Silas shakes his head in disbelief as he closes the door of the airless interview room behind him. Sitting down at the small desk, he starts to work his way through the USB sticks, each one with a month and year written on it. It takes a few moments to find the February file and insert the stick into his laptop but a lot longer to scroll through to 9.30 a.m. on 13 February, when Jake came in to see him. Jake said that he saw Rob after their one-hour meeting, on his way out. He moves forward to 10.25 a.m. and starts to watch the footage in real time. The screen is split into four camera feeds, the top two from the public car park, the bottom left from the adjoining staff car park and the final one from the main entrance.

At 10.32, Silas recognises the bulky figure of Jake walking out of the station entrance, his back to the camera. He leans in closer to the two feeds from the public car park. Jake appears in the bottom left frame, approaching a blue Morris Minor Traveller. He remembers Kate’s car, the mangled wreckage that was taken away on a low-loader. As Jake opens the door, he looks across the car park at something. Silas switches to the other feed and watches. And then he sees it. A Tesla in the far corner, barely visible. It must be the only parking space that’s not covered completely by the cameras. Silas swallows as the driver walks away from the car. He’s wearing a baseball cap, but Silas can just see his face. It’s Rob.

83

Kate

It’s almost forty-five minutes into the CCTV footage when Kate spots him. Rob is wearing a baseball cap pulled over his eyes and has his head down, as if he’s trying to avoid being seen. He’s approaching a ticket barrier at what looks like a London Underground station.

‘There, that’s him,’ she says.

Ajay stops the footage and rewinds a few seconds. His hand is shaking.

Kate watches again as Rob approaches the barrier. ‘Stop,’ she says, pointing at the figure on the screen.

Ajay bows his own head for a moment and then looks up at her, his normally bright brown eyes dulled by a sudden sadness.

‘Am I wrong?’ she asks, disappointed.

He is close to tears. ‘No, you’re not wrong. You’re ready. Rob will be thrilled.’

‘So what’s with the long face?’ she asks, her whole body relaxing after the intensity of the last forty-five minutes. What does Ajay mean by ‘ready’?

The phone starts to ring in the bedroom.

‘Because that’s incredible,’ he says, glancing into the other room. ‘Barely 10 per cent of his face is visible, maybe less. The resolution’s low, the light’s poor, it’s a bad angle. Recognition software would never have identified him.’

Another dirty spot. She must be better.