She soon received a return call informing her that a few officers were still on site and, of course, they could go and check to see if Nellie Lowther was in residence at her private cottage. Kelly was hoping that, armed with the terrible revelations of yesterday, and Nellie Lowther’s close connection to the property and the two men, she’d have a warrant in her hand for her private residence by lunchtime.

She tapped the steering wheel, thinking of what she could do next as she sat stuck in the queue for the next half an hour. She ate her sandwich out of boredom, and closed her eyes when the traffic stopped. At least her sinuses seemed to have cleared a little, despite the red wine last night.

As she approached the M6 roundabout, Rob called her.

‘Boss, a member of the public has identified Sasha Granger and Chloe Tate from their photographs on the evening news last night, and has called in with information,’ he told her.

‘Go on,’ she told him.

‘They’ve given an address right here in Penrith, where they say they saw the girls hanging out of a flat window, smoking,’ he said. She could hear the adrenalin in his voice.

‘Jesus, get everyone ready who has made it in, plus the night shift, and get me the address, and alert armed response,’ she said.

Chapter 59

The last fifteen minutes of her commute were pure hell. Kelly was itching to get things moving and raid the address in Penrith. The warrant came through under emergency orders and three armed response units were assigned to the job. It was in a civilian area, heavily occupied and thus extremely high risk for weapons-bearing officers. There were multiple entry and exit points to and from the building, and so three units were needed as a minimum requirement. The firearms commander was in constant communication with Eden House and they arranged to liaise on site, to coordinate their arrival. As per procedure, Kelly would have to wait until the ART had gone in to enter the flat herself, and after all that, it might be a false alarm. The public was notoriously fickle when it came to tip-offs. Out of every ten thousand calls, they might get lucky and strike gold, but it was more likely to be a mistaken identity. Then they would stand down and wait again. It happened. Police didn’t become firearms officers to shoot people; they spent more time managing highly dangerous situations and allocating resources than firing lethal weapons, but that was the point.