Gone by Mo Hayder Page A

absentee rich bastards or bolshy farmers with single-bore shotguns. Think Tony Martin.’ He tapped the back of his head. ‘A round in the skull as you’re running away. Welcome to rural bliss. Still, on a bright note, it rained yesterday. Perfect weather for it. If he parked out here the tracks will still be visible.’
    Caffery wandered over to look at the photos on the board. Aseries of tracks. Made last night in the lab using casts of the Yaris’s tyres.
    ‘There was something else in the soil, they told me. Wood chip?’
    ‘Yes. So maybe a timber yard. Stainless-steel swarf, too, and flecks of titanium. The titanium’s too small to say what process it came from so it’s probably not relevant at this point, but the stainless steel means some kind of engineering plant. I’ve outlined seven in the area. And a couple of timber yards. I’m going to divvy up my team – half of them knocking on the buildings, the other half trying to find those tyre tracks.’
    Caffery nodded. Tried to hide how despondent he felt. A radius of ten kilometres. A hundred and fifty buildings and Christ only knew how many driveways and lanes. It was going to be searching for a needle in a haystack. Even with extra units from Gloucestershire, with the warrants and the paperwork it was going to take for ever. And – the jacker’s words came back to him:
It’s started now, hasn’t it, and it ain’t going to stop just sudden
– time was the one thing they didn’t have.

13
    Flea’s unit spent only 20 per cent of its time diving. During the rest they did other specialist operations, confined space and rope-access searches. On occasion they did general support-group work, including wide-range searches like this one in the Cotswolds.
    They’d sat through the POLSA’s briefing in the smelly games room. Her team was handed the job of hunting for tyre tracks. He’d given them a map with about six miles of road outlined in red and pointed them in the general direction, but when she came out of the briefing, got into the Sprinter van with the team and pulled out of the car park, instead of turning left to head out to the area, she turned right.
    ‘Where are we going?’ Wellard, her second-in-command, was sitting behind her. He leaned forward in the seat. ‘It’s the other way.’
    She found a small passing space in the narrow lane, pulled the van over and cut the engine. She hooked her elbow over the back of the seat and gave the six men a long, serious look.
    ‘What?’ said one. ‘What is it?’
    ‘What is it?’ she echoed. ‘What is it? We’ve just sat through a ten-minute briefing. Short. Not long enough for anyone to fall asleep. Hurray. There’s a little girl out there, eleven years old, and we’ve got a chance to find her. Now, there was a time when every one of you, to a man, would have come out of a briefing like that at a run. I’d have had to put muzzles on you all.’
    They stared back at her, mouths half open, eyes dull and bovine. What had
happened
to them? Six months ago, when she’d last given it a thought, they’d been healthy young men, every one of them committed to and excited about his job. Now they had nothing: no spark, no enthusiasm. And one or two even looked like they were putting on weight. Getting flabby. How had this happened under her nose? How the hell had she not noticed?
    ‘Look at you now. Not a flicker. That.’ She held up her hand, rigid, horizontal. ‘That is your brain-wave pattern.
Flat
. Not a spike. What the hell happened, guys?’
    No one answered. One or two dropped their eyes. Wellard folded his arms and found something to gaze at out of the window. He pursed his lips as if he was going to—
    ‘Whistle? Don’t you dare
whistle
, Wellard. I’m not dense. I know what’s going on.’
    He turned back to her, raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you?’
    She sighed. Ran a hand through her hair. Sank back deflated in her seat and looked out of the windscreen at the brittle winter trees