Chapter 11
457 Words
11
Shortly after receiving the latest phone call from Scotland, Culverhouse updated the team.
‘Peter Bellamy is currently under arrest at Dumfries Police Station. He wouldn’t cooperate with the officers who went to visit him, so he’s been held under arrest while they seize the vehicle and question him. I wouldn’t hold out much hope, though. Word from the officers on the scene is that they don’t think he did it in a month of Sundays, but he’s just an awkward bastard who’s decided to make more trouble for himself than he needed to.’
‘Sounds familiar,’ Frank Vine said. It was extraordinary how many people made life difficult for themselves by not cooperating with the police.
‘We’re fully expecting forensics to come back with no positive matches, and for the vehicle’s licence plates to have been cloned, so we shouldn’t rest on our laurels. Likelihood is that the actual van’s plates were switched again shortly after the last ANPR sighting. Ryan, you’ll need to get Kent Police on board and have them look through all CCTV footage within a few miles of the last ANPR sighting. We’re looking for any white Peugeot Expert vans, potentially with a missing hubcap.’
‘Already on it, sir. There was one spotted near the Dartford Crossing just over an hour after the last ANPR hit on the initial index number. Again, the new index comes back as a white Peugeot Expert, but registered in Cardiff. I think we’re going to end up running into the same dead end we did in Dumfries. Something interesting, though. This second sighting, the van has no hubcaps at all. There’s footage of both sides of the vehicle, and it’s on steels.’
‘Any picture of the driver at all?’
‘No, sir. We can see there’s a driver and a passenger, both wearing a dark beanie hat and a high — possibly turned up — collar, but there’s no way we’re going to get any identification from it.’
‘Trying to mask their appearances, then. Looks like they could be our men. Could we see anything of them on the footage from the motorway junction near Middlebrook?’
Ryan shook her head. ‘No. No chance. The footage is too poor. You can barely make out that there’s anyone driving at all.’
‘Right. Good work. Keep going and see if we can get any other CCTV footage of the van on these new plates. Do we have any ANPR hits for it?’
‘Working on that, sir. Just waiting for the results to come back.’
‘Good. Latest I have is that there’s no record of either of our victims’ DNA or fingerprints. They’re unknown to us. Steve, get a call in to Serbia to see if the police there have any men missing. Wendy, Frank, get in touch with the local Serbian community, if there is one, and see if we can identify who these men are.’
‘Do my best,’ Steve replied, not looking hopeful. He could see from the looks on his colleagues’ faces that they weren’t feeling optimistic, either.
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