Page 20 of Twisted Lies

‘Keith Phipps is present on absolutely no social media platform whatsoever.’

Penn rolled his eyes. ‘However did we manage before Facebook?’

‘Says the man who has over five thousand friends.’

‘Folks ask and I don’t like to say no.’

‘Why not?’ she asked, momentarily distracted. She rejected requests all the time.

‘I have this theory that there are some real fruit loops on Facebook.’

‘Given that there are more than 2.7 billion users I’d say that’s a fair assumption,’ Stacey replied.

‘So what if one of them sends me a friend request, I refuse and it pushes him or her over the edge? They might track me down and kill me in my sleep.’

Stacey laughed out loud. ‘You are kidding?’

‘Only about the last bit. I honestly don’t like saying no. It’s not like I interact with them or anything.’

Stacey was tempted to ask what the point was, but she had long ago realised that she would never understand the enigma that was Penn.

‘So my show and tell was unexciting. What have you got?’ she asked her colleague.

He consulted a piece of paper. ‘Of the fifty-five units originally built and let at the Hayes Trading Estate, there are thirty-six still operating. There is one fixed CCTV camera at the entrance to the site. It captures vehicles coming in but doesn’t have the scope to see where they go.’

‘But that’s good news, isn’t it?’ Stacey asked. They knew there was no other way onto the site, so their killer had to be on there somewhere.

‘In the twenty-four hours prior to the rough estimated time given by Keats and the last time Keith was seen alive, there are 183 vehicles big enough to be carrying what our guy needed to execute his plan.’

‘Aww shit,’ Stacey said. Trying to match those up to the premises they were attending was near impossible. And even if Penn managed to do that, there was no guarantee that the killer wasn’t also a genuine visitor to one of the units. He had to have known about the abandoned building somehow.

‘That’s bad, Penn, but I’d rather have your problem than mine. How is it that out of a family of four, not one of them is on any social media platform?’

‘I’m sure it’s not that unusual, Stace,’ he said, checking his watch. ‘And on that note, I’ve gotta go.’

‘Could you not be quite so excited about attending the post-mortem of a man burned to death?’

‘Not excited, eager to learn,’ he corrected, grabbing his jacket from the chair.

She rolled her eyes as his back disappeared out the door. Once she was sure he was gone, Stacey took out her phone and keyed in a message to her now wife, Devon.

Hey, D. Boss is putting me forward for DS!!!

Instead of putting the phone down, she held it and waited for a response.

She saw Devon’s icon move down to signal that she’d read it.

Stacey already knew that the process involved four steps. The first step was demonstrating competency in her current rank. If the boss was telling her to go for it, she knew that was in order. The minute she requested the Candidate Registration Form, the FEO would send her line manager an Endorsement Form. She had no live written improvement notices and had achieved a satisfactory rating in the appraisal process.

The second step probably unnerved her the most. The legal knowledge exam was multi-choice but she had a habit of freezing in exam conditions. Third came the assessment against rank-specific competencies followed by a twelve-month temporary promotion. It wasn’t a fast process, Stacey knew that. It took a couple of years, and she’d been through a similar process to make CID.

Stacey didn’t realise she was holding her breath until it burst out of her once Devon’s response appeared on the screen.

Stacey smiled as she instantly saw the overload of emojis in the message. There were fireworks, smileys, champagne glasses and hearts.

Amongst the pictures were the words:

Great news. Congratulations, hun. Will pick up a Chinese on the way home to celebrate. Whoop Whoop.