Chapter 2
Cheryl headed straight for the large conference room at the end of the building, via the canteen for a coffee of course, her head is mush without her morning coffee. The conference room is huge and spans the width of the end of the building, it has floor to ceiling blacked out windows, and is decked out with all of the latest intelligence technologies.
Cheryl acknowledged Hilary, who gave her a discerning nod, whilst instructing her to take a seat. Cheryl knew that Hilary was not a happy bunny, in truth, neither was she, she wanted answers. Her best friend, and colleague Nicola Roberts was already present, and in deep conversation with someone across the room. Next to Cheryl sat her direct superior Ashley Cole, who she once had an ill-fated attempt at romance with, they now have a good working relationship, there’s no hard feelings, quite the opposite, they share an almost brother-sister relationship. They shared a knowing look as Cheryl sat down; she wasn’t in the mood for chit-chat though so she sat quietly as she sipped her coffee and waited for the meeting to begin.
‘Right, I think we’re all here’ Hilary began.
‘What happened last night was a surprise turn of events to say the least. I know that some of you left here last night thinking that we were about to make a real break in the case, we had located the kidnapper’s den due to a trace on the stream they were broadcasting from the warehouse. Their security firewall went down for 3 minutes last night at 9pm and our team was straight on the case to trace the location. The warehouse was identified as the derelict Wandsworth bridge factory’.
Hilary continued ‘we sent a covert team straight over to the location, and due to their surveillance technologies, we were able to confirm that there was 5 people in a room to the rear of the building, one of which we believed to be Krystal. Although we could’ve entered the building there and then, we felt it best to wait for sunrise, as it would be easier to track anyone trying to flee the scene’.
‘Before I go any further, Nicola I want you to find out the full history of that building, who last owned it? Have any locals seen any activities at it recently? Get a couple of pc’s on that with you too’
‘No problem, boss’ Nicola replied in an efficient manner, as she typed furiously tapped away on her IPad.
Cheryl smiled to herself, Nicola uses all of the technology the department offers, and to great effect, whereas she can barely use her work blackberry, she doesn’t have the patience to sit down and read the instructions. Cheryl suddenly grimaced to herself when she remembered that Ashley had put her forward to attend a new technology course, run especially for people like her, who let’s say, are known to be a bit technophobic.
Hilary continued, ‘OK, back to last night, here’s what happened, as we know we’ve had a firearms team and a huge police presence at the derelict Wandsworth bridge factory in the outskirts of London since 4am. The Kidnappers were broadcasting a live stream of Krystal tied up in chair, it turns out that was not live. Whilst we were watching this stream, Krystal was found walking along the side of the M25 in an extremely distressed state. She’s in hospital at the moment, and is being closely monitored by doctors as well as mental health staff; she is suffering from severe shock’.
Cheryl and Nicola looked at each other completely bemused by this take on last night’s events.
‘We have discovered that the kidnappers escaped from an underground tunnel that they built themselves, it would have taken months for this tunnel to have been dug out, this was a well-constructed and extremely meticulous operation. The exit for the tunnel was under a small rarely used bridge near the M25’. Hilary explained.
‘Why did they let her go, boss?’ Cheryl enquired.
‘We were contacted by Krystal’s record company in the early hours, they informed us that money was paid into an offshore account by Krystal's record company, we did not agree to this, and were not aware that this had happened 'til after the event. Our technical team are currently trying to trace the account, but it's likely that the money has been moved several times already to avoid detection.’
