Back at the station, Dan and Chloe returned to the main office and were greeted by Jake with the news that the DVLA had come back with a list of the owners of the vehicles matching the description of the one that had hit Leah Cross the previous night.

‘Has anyone seen Alex?’ Chloe asked. ‘I’ve tried her phone, but it’s gone straight to voicemail.’

‘I spoke to her earlier,’ Jake told her. ‘I thought she was on her way back here, but that was a while ago now.’

Chloe wanted to tell Alex about the bank statement she had found in Leah’s bedroom. Neither she nor Dan could think of a legitimate reason why a second-year university student would have over thirty thousand pounds to her name, not unless she came from a wealthy and generous family. Even then, the money was unlikely to have been left sitting in a current account. As yet, Leah’s family was still to be identified. Tom Stoddard’s accusation against her was beginning to look increasingly plausible.

Dan glanced at the list of possible vehicles on his desk, scanning the information the DVLA had provided. ‘Safe bet that what happened last night wasn’t an accident,’ he said to Chloe. ‘So we’re looking for a link with Leah Cross, yeah?’

Chloe nodded. ‘Do you want me to take this? Your time might be better spent here.’ She put Leah’s laptop on the desk in front of him, offering him an apologetic smile. ‘Go on … you know you love it.’

Dan rolled his eyes and gathered up the DVLA fax sheets from the desktop, handing them to Chloe. ‘You can get me a coffee as a means of apology,’ he suggested. ‘Two sugars, please.’

‘Deal.’ Chloe passed by her desk and put the notes next to the computer before leaving the office and heading out into the corridor. At the coffee machine, she selected a white Americano and waited as the machine clicked and whirred into life. She took her mobile from her pocket and checked for a missed call or text message from Alex, despite already knowing one hadn’t been received. She felt herself beginning to worry. Alex never had her phone off, not even on weekend evenings. Chloe wondered what had happened.

She moved the paper cup of Americano from the machine and pressed the button for a black coffee. Taking them back to the office, she returned to Dan’s desk.

‘Thanks,’ he said, looking up from Leah’s opened laptop. ‘So what are we looking for?’

‘Start with her desktop and emails?’

Dan nodded. ‘Let me know if anything comes up in that list from the DVLA,’ he said. ‘Will do.’ Chloe gestured to the laptop. ‘Same for you.’

She made her way back to her desk, stopping at Jake’s on the way. ‘Did Alex say anything when you spoke to her earlier?’

He looked up at her with a pair of sharp blue eyes. ‘About what?’

‘Anything really. How was she?’

Jake shrugged. ‘Seemed fine. I told her about the list of cars from the DVLA and she said she’d see me back here. That was it.’

Chloe nodded. She went back to her desk with a growing feeling of concern. Alex hadn’t been herself those past few days and something was clearly wrong. But her reluctance to talk left Chloe guessing at the details.

She felt a mounting pressure to find something concrete to prove this case wasn’t the runaround Superintendent Blake still seemed to think it was. For now, she had to believe that the money in Leah Cross’s bank account would be the vital lead they needed. She didn’t know yet where it might take them, but a link with the drugs ring the Cardiff branch was focused upon would prove a massive outcome, one that none of them could have foreseen a few days earlier.

She needed to do this for Alex. After everything Alex had done for her during those past six months, supporting her friend through this – whatever this might turn out to be – was the least she could do in return.

She turned her focus to the notes on her desk. First and foremost, there was Keira North. She was at the heart of this case. Chloe believed that identifying Keira’s killer would mean finding the missing piece this case so desperately needed. She knew Alex believed the same.

She began to work her way through the list of vehicles, wishing she could share Dan’s enthusiasm for such tasks. She felt as though she had a point to prove. Given how tedious the next few hours of her day were likely to be, she would need all her determination to get through them. When she finally caught up with Alex, she wanted to do it with something substantial.