‘Do you think they’ll have released Danny?’ Elaine asked.

Radford shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t think so – he would almost certainly have called with the good news, don’t you think?’

Elaine’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘So what do we do now?’ Martha asked.

‘Graham’s sending officers to the lay-by and the village they used last time. The kidnappers may think we’d disregard these as meeting places, so it’s worth a look. We’re also monitoring all traffic cameras within a five-mile radius, looking out for a white transit van, probably with its number plate obscured and we’re looking for Richard’s car too. He left early so if they are making the handover, they’ll probably be on the move now. With a bit of luck the traffic cameras will pick them up.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’ Martha asked.

‘Just keep trying to reach your husband. Say whatever you think will make him get in touch with us. Beg, plead, whatever it takes, okay?’

Martha nodded and found Richard’s number on her phone again.

DI Radford left shortly afterwards, with instructions for Martha to call him immediately she heard from Richard. She agreed knowing Suni would be in touch with her boss as well. Martha was angry and frustrated in equal measures. Richard had kept them in the dark and she was more worried than ever about Danny’s safety.

It was the sixth day since he’d been snatched and Martha knew how afraid her son must be. She longed to have him home again, in her arms, where she would happily keep him forever. But was it ever going to happen? Was his safe return a realistic hope? Had Richard made things worse, or could he succeed without the police? It was impossible to tell, all she could do was wait, and Martha was heartily sick of waiting.

38

DAY 6

DI Alex Radford was not au fait with anything other than the very basics of modern technology but knew which tools were available to the police force and that many officers loved the tech side of the job. One such officer was DS Graham Foster, who Radford was searching out back at the police station.

Foster was busy looking for Stone’s car using the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) service when his boss caught up with him. The ANPR system worked from a network of cameras recording between twenty-five and thirty million ‘reads’ a day. The data is stored for two years, so Alex hoped Graham’s task would be child’s play as they were only looking at a time frame of two to three hours.

Alex knew the system had its opponents and the ‘Big Brother brigade’ objected to having their movements tracked and stored, but he had little doubt that if it were their child who was missing, they’d want every tool available to be utilised.