Page 44 of Child's Play

Penn looked back at the solitary arm. The shirt, the suit.

A wave of sickness rose within him.

‘Oh shit, is that?…’

‘Yes, Penn. We’re looking at bits of Mr Dexter McCann, witness for the defence in our murder trial.’

He turned back to them, rage mottling his features.

‘So, tell me, guys, how the hell did you fuck this one up?’

Thirty

Charles Blunt showed them back into the general office. Ida looked up and Kim smiled in her direction.

‘Lou can tell you much more than I can,’ he said, folding his arms.

Kim noted that all the female employees had looked up at the sound of his voice. She also quickly realised that not one of them except Ida had a chance. Amongst the rest there wasn’t one of them above the age of thirty-five.

‘May I ask what’s going on here?’ Felicity Astor asked from the entrance of a doorway on the other side of the office.

‘And if there’s nothing else I can help you with, I’ll get back to work,’ Charles said, backing away.

Kim thanked him as Bryant stepped towards the head of the college who, although wearing a polite smile, didn’t seem thrilled they were still there.

‘A phone call was made from this location to Belinda’s phone on the day she died and we need to know who made that call,’ Kim explained.

Felicity stared towards the other door. ‘Given what you’ve told me I’d say that was perfectly obvious.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Kim said. Charles had already confirmed that he’d had no contact with Belinda for over a month and following his honesty on everything else she had no cause to doubt him. His alibi would be checked along with everyone else’s whereabouts. ‘But feel free to give us the data that proves us wrong.’

Only the main number of the college had registered on Belinda’s phone records, but Kim was guessing there were hundreds of extensions that all had access to an outside line.

‘All calls in and out are routed via the computerised switchboard,’ Felicity said, tapping the screen on an empty desk. ‘Any call from these premises will register the main number but there are almost three hundred extensions.’

‘Please tell me you record all calls,’ Kim said, hopefully.

She shook her head. ‘Just a little too invasive, officer. We have call monitoring on the sales extensions and the help lines.’

‘So, is there any way of finding out who made that call?’

‘I didn’t say we don’t monitor at all, Inspector. We do like to know that our staff aren’t spending all day on the phone.’

‘So?…’

‘So, there is a database that logs all information of every phone call out of the premises, time made, duration et cetera.’

‘And the database is searchable?’ Kim asked, hopefully.

‘I think you’ll find that Louise is waiting right now for the number called.’

‘It’s Belinda’s—’

‘We don’t keep staff details in there, data protection.’

Bryant took out his notebook and read the number off to her.

She typed it in and waited for a few seconds while the screen loaded.