Page 43 of Twisted Lies

‘Clearly likes his own name,’ she said, dusting herself down.

‘Not necessarily the case, guv,’ Bryant said. ‘Some people write things down repeatedly to remember them.’

‘You think he needed help to remember his own name?’

Bryant shrugged. ‘Maybe. Especially if it wasn’t his real name to start with.’

Thirty-Two

‘So, according to Companies House, Matrix Enterprises has been going for seventeen years and hasn’t made a profit once,’ Penn said.

‘How the hell are they still in business?’ Stacey asked. Every business could have a bad year or two, but seventeen years of making no money. Why were they still trading?

‘Trust me it gets weirder. The company’s profession is listed as people development, and every year their outgoings match their incomings to the exact penny.’

‘Hiding profit?’ she asked. Any auditor would see that this was impossible to achieve. Someone was cooking the books somewhere.

‘Not sure, but the thing is, looking through their accounts for outgoings, the balance sheet looks like any normal business. You’ve got costs for rent and utilities, which isn’t high, followed by vehicles, depreciation, expenses, accommodation. But the incoming amount equals exactly the total, and the revenue comes in one bulk payment listed only as sales.’

‘Sales of what?’ Stacey asked, wheeling her chair around to his screen.

‘Great question. I have no idea.’

Stacey looked at the details he’d written down.

‘This ain’t no small-fry company,’ she said. ‘They’re turning over hundreds of thousands each year.’

‘Which is increasing by approximately twenty per cent annually.’

‘But for doing what?’ Stacey insisted.

Penn shrugged and pushed himself away from the desk.

‘Can’t answer you, Stace, no matter how many times you ask me the same question.’

‘If this company paid the rent for the Phipps family for six months, what the hell did they expect in return?’

‘Now that,’ he said, grabbing his jacket, ‘is a bloody good question.’

Stacey felt the anxiety building in her stomach as Penn left the room. What had this family got itself into? What were they so frightened of that they’d thought even the police couldn’t protect them?

Stacey knew she had to try and find them, and so far she’d tracked the vehicle heading in the direction of Junction 3 of the M5 motorway in Halesowen. She was waiting on the images from one traffic camera, to ascertain if they’d passed the motorway island or continued their journey on the A456. She was praying for the latter.

Stacey knew there were approximately 1100 ANPR cameras across the motorway network. Each one read a number plate and instantly converted the information into non-unique reference numbers known as hashing. The cameras recorded fourteen million tags a day, making it near impossible to trace a particular vehicle using these cameras.

Speed cameras were a better source of tracking, but with more than 1800 of those, a direction of travel was necessary for a starting point. Once on the M5, the vehicle could be lost in the network of the motorway, making her job impossible.

Her email signalled the receipt of the requested footage of the camera on the A456, located on the other side of the motorway island. If it appeared, she had a chance of continuing to follow its journey.

She watched the ten-minute window she’d requested.

She returned to the beginning and watched it again.

The van wasn’t there.

Damn it. The vehicle had entered the motorway.

Thirty-Three