Implant (DI Gardener 3)

“We don’t know, sir. The phone was the one thing we never recovered.”

“Sinclair obviously found it,” said Reilly. “He must have done. If the call to Sonia Knight’s phone came from Adam Sinclair’s phone, which hadn’t been used for four years, he must have somehow gotten hold of it.”

“It was probably quite easy for him,” said Gardener. “Think about it, leading surgeon, must have had contacts everywhere. He probably used that to break the scene. What disturbs me is that he found something we didn’t. Why couldn’t SOCO find the phone?”

“Well, that’s not something we’re going to find out now,” replied Cragg, “but we have enough to go on where Sinclair’s concerned.”

“Something else bothers me,” said Gardener. “He seems to have been so careful with all the phones up to now. Why did he use Adam’s to activate one of the devices? He must have known that we would find out eventually.”

No one offered an answer to that question.

“I’ve got another problem, as well, sir,” said Cragg. “Gary Close.”

“What about him?”

“According to this,” Cragg held up a witness statement, “he and Adam Sinclair were friends.”

“Really? Were they at the same party that night?”

“No. But Gary was interviewed to see if he knew anything.”

“And did he?”

“No. Seems they were quite close. Went to the same school together, played football for the school team, and a local junior team.”

“Hang on a wee minute,” said Reilly. “Close and Sinclair attended the same schools? Wouldn’t you think the son of a surgeon would go to a public school?”

“You would have thought so,” said Gardener. “So why didn’t he? Does it say anything in the files about that?”

“Not that we’ve come across.”

“Has anyone heard from Gary today?” asked Gardener.

“No, sir,” replied Williams. “I’ve called a couple of times, but I think he must have his mobile switched off.”

Gardener turned around and glanced at the ANACAPA chart, studying where all the lines went to: who was implicated, and who was connected to whom. Admittedly, Gary Close was not on the chart, but when Gardener added him, an idea came to mind. He turned back to face Cragg.

“Maurice, you were in the station two nights ago when the initial call came in at three o’clock in the morning. Who answered the phone?”

“Gary did. He had to, it was his mobile.”

“The call came to Gary’s mobile?” Gardener asked, surprised. “Not the station landline?”

“No sir, not the landline, that rang afterwards.”

“So at the time, you probably didn’t think it strange, him receiving a personal call. What was said?”

“Well, I let him answer personal calls on account of his mother’s condition. Gary didn’t say a great deal. He asked, ‘Three hours to what?’, and then I think he said, ‘Who is this?’” Cragg seemed to have finished, but then added: “He also told me it was a withheld number.”

“And what about the call to the station landline? That was straight after?”

“Yes, sir. That was from one of our witnesses, Richard Jones, telling us about the hardware shop, and the fact there was a light on.”

“Now you’ve had time to think about it, doesn’t it strike you as odd? It should have been police business if it concerned the shop. So why didn’t it come in on the station phone?”

Gardener didn’t wait for an answer before continuing.

“Fitz told us that Alex Wilson had probably died around six o’clock that morning, and even if we had found him within the time allotted to us, we couldn’t have saved him. Do the math. Gary gets a personal call at three o’clock telling him he has three hours. Or should I say, we have three hours. Alex Wilson dies at six, which is probably the exact time he was meant to die. What conclusion does that leave us?”