‘There are at least five people in this gang, and there’s also an inside man. This gang went to the Barrowmans’ thinking the place was empty, so there’s also an electronics expert, because they expected to have to bypass the high-tech security system. They use a scout on a motorbike to clear the way, and they use a horsebox to get the bigger stuff out. They wouldn’t have known till they arrived that Barrowman’s artworks and furniture weren’t worth nicking, so let’s assume they came prepped with a horsebox.’

Gifford piped up. ‘We’ve got our biker and our horsebox on CCTV, but it gives us nothing useful as yet.’

‘It does,’ Jack explained. ‘It gives us patterns. The roads round here are straight and long. No back alleys and a limited number of short-cuts. They have to be staying somewhere. They have to have a base. There will be a geographical pattern that our biker and our horsebox are drawing across your landscape. We just need to find it.’

Both men looked at Bevan. ‘I’ll find it, sirs,’ she said with a grin. Then she spun her chair round back to her computer and began furiously tapping away.

*

In the next thirty minutes, Jack and Gifford worked together to allocate the right job to the right officer. One was tasked with enhancing CCTV images of the men who entered the Barrowmans’ property to establish height and build. A second was tasked with trying to track the horsebox. And two were sent back to the house to supervise the CSIs in cordoning off the bushes either side of the driveway gate so they could be examined for footprints at first light. The only fly in the ointment was the arrival of the forensics report on Mr Bright-Cullingwood’s office space, which revealed one set of unidentified fingerprints, which showed no match to anyone on the CRIMINT database.

A text message from Oaks pinged through:

Mathew’s got the all clear. They’re heading home in an hour.

‘Bevan,’ Jack said. ‘Find Sergeant McDermott for me please.’ It was seven o’clock and Jack wanted to be at the Barrowmans’ house by eight the next morning to interview Mathew. ‘She’s got twelve hours to teach me everything she knows about Game of Thrones.’

Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

At the station, Gifford was running the show. At the Barrowmans’ house, Jack was the one leading the investigation. And Oaks had stepped up to lead the charge on the streets.

An hour and twenty minutes away from Chipping Norton, in Newbury, DC William Oaks and DC Ronnie Davidson were arriving at a racing stables owned by the aptly named Steven Goodwin. The closer examination of CCTV from the Barrowmans’ home had revealed a safety label on the tailgate of the horsebox, with a code number on it that ultimately identified where and when it was given its annual once-over. Oaks had already spoken to Goodwin on the phone and he’d confirmed that three days earlier, he’d rented a three-horse trailer to a Mr Smart. The trailer had been returned in the early hours of that morning and was now tucked away behind the stables waiting for Oaks and Davidson to take a look at it.