When the Evil Waits by M Lee (top fiction books of all time txt) 📕

more, but I didn’t. We’re still working on our relationship to this day, even though she now has children of her own.’

This was the most open Mrs Challinor had ever been with him about her personal life. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ was all he could mumble in response.

‘I tell you this, because you shouldn’t judge her. You don’t know what she went through and is still going through. I was an educated, professional woman with a good job, great salary and a brand new home and yet it still took me two and a half years to come to terms with what happened and get my children back.’

‘I understand, Mrs Challinor.’

‘And then to have one of your children abducted and murdered.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t know what I would have done if it had happened to me.’

Chapter 33

Detective Constable Emily Parkinson rode her bike from Police HQ back to Wythenshawe, cursing Ridpath all the way.

She’d seen her friend in the digital department and asked him to do a quick job for her on the data on the mobile phone. He had ummed and ahhed for a minute or two as he always did, before agreeing after being bribed with a promise of a free latte and danish tomorrow morning.

She’d also asked him about the latest scanners and camera detection apps, looking for a way to short-cut her search.

‘There are some detectors on the market to pick up spy cameras and microphones, but they don’t find everything, and they are best used in a small room. Out on the street, they’re pretty useless. I’m afraid you’ll have to go old school.’

‘Shanks’s pony?’

‘We used to call it the number 11 bus when I was a kid.’

‘Looks like it’s back to the beat. Thanks for your help – and I can pick up the phone tomorrow morning?’

‘Sure, I may even have downloaded the data by then.’ He smiled, to show he was teasing her. A techie type of teasing.

She was going to have to do this the hard way; by eye. Luckily the weather was good and it shouldn’t get dark until nearly eight o’clock. But she wasn’t walking around the area. At least with the bike, she could cover more ground.

She’d done the long pedal down Princess Road, cars rushing past her, and had finally reached Wythenshawe about forty minutes later, slightly tired but ready to get going.

Ridpath’s plan was to try to find CCTV that may have been missed. She felt it was a bit of a stretch. The first thing any investigative team did these days was check for CCTV.

If there was one thing that had changed modern policing in the last ten years, it was the widespread use of security cameras. She’d been on a course which explained that London had a CCTV camera for every 67 people living in the city. Manchester didn’t have that many, but there were still a lot of cameras out there.

Turnbull and his team would have picked up the obvious ones, on the lampposts and watching traffic. She had to look for the ones they might have missed. They could be on houses, in banks or shops, even in cars if they were parked in the same place every day.

She brought out her Manchester A–Z. On the map, Princess Parkway, the main road to the airport, was virtually a motorway. It formed a barrier on the west side of Wythenshawe Park. She was sure MIT would have discovered any CCTV on the road or its slipways.

That left the north, east and south sides of the park. Each one had quite a clearly defined housing estate on each side. Her plan was simple; to ride around looking for CCTV, crossing off each road as she completed it. She would then cross-reference the CCTV she saw with the CCTV on the list examined by Turnbull’s team and note the differences.

If there were any.

It was going to be painstaking, detailed work, but it was the sort of investigation Emily liked. The nitty-gritty of digging deep and doing a job well.

Emily checked her watch. Four p.m. on the dot. But where to get started?

She checked the map again and decided to begin in the south, where the Carsleys’ house was. She had to start somewhere and this was as good a place as any.

Tucking her suit trousers into her socks – mustn’t get oil on them – she adjusted her helmet and began to pedal.

She was going to kill Ridpath when she’d finished this.

Chapter 34

Molly Wright had retired to the pub at five o’clock. There was nothing happening at the Carsley house and there was no point keeping a photographer on overtime on the off-chance that Carsley or his son would make an appearance.

It was one of those pubs that had the atmosphere deliberately designed out of it by some interior decorator with a penchant for red velour curtains, fake horse brasses and ugly brown carpets. Even the Stella had more gas in it than usual and actually lived up to its advertising promise of being French and ‘reassuringly expensive’.

What a load of bollocks.

It was probably made in Warrington or some other benighted expanse of warehouses, business parks, motorways and megastores. A dormitory town whose sole purpose was to allow its citizens to sleep through their meaningless lives.

She had written reams of stuff praising places like that. The Milton Keynes of this world, garden cities where nothing grew except mould and wife-swapping.

She swallowed the last of her Stella and thought about ordering a bottle of wine but all they had was some cheap Chilean plonk which was better used as paint stripper.

She forced herself to think about the story.

Meeting the Family Liaison Officer, Emily Parkinson, and Ridpath on the street had been a welcome, if short, interruption in the endless boredom of standing outside the Carsley house.

It looked like her source had been correct. Ridpath was somehow involved in the investigation into David Carsley’s death. But how?

She hated men like him.