She knew keeping a copy of it on her undercover laptop constituted a serious breach of operational security should the wrong person happen to discover it. Not only that, she knew making an unauthorised copy of something this sensitive was probably in itself highly irregular. However, she’d gone ahead and done it anyway, just in case she’d wanted to investigate further outside official channels. As it turned out, her forethought had paid off.

She clicked ‘play’ on the video, once again immersing herself in the carnal entanglements of the two women and the politician, studying it closely for any clues that could somehow bring her closer to Mister Snigiss. It felt furtive and voyeuristic watching this on her laptop late at night in the low-lit apartment yet it was also strangely mesmerising, in part because Bailey now knew that the blonde woman in the video had subsequently been blown to pieces. Poor Tiffany.

As she watched the recording though, Bailey found herself focusing increasingly on the black woman, her supple flesh writhing and pulsating in a primal sweat-drenched rhythm. Finding herself unexpectedly aroused, Bailey sat up sharply and took a deep breath, shaking her head clear of the erotic daze that had crept up on her all of a sudden.

Turning her attention back to the screen, she forced herself to be objective. With a slightly trembling finger, she hit the mouse button to pause the video on the black woman’s face, her elegant features twisted in passion. Bailey took a screenshot and then zoomed in on her face, cropping out the rest of her body. With the low quality of the recording, the close-up was pretty grainy. But hopefully it would be enough for what Bailey had in mind.

50

It was a Sunday morning and the office was dead, which suited Bailey just fine considering the reason she was there.

Using her standard police credentials, she logged onto the computer system, and then, surreptitiously glancing around the near-empty office to check no one was looking, plugged in a memory stick containing the screenshot she’d taken the night before. She logged into the Police National Database and uploaded the black woman’s picture to see if the PND’s facial recognition technology could match it to the faces of any of those in custody records.

It turned out there was indeed a match.

The mugshot which appeared on the screen was unmistakably that of the woman in the video. Even under the circumstances of a police mugshot, her striking looks were apparent.

Bailey scanned through the information attached to the record. The woman’s name was Claudia Figaricca and she’d been arrested around three months previously for the possession of cocaine. Bailey tore a piece of paper from a notepad on the desk and copied down the address that was associated with the record.

Once again she cast a guilty glance around the office, mindful of the fact that she was misappropriating police resources to pursue her own forbidden personal investigation. She had wrestled with the ethics of it before making the decision to come here. One part of her conscience was indentured to the strictures of her job and the need to abide by the law, while another part was obligated to Jennifer and her father, and that sense of duty ran much deeper.