Penn wheeled across the room and signed the chain of evidence forms.
‘Thanks, Percy.’
‘Ciao, bambinos,’ he said, waving as he went out the door.
‘Strange guy,’ Penn said, wheeling back.
‘Oh, the irony.’
Penn chuckled.
‘Listen, do you wanna get started on that lot?’ she asked, nodding towards the box, ‘and I’ll do more digging on Celia Gardner.’
‘You saying I’m shit at this?’ he asked.
‘As you’re the highest-ranking officer in the room, I would never be so bold as to tell you outright that your skills lie in other areas.’
‘Okay, swap,’ he conceded.
Stacey immediately began tapping as he grabbed and opened the box.
Sensing that she might be annoying Penn a bit, she chose to search for the marriage certificate and the maiden name herself.
Despite Penn’s claims, she did a full search on the name Celia Thatcher. Eight pages down and just about every article had ruled out the first name of Celia and was about the late ex-prime minister, or one of her children. Unfortunately, Google didn’t understand the concept of ‘not that Thatcher’. She drummed her fingers on the table. She could see why Penn had hit a wall. There was nothing anywhere for Celia before she’d married Victor in her mid-twenties. No school report, no college courses, no university degree. It didn’t make any sense.
Unless that wasn’t the name she’d been using.
Stacey ate a second shop-bought muffin while searching deed poll records.
Nothing.
There had been no formal name change either from or to Thatcher, which meant she’d used her real name on her marriage certificate but had gone by another name throughout her higher education.
Why?
What had happened before her higher education years?
She put in the search ‘Celia Thatcher teenager’.
The search results were in the lower millions, but an article on the third page caught her eye. It was the word ‘teenager’ being included that had brought it higher up in the search results.
She opened it as Penn’s phone rang.
‘Shut the front door,’ Stacey gasped, reaching for the phone. ‘I need to call the boss right now.’
‘Give her a message from me,’ Penn said, ending the call. ‘The warrant just came through. She’s now free to search the clinic.’
SIXTY-FIVE
Inspector Plant pulled up beside Bryant’s car and handed her the warrant through the window.
She was parked at the end of the lane just out of sight of the clinic.
More squad cars were pulling up behind them.
She read the terms of the warrant.
‘Shit. Treatment rooms and offices only. No common areas, no patient quarters and no questioning of patients. Right to privacy to be observed.’