‘Danny,’ Della called out suddenly.
Kim frowned.
‘The little boy Reece reminded me of. It was many years ago now, before the twins were even born. I used to talk to him at the edge of the garden. He was a lovely little boy. His name was Danny. He was Helen’s nephew.’
‘Thanks again, Della,’ Kim said, heading out of the front door.
Della must have been mistaken.
As far as she knew, Helen Daynes had never had a nephew.
SIXTY-ONE
Stacey placed the latest video-footage clips into two separate files. In the first file were three clips from along the high street where Rachel had had her fatal accident. None were directly on the event, though she had a clip from a hardware shop opposite, a clip from the same side of the road and another from the end of the high street.
In the other file she had hours of footage from a convenience store a hundred yards from the end of the footpath that then disappeared onto the Dayneses’ land.
She glanced over at Penn, who hadn’t said a word since ending his call with the boss. She knew he felt as though he’d missed something and had let her down. It wasn’t the case, but she didn’t have time to give him a pep talk. A pile of mundane tasks were mounting up on her desk.
She grabbed the pile of statements to her left and pushed them towards him.
‘Here – these are the financials for the family since the twins were born. See if there’s any clue in there.’
‘Jeez, thanks, Stace.’
She shrugged. In the absence of a reassuring chat, it was best just to take his mind off it.
She decided to take a look at the convenience-store footage first. If there was a chance the camera had caught someone accessing the land to harm the family, that took priority.
She opened the newest file, which was a night-time view of the pavement from the hours of 11p.m. on Saturday night to 7a.m. on Sunday morning. The camera was motion activated so she was able to scroll from one activation to another. The first couple were people walking past after a night out. They went nowhere near the stile that led to the Dayneses’ land. There were no further activations until three when the camera caught a fox sniffing round the bins. Nothing further until dawn where the birds were activating the cameras by flying into the road for crumbs of food scattered by the fox.
She closed the file. A wildlife documentary but no suspect.
She opened the file previous to the one she’d just watched. This was another eight-hour stretch from 3p.m. until 11p.m. on Saturday. Immediately she could see a lot more activations of the camera. People in and out of the store.
She hit play at 11p.m. then pressed the rewind button. She sat back and watched, moving her gaze between the foreground and the background.
At 10.36p.m. a figure passed by the camera that caught her attention. After watching the natural gait and demeanour of people in and out the shop doing nothing wrong, this figure stood out.
The man was dressed in stonewashed jeans and a green jacket. On his head was a denim-type baseball cap. His body was hunched and closed, his head down as though protecting himself against a cold wind, but it hadn’t been cold that night.
She stopped the footage and went back to where he first stepped into view. His hands were thrust deeply into his pockets, his arms stiff against his sides, his head lowered.
She rewound and watched the first part of the clip over and over, but she couldn’t make out one facial feature.
She continued watching and noticed in the very last second his left foot step off the kerb. She waited a few seconds to see if he’d moved to the side to allow someone to walk past from the opposite direction. There was no one.
She watched it again. He had to be crossing the road.
There was nothing on the other side except a hedge line and a stile at the end of the footpath that led to the Dayneses’ home.
SIXTY-TWO
‘Thank you for seeing us, Mr McGregor,’ Kim said, stepping into the man’s office.
Herbert McGregor wasn’t the youngest seventy-year-old she had seen, and the speed with which he stood to offer his hand did nothing to add vitality to his image.
‘You’re welcome. Anything I can do to assist with finding the monster that hurt William and Helen, although I’m not sure how a stuffy old accountant can offer anything helpful.’