IMPOSTURE: Hunters become the hunted in this gripping murder mystery by Ray Clark (book series for 10 year olds TXT) 📕

by a man who was driving a green 4x4. He doesn’t know what make, nor did he catch the registration, but it’s a bit too much of a coincidence.”

Rawson stood up. “I’m on it.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Anthony was laid on the bed in the guest house, totally bollocksed. He’d never had such a trying day in his life.

After Rosie had cut the connection, the first thing Anthony did was remove the SIM card from the phone and put it in his pocket. He then threw the phone in a bin. Only later, when he was on the bus going into the centre of Leeds did he realise how stupid it was to have done that.

Once in Leeds he bought another pay-as-you-go phone with about twenty pounds of credit. Returning to Beckett Park he discovered his other phone was not where he’d left it. No surprise there, then. Some skank would have it somewhere – not that it would do him much good, but it might help Anthony, especially if the police had a method by which to trace it.

He’d returned to the guest house about half an hour previously, exhausted but with no appetite. His brain however, had been on overdrive. A complete jumble of thoughts about who was doing what: where the hell where they all, and what would happen now the police were involved? How much did they know? Sleep was completely out of the question. That would almost certainly lead to nightmares about him being chased by clowns – it always did.

Anthony sat up and rubbed his eyes. He jumped out of bed and crossed the room, switched on the travel kettle and made tea for himself. His stomach growled. He checked the biscuits. The few that were left would have to do.

With the tea made, Anthony sat down on the end of the bed, staring out of the darkened window. According to Rosie, everyone was missing and the police knew everything. So what to do and where to go from here would take some serious thinking.

Chapter Twenty-nine

“When did Jonathan Drake make the call?” asked Gardener.

“Just now,” replied Williams. “I took it myself.”

“Is he badly hurt?”

“Don’t think so, sounds like it’s just his pride.”

“And you said we’d send someone round?”

“As soon as we could.”

“Where does he live?”

“The flats near the university, about ten minutes away.”

“Okay,” said Gardener, eager to gain vital evidence but preferring instead to finish the incident room meeting.

“Dave, I appreciate your enthusiasm but if Jonathan Drake has just made the call he’ll be happy to wait for us, so at least let’s finish up here.”

Rawson nodded and sat back down.

Gardener chose the subject of the airports next because he knew that Dave Rawson and Colin Sharp had worked in tandem.

“So far, sir, we’ve concentrated on Leeds Bradford,” said Colin Sharp. “But we’re no further on because we know that none of the names we have left the country. The situation is still the same.”

“It was a long shot,” said Gardener.

“We have requested that they try and find as much footage of the CCTV since the night of the hit and run but it’s a massive job,” said Rawson.

“We pretty much did the same with Humberside, and Robin Hood airports,” said Bob Anderson. “We’re going back tomorrow to go through what they’ve found but as Dave says, it’s a massive job.”

“I realise that,” said Gardener. “I’ll request some operational support officers to help out. Maybe if we can get enough of them they’ll go through the boring stuff.”

“Maybe we should try photo recognition again,” said Longstaff. “It’s possible they left the country using false names and passports, and maybe even disguises. But what if they’ve been a bit too clever for their own good?”

“What are you thinking?” Gardener asked.

“Well, now they’ve allowed the heat to die down, what if they’ve all flown back under their own names, using their own passports?”

Gardener smiled. “Well done, Julie.”

“Makes sense,” said Gates. “After all, we found both driving licences on Michael Foreman’s body.”

“Okay,” said Gardener. “When you return to the airports take the photos with you again.”

“Might be better if we take USB sticks with digital copies,” said Gates.

“Yes,” said Longstaff. “It’s just possible that if they have returned using normal IDs, one or all of them just might have a criminal record for something that we’ve missed. Even if it was under completely different names, we might get lucky.”

“Surprising how that can happen,” said Frank Thornton. “But for a stroke of luck and a slip-up we might never have caught the Yorkshire Ripper.”

“I know it’s a tough job,” said Gardener, “I really do, and I know what great work you guys are doing. All the legwork and no results can be discouraging, but all I can say is keep at it. Something will break somewhere.”

In order to cover another subject, Gardener asked about the meeting with the bank manager.

“I was on that one, sir,” said Sarah Gates, “but he’s away until tomorrow morning. I said I’d be back first thing. His secretary put it in the diary.”

“Okay. It’s not ideal but it will have to do.” He made a note on the whiteboard under the “actions” list.

“As we’ve already mentioned, we also need to consider the theory that someone out there might have them,” said Gardener, “that we might very well have a vigilante to deal with.”

That wasn’t something the team relished. Not only would it make their job harder, trying to find the people they really wanted, but it suggested a completely unknown entity could be at work.

“Might answer for why their homes had been cleaned out,” said Rawson.

“Which still gives us the problem of knowing who has done what,” said Frank Thornton. “It still might be them lot, or one of them. Were they originally clever enough