Vinny nodded, crossing one long, denimed leg over the other, resting the ankle on his knee. ‘Yes, ma’am. Kate said.’ He eyed Shona nervously.
‘Op Fortress must have been interesting work?’ she said, smiling.
‘Aye, great experience. Got all the best gear,’ Vinny said with enthusiasm. ‘Encrypted cloud storage, remote access. Top facial recognition software.’
Shona was sure Baird’s team had secured the biggest bite of the budget cherry and, sooner or later, this would be reflected in her own slashed overtime resources. ‘Sounds great.’ She nodded, taking care to look impressed. ‘You still got access to the CCTV fo
otage?’
‘Yes,’ he said, shifting in his seat. ‘Suppose so.’
‘So, you could find me this guy?’ Shona showed him a picture of Jamie Buckland.
‘I might need permission from DCI Baird’s team,’ Vincent said uncertainly.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Shona reassured him. ‘I’ll square it with DCI Baird. Buckland’s not one of their targets. He’s a potential witness on another case, but we picked him up on the drugs raids. Local address, Carter Street in Dumfries. Op Fortress were monitoring it.’ She lowered her voice and turned her brown eyes up to him. ‘I’ll confide in you, Vincent. He’s not been seen at his home address in Carlisle. There’s concern for his safety. We need to trace any associates locally.’
‘Fine, ma’am. If you think it would be okay,’ said Vincent, reassured. ‘I’ll get onto it.’
‘Can you do it now?’ Shona turned her laptop towards him.
‘Now?’ Vincent said, a little surprised.
‘Like I said, there’s concern for his safety. Matter of urgency.’ Shona fixed him with a firm look, pushing the laptop towards him.
Vincent shrugged, then shuffled forward in his seat. ‘What’s the address? Carter Street?’ He began tapping into the CCTV cloud storage and an interface appeared, split into three areas. One showed the surveillance file images, the next detailed the watch team, and the third listed the suspects identified. The camera covered the entrance to a house and part of a street. Jamie’s name was tagged to four separate clips, corresponding to visits he’d made to the target address, a dilapidated squat, the hangout of dealers and punters. Shona ran down the other names, all known to her and all currently on bail. She’d send uniform round for a chat just in case he showed up at any of their gaffs.
Vincent ran the videos, using the specialist software to jump to the sections that contained Buckland.
‘That’s odd.’ He frowned at the screen. ‘Some of this is missing.’ He pointed to the time clock counter in the corner. It skipped forward in gaps ranging from a few seconds to nearly a minute.
‘Who could have removed it?’ Shona asked, peering over Vin’s shoulder.
‘No one,’ he said. ‘Well, maybe someone on the team. Thing is, there’s a continual recording requirement, like a master tape. It’s in case the defence say we’ve tampered with the evidence, made it look like something it isn’t.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Shona. ‘Maybe there’s a master somewhere else.’
‘No, this is it. Something’s gone wrong. If Op Fortress fails in court because of this…’ He looked pale. ‘We’ll get the blame… I might not get another big job. Baird will side-line me, won’t he?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Shona soothed, patting him on the shoulder, ‘no one will blame you. It will be one of the tech guys who’ve messed up.’
‘But I am the tech guy,’ said Vinny with a mixture of horror and indignation.
‘Look.’ Shona understood Vinny’s distress, but she couldn’t cope with a grown man crying in her office over an IT issue when she’d a couple of murders to crack on with. ‘Can you give me a copy of the corrupted file?’
‘It’s not corrupted…’
‘Just the file then. Give me a copy. I’ll call Baird and we’ll sort it out.’
A chink of light appeared in Vinny’s darkness. ‘Okay.’ But then he frowned. ‘I’m not sure your security clearance…’
‘Vincent, listen to me.’ Shona’s patience was at an end. She drew herself up. ‘I am a detective inspector and your line manager. I’m also the only one who can pull your cahoonies out of the fire if Baird does his nut over this. Get that file on my desktop now, then go back out there.’ She pointed to the CID room, where a few heads had turned. ‘And get on with the backlog of work your little jaunt to Glasgow has left us with. Understand?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Vinny, hurriedly downloading the file and signing off.
‘Murdo will give you the list,’ Shona said, stepping back behind her desk and folding her arms. She stared after him as he scurried out of the room. Murdo caught her eye and winked. She shook her head in exasperation, pointing at Vinny’s retreating back and the cases on the whiteboard, and mouthing ‘get busy’ at him. He replied with a good-natured salute.
Shona ran the file. There was Jamie Buckland arriving at his mate’s house in Dumfries, then leaving twenty minutes later, sports bag in hand. In the intervening period, there were two short gaps totalling about ninety seconds. Without Vinny Visuals spotting the anomaly of the clock, Shona would never have noticed them. If it wasn’t a software problem, a glitch or corrupted file, why would anyone remove such a short section? She played and replayed the file, searching the street for clues, but could find nothing. What would take about forty-five seconds? The file dated from a month ago, just before the raids. She watched a neighbour pull up, get out of his car and go into a house further up the road. She looked at the timer. He was in view for thirty-eight seconds. The gaps were enough time for someone to arrive at the house and then leave. The question was, who was that person, and why did Op Fortress want their identity kept secret? Only Jamie Buckland and DCI Gavin Baird could give her the answer. One was currently missing and the other was the one person she didn’t want to ask.