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Only Bill Robbins glanced up, surprised to see Henry, as they fell into single file to pass through, with Bill bringing up the rear.

‘Henry,’ he said, looking slightly guilty.

‘Bill. How goes it?’

Bill stopped, but the other three went on and stopped at the lift, shouldering their way to the front of the queue.

Henry and Bill also went back a long way. In the recent past Henry had used the firearms officer on various investigations and tried to get him a role on FMIT, but the chief was having none of it. Bill did get a temporary role on the branch after his involvement in a shooting where it was quickly established that he had acted reasonably in the circumstances. He had then returned to firearms training, but had stayed in the classroom ever since, as well as advising on firearms operations.

‘I’m good, Henry. You?’

‘Poor to fair,’ Henry said. He saw the lift doors opening and it was only then that FB came out of a deep confab with Beckham and the other man, and realized it was Henry who’d held the door open for them. FB mumbled something to the two men, who stepped into the lift and held the doors open, and came over to Henry, who noticed that the chief had become even porkier than usual.

‘Henry — didn’t see you there,’ he said unapologetically. FB rarely acknowledged lackeys at the best of times, unless he was on a mission. ‘Head down, concentrating,’ he added. ‘Anyway, how are you doing?’

He gave the chief the answer he wanted to hear. ‘Brilliant.’

‘I’m glad. Can’t let a thing like that affect you too much. Anyway, got to go — big op this morning, all hush-hush. You know how it is.’ He patted Henry’s shoulder like he was a pet, jerked his head at Bill for him to get a move on, then joined his colleagues in the waiting lift.

Dumbfounded by the crass lack of anything — sympathy, empathy, whatever — Henry silently mouthed a couple of choice swear words in the chief’s direction which expanded the two letter acronym, FB. Shaking his head and laughing mirthlessly to himself, wondering why he had expected anything more from the guy who hadn’t even sent a sympathy card after Kate’s death, Henry allowed the door to close then walked across the foyer to the CID office.

Karl Donaldson took up a position at the rear of the briefing room, lounging against the wall and watching proceedings with a slight air of detachment. This was because he wasn’t truly involved in the events planned for that day and was only here because he’d picked up a whisper and demanded to be allowed into the action.

In truth, he was extremely annoyed by the course of events, but at the same time he understood that occasionally there were lapses in communication between agencies. People, after all, were only human.

He spent much of his time filtering through intelligence, particularly concerning terrorism and following suspects, sometimes physically, but more often via bank and credit card databases and CCTV images from cameras in airports, ports and train stations. Or listening over and over to intercepted, crackly cell phone conversations between people who might be involved in terrorism. And much, much more besides. And then, if there was anything that might be of use to secret services or police forces in Europe, he would pass on what he had learned, after it had been sanitized. In return he expected the same consideration, but sometimes there were blips. Usually by mistake, but occasionally on purpose, because Donaldson knew that the sharing of information between agencies was still a relatively new concept and the old adage ‘knowledge is power’ still held sway in some quarters.

He would have very much liked to have been informed that Lancashire Constabulary were running a CT — counter terrorism — operation that morning when they expected to make arrests, rather than find out through a back door and have to get fractious with people. He hated discovering such things by mistake. He felt he should have been told days, maybe weeks ago that the cops were moving in on some suspected terrorists. Not found out purely through an illicit conversation the day before with a lady called Edina Marchmaine, who worked for a shady department in Whitehall. Donaldson had met her during a multi-agency manhunt for a wanted terrorist a few years earlier, struck up a rapport with her that had continued. She fed him occasional titbits of information, none of it necessarily earth shattering, but just the occasional juicy one that she thought he should know about — without breaking the Official Secrets Act.

Donaldson knew the relationship had certain hazards — especially for her — but as an intelligence analyst he was reluctant to cut out any source of useful information that might come his way.

‘Gentlemen… ladies… others,’ the chief constable said, bringing the briefing to order as he took to the slightly raised stage at the end of the room. The hubbub settled quickly, a few chairs scraped, some coffee slurping could be heard and the munching of bacon sandwiches, the provision of which Donaldson found somewhat ironic given the nature of today’s targets. FB went on, ‘Thank you all for coming. I apologize about the short notice of this, but as you’ll understand, operations like this sometimes cannot be planned over long periods of time owing to their very nature. So, without further ado, please let me introduce Mr Martin Beckham from the Home Office, who will give you a brief overview, then we’ll get down to tactics and get you out there.’

The very well turned out and groomed Martin Beckham stepped on to the stage, adjusting his wire-framed spectacles, reminding Donaldson of an SS torturer. He was a soft looking man, slightly pudgy around the edges but with a core of ice.

He focused his attention on the briefing as surveillance shots of two young Asian men were projected on to the screen behind Beckham and the room lights were dimmed.

In the ground floor annexe, Henry was talking to Rik Dean about the murder of a teenage girl who, it was almost certain, was called Natalie Philips and who had been reported as missing from home by her mother the night before. Rik had compared the clothing the dead girl was wearing with the clothes Natalie’s mother had described her as wearing when she last saw her. It matched. He also compared a photo he’d taken on his phone with the actual Missing From Home file photo, the one that had been texted to him at the scene. They were identical.

‘Based on what we know — that’s her,’ Rik told Henry. ‘Without a formal ID, DNA and/or dental check, of course.’

‘What’s the full story?’ Henry asked. He took the MFH report from Rik’s fingers and skim read it whilst listening.

‘Bust-up with mum over usual crap: boyfriends, home times, college work. Two nights ago she sneaks out during the soaps, it’s believed, and she’s not there at bedtime.’

‘What did the mother do about it?’

‘Nothing on that night. She’s been out overnight plenty of times, so it wasn’t really an issue. She is eighteen, so the mum only got anxious when she didn’t come home after college next day. Then she called us.’

‘Then what was done?’

Rik shifted slightly uncomfortably. ‘Er… details taken but not circulated. As I said, she’d been out before.’

‘Right,’ Henry said, unimpressed.

‘Mm — and it wasn’t until she didn’t land at college yesterday morning, then didn’t come home for tea last night, or make contact with mum, that she was reported missing formally.’

‘Circulated by us, you mean?’

Rik nodded. Henry counted back on his fingers. ‘So we have a very wide window when Natalie’s unaccounted for? When no one did anything.’

‘Hindsight,’ Rik said defensively.

Henry exhaled tiredly. ‘Which never goes down as a brilliant argument in front of the media or a coroner or a Crown Court judge.’