sucked in by the CCTV camera. In the micro-second before the passenger turned away again, Hendricks paused.

‘It’s a man,’ said Hendricks. ‘Fair hair. We need to get this cleaned up by CCTV4U.’

‘Are you sure it’s a man?’ asked Cole, the mantra of three digits echoing inside his head.

‘Could be a man, could be a woman,’ said Riley. ‘But no view of the driver.’