The line from the film Gone with the Wind suddenly popped into his mind; ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn’ and he was surprised at the smile he had to suppress as he refrained from speaking the words aloud. Elaine’s opinion of him meant nothing; it was her daughter and grandson he needed to win back. Richard turned and walked upstairs, leaving a stunned Elaine speechless.

54

DAY 6

Pursuing Serena Murphy and the man accompanying her was not going to be as easy as DI Radford hoped. They set off only two or three minutes after the pair, following in the same direction and hoped to catch up with them quickly, assuming Serena and her companion were heading for the motorway and possibly on to London.

If this were the case, they’d soon be caught on CCTV and be swiftly apprehended. However, their car was not picked up on any camera from the main roads, or the ramp to the motorway.

After fifteen minutes, Radford instructed the police car they were following to circle round and back into Bristol while he and Graham continued on the current route. Forty minutes later with still no sighting of the car, Alex reluctantly decided to return to the station. The elusive black Lexus could be anywhere.

‘Do you think it’s Pete Turner she’s with?’ Graham considered. ‘If so, perhaps they’ve gone to wherever he lives, back to Bristol even?’

‘Yes, it’s most likely him. If they’ve gone to ground we probably won’t pick them up again until tomorrow morning. It’s already 8pm. We’ll see what the number plate check turns up and then call it a night. If the cameras pick them up we’ll be called out, but I rather think they’ll lay low until tomorrow.’

‘Do you think they know we’ve got the vehicle details?’

‘I rather think not. They might have seen the car parked opposite the apartment but Dee was confident they didn’t see her. So even if they knew we were there they would think they’d got away. If they did see Dee, they might take the precaution of changing the car and we’ll be back to square one but I think that’s unlikely.’

Disappointed, the two men returned to the station where a few members of the team waited for news. Radford gave a brief, succinct update before telling them all to go home and rest. He needed the team to be fresh the following day to brainstorm their next move.

The computer search revealed that the Lexus was registered to a man in Leeds who’d reported it stolen almost a year earlier. This could help tie Turner into Dave Bennet’s case and give them another charge to bring against him, as and when they caught up with him.