“I don’t think they did, or they’d have probably come into the house after Jade. They could see my hair was long and that I was tall and thin. They were waiting by the car. It was the only one on the street. Maybe they were planning on boosting it when I came along, or maybe Sunny had seen it and described it to them. I suppose it’s pretty conspicuous. I don’t know. But don’t you see? If Sunny had them on the lookout for us, that makes it even less likely that Jade set me up. She’d never even seen me, as far as I know—we’d only talked on the phone—and it was pitch-black in the house, even when my eyes adjusted to the dark. All I could see was outlines, silhouettes. It’s my theory that they were on patrol, maybe looking for Jade under Sunny’s instructions, looking for anything out of the ordinary.”

“Excellent,” said Annie. “If that’s true, it gives us a stronger possible connection between Sunny and Tariq and the rest. I’ll bring it up in the interview. Now get some rest, Gerry.”

“But, guv, can’t I be in on inter—”

“No. Rest, DC Masterson. It’s an order.” Annie ended the call and turned to the assembled team. “Another link in the chain,” she said. “This one possibly connecting Sunny to the attack on DC Masterson.”

Jazz and Stefan had nothing new to report yet, so Annie stood by the whiteboard, making the occasional notation, and went on to fill everyone in about the events of the previous night, making it as succinct as possible but trying not to omit any of the essential points. “That means there’ll be plenty of TIEs and actions flying around after this meeting, so catch what you can. It’s going to be another long day. Doug, have you got anything for us on the second car on Bradham Lane that night?”

“Nothing we can confirm, guv,” said DC Doug Wilson, rubbing his hand over his unruly hair. “Mostly it’s been a process of elimination. As I said before, I think we’ve got the first van, but we can’t get a license plate number from it, and there are no markings. It’s a dirty white van, that’s all, and we think it could be the one that the girl was thrown from.”

“Mimosa,” said Annie. “And the van’s been found. It’s on its way. Is that all?”

“Not quite. We did find a VW Transporter that more or less matched the time parameters and the directions we were looking at.”

“And?”

“It belongs to a bloke called Jim Nuttall. Lives out Stockton way.”

“And what has Mr. Nuttall been up to?”

“Nothing, it seems. Honest businessman. No form.”

“So what is it about Jim Nuttall that gives you pause for thought?”

“It seems he lied, guv.”