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.He didn't answer.Shook his head.Like many, he was a different person when with his family, although in Jericho's case it did not really manifest itself in any outward way.He still didn't say much; the change was mostly internal.He felt he could not be so rude, and therefore was unable to hide behind his standard defence mechanism.'I saw the news this morning.Have you been removed from the case? Removed from that dreadful programme?'He took a long drink of coffee.By the time it emerged from her caffetiere it was never very hot.'I removed myself from the case before they could.That's officially removed from the case.' He raised his eyes, and she understood.Her brother would never stop working on any case on which he'd begun.'Don't know about the show.I'm sure they'd happily put me in a cage so that people could throw shit at me.'She made a face at his use of the word shit, and he made a slight movement of his head in apology.'What can I do for you?' she said.'A bed for the night and somewhere to hide?' she asked, smiling.He didn't return the smile.'There's been something weird going on….doesn't matter.' He looked up at her again.'This is… have you ever done a family tree, anything like that? Or has anyone?'She smiled curiously.'Robert, you're not desperate for some long lost relatives?'He smiled ruefully this time.'There's something been going on.I'm not going to tell you about it.I just need to know if there's any sort of extended family we know about.As many names as possible.I need you to get a piece of paper and write down every family member you can think of.''You're serious?'He didn't reply.'Of course you're serious,' she said.'You and jokes belong in different planes of existence.''Thank you,' he said.'I need it now.Get something to write on, and your address book and your phone, and let's start putting something together.'She sat back, slightly surprised.It was rare for her brother to slip into work mode in private.In fact, she wasn't sure she'd ever witnessed it before.A different man.'I'm not one of your spotty young constables, Robert, you know,' she said.He didn't reply, just answered with a look across the table.She got to her feet, walked over to a neat letter rack at the end of one of the kitchen worktops, beside the microwave oven.At the front of the pile was an A5 brown envelope, which she passed over to him.'I'll get some paper.In the meantime, you can read this.Came in yesterday.I was going to call you actually.I suppose… Yes, yes, I'll get the paper.'She knew how his mind worked.It would be no fluke that she was sitting in possession of that letter, while he came round the following day to enquire after a list of relatives.No fluke at all.Jericho took the short letter out of the envelope as his sister walked quickly from the room.*'Where is he, Sergeant?'Haynes turned.He wasn't surprised that the superintendent had come looking for him.It was bound to happen sooner or later.Haynes was sitting alone in a room in the local police station, trawling through CCTV footage.Checking the nearest cameras to the hotel, checking at the approximate times that Sergeant Light and Lorraine Allison had been taken – although in Allison's case it was much more difficult to be specific – and hoping that they'd been kidnapped using the same car and taken in the same direction.Any car that appeared in both time frames heading in the same direction need not automatically be the person they were looking for, but it would give him something to go on, which was better than aimlessly trawling around London drinking coffee and thinking himself into a dead end.He had not turned automatically when the door had opened.He did not answer.Held his hands out in ignorance.She gritted her teeth.'Don't start pulling your boss's taciturn bullshit, Sergeant.When was the last time you saw him?''In his room.We discussed the case.I said I was going to come and do this, he said he was going to see you.Did he not?''Yes, he did.Told him to stay in his room.He didn't.''Did you expect him to, Ma'am?''What?'Haynes found himself in one of those situations where he decided, much as Jericho usually did, that it was better to keep the answer to a question in his head.'Have you had contact with him in the last hour?''No, Ma'am, I haven't.'She seethed.Jericho, she was at least pleased to realise, was not going to survive the investigation.She didn't want him on her force, and now she had a good reason for getting rid of him, and it was a fair bet that no one else would want him either.'They want you at the television studio,' she said curtly, and put her hand to the door.'What?' he said.'I'm doing…''I know what you're doing.You're searching for a fucking needle, that's what you're doing.Now get over there, and you can deputise for your boss, wherever he is.'Haynes took a last look at the two screens, made a note of what time he'd reached, and then got to his feet.By the time he'd reached the television studio he knew how he would play it.*'It's dull as shitwater,' said Claudia.'No.Just, no.''You film it for two minutes…' began Haynes, but she wasn't listening.'No, Sergeant.If you want to suggest a car chase, then fine.Our people, our three brave and decent people who have done training that you would not believe over the last few weeks… they are, and I'm serious when I say this, more highly qualified in all sorts of shit now than most of the police service, and they're not spending the next three hours looking at fucking CCTV footage.What kind of fucking show do you think we're trying to make here?''I'm not asking them to.'She paused.She stared across the desk.She was standing with her hands held at her side, her feet a yard apart.She looks like Ronaldo, thought Haynes suddenly.Just about to take a free-kick.He stopped himself laughing.She looks so like Ronaldo, he thought, that she must have modelled her stance on his.'What,' she said very slowly, 'are you asking them to do?''Your three guys do whatever it is you want them doing.Car chases, shoot outs, whatever.I don't care.Meanwhile, you get a team of researchers on this.A big team.Draft them in.We need to find any car that was driving around London on Friday evening, and late last night, in the vicinity of the Crowne Plaza.Now, it's not that much of a push.The cameras in the hotel and the ones within a hundred yards were disabled, but once you get round the corners they're back on.It's not outwith the bounds of possibility that we can identify the car that took the women away.If, I admit, it was the same car [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]