‘Look, Rainy. We can get this done and stop it ever happening again. I’ve got contacts in Police Scotland who can take up the case. Or they could take him aside for an off-the-record warning.’

‘Thank you, but no.’

Gillard sighed. He wished he had a pound for every domestic abuse case he had seen over his career in which the woman had refused to press charges for very similar reasons to this. ‘All right, Rainy. It’s your call. I would suggest you only meet him in public places where there would be witnesses, if you have to spend any more time with him.’ He looked at her and wondered what else he could say that might lift her over the weekend. ‘One other thing. I know you’ve only been a DC for a couple of years, but I think you’d be ready for the sergeant’s exams. If you want to go for it, I’d support you.’

Her face lit up. ‘Och, that’s rare nice of you. That means a lot to me.’

He smiled and got up to open the door for her. He was pleased to see that her grin was still there for the rest of the office to see as she made her way out, somehow just a little taller.

Chapter Eleven

Saturday

A bright sunny morning greeted Gillard as he left the car in the Mount Browne car park and brought in two sizeable coffees, one for him and the other for Rob Townsend, the only other member of his team not working from home that day. As research intelligence officer, Townsend took care of most of the technical and computing oversight needed by Gillard’s CID team, often working with civilian specialists. He had been asked to follow up the burner phone which Ozzy Blanchard had briefly rung on the night of his accident in January. Gillard went over to see how he was getting on.

‘It’s like you’d expect,’ Townsend said, pointing at documents on his screen. ‘After Hampshire Constabulary left a message on the phone, no further calls were made on it. In fact it was only switched on twice for brief periods since then. I imagine whoever has it is just checking for messages.’

‘What about the locations?’ Gillard asked.

‘Both times somewhere in Bourne Lane, Rissington Common.’ Triangulation was fairly approximate in rural locations with widely spaced cell towers. In city centres it was often possible to get the position of a phone down to thirty yards or less.

‘Was there much early history to the phone?’ Gillard asked.

‘First appears in November last year. Dozens of calls to Ozzy’s work mobile, but unfortunately there is no triangulation available anymore because they only retain six months’ cell tower data.’

‘And Stella Anderson never asked for this, did she?’