And the information didn’t stop there.
“Got an ANPR ping on the vehicle already,” she said, and Logan’s ears practically pricked up.
“We have? Where?”
“M6, just south of Penrith. Headed north,” Sinead said. She anticipated the next question, too. “Four days ago. The day Jameelah was taken.”
“Well, that all-but confirms it, then,” Logan said. “Bernie—Alan, I mean—he must’ve taken the girl.”
“We’ve got the search still running for the plate,” Hamza said. “If it’s been picked up anywhere else, we should know in a couple of hours. And we’ve got eyes peeled for it all over the country. The team down south are going to put out Alan’s name and photograph, as well as the reg and description of the van in a new appeal. If he’s still driving it, we’ll get him.”
“I just hope we’re not too late,” Ben said. He shook his head. “That poor girl.”
At the back of the room, Constable Miller and Constable Tanaka swapped looks. They both tilted their heads, each encouraging the other to be the one to interrupt, until Suzi got fed up with this and just blurted it out.
“Oh, for God’s sake. Sorry to interrupt, and everything, but… van?”
The detectives all turned her way. Even Taggart looked up at her, although he was mostly just following the crowd.
“Uh, yes,” Sinead confirmed. “We believe Bernie—Alan—was driving a van.”
The constables swapped glances again. “White van? Shitheap of a thing? Rust on the wheel arches?”
“Aye,” Logan said. “Like that. Why?”
Now that the hard work of interrupting the briefing had been done, Constable Miller swooped in to steal all the glory. “Our call-out to Sanna Bay, it was for an abandoned vehicle. Down an embankment at the side of the track, hidden by bushes.”
Logan pointed to Hamza and clicked his fingers. The DS took his cue and read out the number plate of Alan Rigg’s recently acquired vehicle.
“Aye. That’s it,” Constable Tanaka confirmed.
“Should you not check your notepad?” asked PC Miller.
“I don’t need to check my notepad, Chris, I can remember things that happened in the very recent past,” Suzi replied. “And that’s the right reg.”
It was only when she turned away from her colleague that she realised everyone else in the room was now on their feet and staring at her.
“The van? You saw the van?” Logan asked.
“Yes.”
“You’ve seen this van? The van we’re after? The van we’ve got half the bloody polis in the country out hunting for?”
Constable Tanaka shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Well, I mean, we didn’t know you were looking for it until now.”
“I was going to say something about it earlier,” PC Miller interjected.
“What? No you weren’t!” his partner protested.
“Right, right, shut up!” Logan barked. “Hamza, map.”
Hamza’s fingers danced across his computer keyboard, then he turned the screen to reveal a Google Map of the area.
“Where is it?”
“Just south of Sanna Bay,” Constable Tanaka said. “A bit before you get to… I don’t know how to pronounce it. Portuairk. Portu-airik. Something like that.”
“On the map. Point!” Logan told her.
“Oh, sorry. It’s…” Her finger circled above the screen as she tried to pinpoint the location. “There. Wait, no, that’s miles away. There.”
Logan bent and studied the map. The area she had pointed to was more or less due north of Westerly Wellness. Two or three miles if you didn’t mind getting your feet wet, but far longer by road. It wasn’t all that far away from the MSP’s house, either, although in almost the opposite direction.
“What’s around there?” Logan asked.
“Not a lot, really. Nice bit of shoreline,” Constable Miller said. “Couple of houses. There’s a dog that knocks about. Collie, I think. Friendly enough.”
Logan shot the officer a disparaging look, and addressed his partner, instead. “We need to either get out there, or phone those houses. See if they’ve seen Bernie, or a girl. For all we know, he’s holed up in one of them.”
“We did that already,” Constable Tanaka said. “Everyone came out to see what the fuss was about, and we asked if anyone had seen anything unusual. Anyone leaving the van, or whatever. Nobody saw anything.”