‘How are we doing on the van front?’ Gina asked as she grabbed a biscuit from the central table. ‘These cookies are the best so far. Tell Mrs O that she’s a genius.’

O’Connor looked up and Jacob glanced at him. ‘I bought them from the bakery on the way in,’ Jacob said as he placed his down next to his computer.

That was the second time in so many days she’d dropped herself in it. First with the lie she’d told when leaving the station the other evening. ‘I can taste it now. Definitely shop bought – totally inferior. Look, I’m sorry.’

O’Connor’s serious stare turned into a fit of laughter. ‘Give over, guv. It’s no big deal. I won’t tell my lovely wife, who works hard for hours on end to try and make us all happy with her really special cookies. I won’t ever tell her you preferred the mass-produced version.’

At least he wasn’t about to hold it against her. Any more guilt loaded on the guilt pile would probably drive her insane. She shook her head. She had to learn to let these things drop and move on. Hannah would get over their argument, eventually. Wyre didn’t really care that she didn’t go to the pub for her birthday drink and O’Connor couldn’t give a stuff that she really liked the cookies his wife didn’t bake. Time to take charge and stop dwelling on things she couldn’t change. ‘Right. Where’s Wyre? We have CCTV I hear. I want to see it.’

‘Morning, guv.’ Wyre entered with a coffee. ‘I’ll just get it up on my screen and we can have another look. Unfortunately it’s too blurry to see much. We do know from the shape etcetera, that we’re definitely looking for a Transit van. That narrows the search down quite a bit. The camera was too far back to see the lettering. It looks like three strips of green on the side panel so that matches the description that Toby Biddle gave.’ She leaned forward and clicked into the system, selecting the CCTV file.

The clip lasted all of six seconds. The van passed the house. The doors at the back were closed at the time and there was no way they’d have any hope of getting a registration number. The resolution was so poor they’d only be able to confirm what they already knew.

‘O’Connor, any luck with the list of van owners that Briggs passed to us? We can now narrow that down to just Transit vans. Start within a five-mile radius of the incident.’

‘That’s exactly what I did, guv. I have thirty-seven left to contact.’

‘If we don’t get any further, we’ll start moving outwards until we find the driver.’

O’Connor rubbed his head. ‘Then there’s all the people who have phoned in. There are absolutely stacks.’

‘Can we get Smith to help?’

O’Connor shook his head. ‘Already tried that one. They’re busy with other cases.’

‘I suppose you’d best get cracking then. Any news on the girl?’ If only they could ask her what had happened, they’d get all the answers they needed.

‘No. Doctor Nowak called. She’s still in a medically-induced coma. He described her condition as highly critical.’

‘Not good.’

‘It’s not,’ O’Connor replied. ‘Like you said, all we have is the van lead.’

‘Unless forensics come up with something. Anything back from Bernard yet?’ She could hope. She knew they had been busy with people taking holiday and other things they were working on. Also, budgets had been tightened again. Gina could mark everything a priority but they still took time. As it stood, they had a girl who seemed to be a drug user, possibly climb into a van and jump out. That was the very least. At the worst, they had an escaped abductee who was now in Cleevesford intensive care unit and could possibly die. As the girl’s last words were ‘help her’, Gina suspected the latter.

‘Not a jot.’ O’Connor continued making notes on his list.

‘Any further CCTV footage from the area?’

‘Most of the ones we checked were used for personal security on some of the bigger houses. The footage hadn’t tracked the roads and many of the cameras were only there to deter, so were not working.’

‘Have you and Wyre been looking into missing persons? The girl wanted us to help someone. Missing persons is the best place to start looking.’

‘Started to, guv.’ His phone went and he placed it to his ear. ‘Thank goodness for that.’ He shuffled the dismantled report into a thick pile and smiled. ‘That’s great. Thank you.’

‘Well?’ Gina asked.

‘A lead. It’s the van driver. Someone has called in and emailed the CCTV footage that overlooks their gate and a bit of the road. We have the van in full clear view. I’ll call the company now.’ He scoffed the rest of his cookie and snapped his fingers.