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

‘Great. I have one more job for you. I need to interview Daniel Carsley this afternoon.’

‘If he’s in the care of social services, that could be tricky, Ridpath.’

‘He hasn’t been returned to his mother?’

‘Apparently not, I don’t know why. I’ll have a go at persuading them but I ain’t promising anything.’

‘I know you’ll manage somehow.’ He turned back to Emily Parkinson who was opening a file on her desk. ‘We need to go to see your friendly house-trained techie and check that footage once more.’

‘Not again, Ridpath. I’ve seen it so many times now, there’s nothing new on it.’

‘I’ve got an idea.’

‘You keep saying that.’

‘Do you have a street map of Manchester, Chrissy?’

‘There’s one here,’ said Emily, holding up her Manchester A–Z.

Ridpath walked over to her desk and was joined by the civilian researcher, still wearing her City scarf despite the heat.

‘Can you find a map of the Wythenshawe area?’

Emily found the right page.

‘Now, can you mark on it the position of the ATM?’

‘I already did it. Here.’ She stabbed her finger on the page.

‘Can you add in the position of the Carsleys’ house?’

She took a red pen and marked an X. ‘It’s here.’

He traced both marks with his finger on the page. ‘If you follow the roads from the park to the Carsleys’ house, one of the routes takes you past the ATM.’

‘So you think David was walking home when he was picked up by the man in the car?’

‘Exactly. I think he got bored waiting for his big brother to finish playing basketball and he knew he wasn’t wanted on the court, so he decided to go home.’

‘It’s the sort of impulsive thing a seven-year-old would do,’ Chrissy said. ‘I remember my daughter, Molly, deciding to walk to her brother’s nursery, rather than come straight home from school with her friends. Luckily, she was found by a stranger who brought her home. All those hours memorising her address had paid off. I was never so worried in my life. The worse thing was I didn’t even know she was missing.’

‘There’s a big problem with your theory, Ridpath.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The timing. David Carsley was picked up at twelve thirty.’

‘Was he? I want to look at the footage one more time.’

They went to the techies’ floor. Phil Reynolds sat behind his bank of monitors as if he were cemented to the chair and hadn’t moved in the last week.

‘Hi, Em, good to see you again.’

They walked around and saw he was looking at a robbery.

‘Two armed thugs held up a post office in Little Hulton. Got away with fifty quid and a box of Twix. We’re sure they’ll strike again.’

‘Could we ask a favour? Could you call up our ATM footage again?’ asked Ridpath.

‘There’s nothing else on it. Myself and Em have been over it a thousand times.’

‘It’ll only take five minutes to satisfy a little itch I have.’

‘There’s a cream for that, Ridpath,’ said Phil Reynolds, but he typed a number into his keyboard and after the rattle of keys, the image of David Carsley walking past the ATM appeared on one of the monitors. They watched the whole sequence; the car stopping, them chatting, the door opening and the boy getting in the car before it drove off. In the top right-hand corner, the timer counted up.

12.31.24.

12.31.25.

12.31.26.

All the way to when the sequence ended at 12.32.08.

‘Is there any way the timer could be wrong?’

‘Shouldn’t be. The ATM would be linked back to the bank’s mainframe over a secure line. Banks operate to accuracies of milliseconds. They have to.’

‘But it’s not the ATM we’re dealing with, it’s the CCTV. Was the camera integrated into the ATM?’

Emily imagined the scene in her head. ‘No, it’s separate. One of those globe type cameras mounted on the wall.’

‘What would happen if it wasn’t part of the ATM but a separate system?’

‘It wouldn’t be linked to the mainframe.’

‘When you talked to the head of security, Emily, what did he say?’

‘He said it was one of the old machines with a separate camera which records on hard disk.’

‘What if the time was wrong? What if it was, for example, exactly an hour behind?’

Reynolds shook his head. ‘But that’s not possible. The only time that happens is when they forget to readjust the clocks forward for British Summer Time…’

There was a long silence in the room, broken only by the whirr of electric fans keeping the machines cool.

It was Reynolds who spoke again. ‘The machines haven’t been properly maintained, have they? The timer is one hour out. When it says twelve thirty, it’s actually one thirty.’

‘There’s a quick way to check,’ said Emily.

She pulled out her mobile phone and rang Brian Carter, the head of security, praying he would pick up.

He did. ‘Carter.’

‘Hi there, it’s DS Emily Parkinson from GMP. We’re looking at the footage you sent across from the ATM.’

‘ATM? Oh, I remember – the abduction of the boy. I hope it was useful.’

‘It was indispensable, but I have a question. The timer, is it accurate?’

‘Of course.’

‘But could it be one hour out?’

The man chuckled. ‘Sometimes, the older machines don’t switch over automatically after we put the clocks forward for BST. It would only update the time if it was switched off and rebooted. The maintenance team should have done it, but sometimes they cut corners to save time.’

‘So it could be one hour off?’ Emily crossed her fingers.

‘If it wasn’t rebooted recently, that’s more than likely. I can get them to run a diagnostic on it, if you like?’

Emily punched the air. ‘Please could you check and send me an email with your findings for our records?’

‘No worries. I hope you find the bastard.’

‘Oh, we will – and with your help, we’re getting closer.’

Chapter 61

‘Shall we update Claire Trent?’

‘Not yet, let’s interview Daniel Carsley first.’

Back on the MIT floor, Chrissy had both good and bad news for them.

‘Give us the good news first.’

‘The social workers will allow you to interview Daniel Carsley.’

‘That’s great news,’ said Emily.

Ridpath scratched his head. ‘Why do I feel