I squint at the screen, trying to work out exactly what I’m looking at. It appears to be a normal traffic cam, which means I probably could have located all of this information by myself without stealing it from the cops, but at the same time I know there must be something important about it. I just don't know what it is yet...

I will though. It might take me a while, but I’ll get there. I have full confidence in myself with that one.

Since I saw the van that dropped Nadia off, I have an advantage—I know exactly what I’m looking for. But it doesn’t seem to be appearing any time soon. The more time I spend simply staring at useless information, the louder I can hear time ticking by. However vital this information is, I don’t like wasting even a precious second, but it isn’t like I have any other choice. I really don't have anything else at all. This gossamer thin link, this really is it.

In the end I get far too frustrated to just keep on watching nothing, so I lean in to fiddle with the tape, narrowing it in to around the hour where I believe the van will appear.

As I wait, I feel an itchiness growing inside of me, a desperate need to have this solved already. I want to know if it’s someone who has it in for me, or someone who has it in for Nadia. Neither option is preferable, but I do need to crack that. It normally doesn’t take me this long to get a job concluded. Usually I get the information, kill the hit target, and that’s the end of it. All of this messing around, having to search for information, I’m finding it so damn difficult.

I prefer instant satisfaction.

The van finally appears, and as I lean forward to get a better look, I know over my drink. “Shit,” I mutter.

I watch the rusty van driving along, sticking very closely to the speed limit so as not to be picked up, which is smart. Anything to not look suspicious will help you keep out from under the radar of the cops... but not from me. Not when I know. No wonder those idiots at the station didn’t even notice it.

I wonder if whoever it was realized that I would be at the home as they dropped Nadia off. I can assume not, because they gave me plenty of time to get rid of the evidence, but I don't want to just assume anything right now. It’s important for me to consider all the possibilities. Maybe my removing everything that linked Nadia to the body was a part of the plan, and I just played right into their hands.

I don't like the feeling of being a pawn in someone else’s game, I’m much more comfortable being the chess master.

As I get a good angle on the van, I stop the tape and quickly zoom in as much as I can until the number plate becomes visible to me. My heart races as I look, wondering if I’m going to find out that this is a vehicle that I recognize, but I instantly notice it’s not. That doesn’t confirm that it’s something to do with Nadia, rather than me, but it does make it more of a possibility. I think if it was someone linked to me, I would know it by now. At least... I hope I would, or it means I’ve never been quite as smart as I’ve always considered myself to be.

I try my best to get a clear view of the person driving, but that’s impossible because they have their face covered, so I can see nothing. Even if I had the best technology in the world available to me, there wouldn’t be anything I can do. X-ray vision hasn’t been created yet, unfortunately.

“Shit,” I growl under my breath, wondering what I really have now. I’ve got the license plate, but it was probably stolen. I could always find out who it was registered to and see…

This might not be my area of expertise, but I think I’m actually doing pretty well! My brain flips through ideas, and I download a few computer programs that I know Aidan uses a lot and I start my hunt. At first, much as I half-suspected, it’s difficult to find anything because this is obviously a van that’s used for criminal activities, which means the owner will be very discreet about it, but after a while I locate something that might actually be useful.

Okay, so it isn’t a name or an address that it’s linked to, but it does tell me where the vehicle is right now... and that has me very suspicious. It’s in the police impound, the cop shop where all of this is being investigated. Either it’s a massive coincidence, and it got pulled over in something completely unrelated, or the police have other leads other than Nadia. Karen Whitfield didn’t tell me as much, but she was so busy being weird around me that it might have slipped her mind. Or maybe she decided to keep that from me in a bid to freak me out a little.

I need to know for sure.

As I start to track other traffic cams, trying to work out exactly what happened that day to get the van confiscated, my mind is races. This is a link now, something to go on, and I’m really excited about that. I hate having nothing. Every step closer to getting my answers, however little it is, is monumental.

It’s difficult to find out something exact, but from what I can gather, it actually looks like whoever the perpetrator is actually drove the van to the impound himself... something I cannot work out. Why would someone murder a person, try to frame someone else, then take the vehicle used straight to the police station? That makes no damn sense...

Unless it’s a police officer!

I mean, I don't know how likely that is, but at the same time I’ve heard of worse things. I know that there are cops who steal drugs from the evidence room, and go on to sell them for large sums of money. I know there are stories of male police officers taking advantage of female victims. I have seen evidence of officers helping criminals...

But why? Why would someone on the force want to have Damien killed? Why would they want Nadia framed for that? What could they possibly be gaining from it?

I can’t work out a motive, and without that I don't know where to turn. My mind turns over and over, wondering if I should call Nadia right now to see if there’s anyone that might have something against her, but there’s no point in going over that again. If there was, I’m sure she would have told me already.

Wait!

I lean in, spotting something strange on the footage that I’m watching of the impound lot on the day of the murder. I left it running while I thought, and now it seems like that was a good thing. I move my head closer, wondering if I’m seeing what I actually think I am, and as much as I want to disbelieve it, the evidence is right there in front of me.

Karen Whitfield.

She’s walking over to the van as if she’s been expecting it to arrive all along, and she appears to send the guy who works at the lot away, leaving the vehicle to her. She steps inside for several minutes. During that time I can’t see what she’s doing, but I keep on watching, knowing she has to emerge soon.

What the fuck is going on here?

I suppose, if I really think about it, she has been one to watch from the very start, but I didn’t think anything about it because I’m pretty sure that she was one of the officers assigned to the case. She was definitely the one who questioned Nadia at any rate. At the time, I didn’t think anything of the fact that she clearly didn’t want to let Nadia go, but now I’m wondering if that was all part of a bigger plan. If I hadn’t come into the situation, pretending that I was a lawyer, would she have kept Nadia there until they could officially find some way to pin it on her?

Then I remember her words spinning back through my mind. The ones she said to me as she saw me at the station once more:

“I’ve been doing a bit of background research on you, Alexi Smith, and I feel like your qualifications are more for the sort of man who kills people for a living... not a lawyer.”

Maybe she knows a lot more about me than she’s letting on. Maybe the people she’s clearly working for know exactly who I am and what I do, and that’s what she was trying to tell me. Was she trying to threaten me with that information, or could it be something else?

As I continue to wait for her to come back onto the screen, I research her name online using my phone, but unfortunately nothing comes to light. There was an incident a few years ago where she was suspended from the force for being seen as being too close to one of the criminals under arrest, but that charge was quickly dropped. Things like that don't tend to get forgotten about unless they aren’t true...

Or unless the person involved is a really clever criminal. Maybe she has a real thing for bad guys, and that keeps coming back to haunt her. Or maybe she really is innocent, and I’m trying to find blame where there isn’t any. Perhaps I’m plucking things from the air because I’m so damn desperate.

“Fucking hell!” Feeling the stress, I tug on the ends of my hair.

Unfortunately, as Karen finally exits the van, she stalks away from the parking lot, and I haven’t seen anything that proves she’s up to no good, but it looks like she’s got something in her hand. But what? At the very least she might be stealing evidence.

I download a copy of the tape just in case... who knows when it might come in handy.

As I click on the recording for today, just to see where the van is now, I can clearly see the space where it was sitting is empty, which means it’s already gone. Whether it’s been released or crushed I’m not sure, but I have enough to go back to Nadia with this new information. I might not have everything, but I do have a name, and for now that will have to be enough.