Page 53 of Her Last Breath

They sat in silence waiting for Riaz to come back to them. Jane saw a picture of Sameer with his kids on his desk. His estranged wife was missing from the shot. She thought about the life he was leading, keeping up appearances for the sake of the kids. What parents were willing to do for the love of their children baffled her. She had none of her own and she had no example from her own parents of that blind affection.

Although that wasn’t true. Her mother’s constant devotion to her brother was proof enough.

Sameer tapped his phone screen as Riaz’s voice burst through again.

‘Don’t know if this helps, but the patients she was due to see had varying conditions. Late-stage dementia, Alzheimer’s. One lady had amyloids, bleeding on the brain, was recovering from that.’

‘We have very specific parameters we’re checking against, Mr Riaz, in terms of time,’ Jane said. ‘Can you be absolutely sure the patients she was due to see on the dates and times I asked you to check had those conditions?’

‘To be honest, most of her patients couldn’t tell you going back to last week whether she had been. You’re going back further than that. One thing which might be of interest to you, though. On the afternoon of the eighteenth, one of Kathy’s patients claims she didn’t show. She was supposed to be there at 2 p.m. Debs dismissed this because she’s said the same before and it hads’t been true, she has real memory issues.’

‘When was she next on shift?’

Holding her breath while Riaz checked the details, Jane only relaxed when she heard his static-laced voice again.

‘Her next patient was at three thirty.’

Meaning Kangna Kandasamy was not on duty during the time period in which Alice was driven from Rose Hill to Padiham.

Chapter 32

Three hours of sleep were hitting Jane hard after a full morning. She gulped down a Red Bull, wanting to be alert as she tried to build a case against their new suspect.

As she headed into the incident room, DC Chan called her over.

‘I’ve managed to get mobile phone data from Kangna Kandasamy’s provider, triangulating her movements against known locations. You’ll see here and here the most frequent journeys; they’re between the hospice and her home.’

Jane followed the patterns DC Chan was highlighting on her screen.

‘I have evidence that she followed Burrows to his lock-up on at least two occasions,’ explained DC Chan. ‘I’m still scrolling further back to see if there were any other occasions. These happened in the last two months.’

Doing a double take, Jane read through the location data of both Kangna Kandasamy’s car and Mark Burrows’ garage. She was parked up right outside it.

‘What’s this second set of data?’ she asked, scanning the screen, her pulse quickening as she recognised the street name.

‘The day before Alice went missing, the nurse’s phone pinged two streets away from where she was last seen.’

Suddenly, Jane could sense the pieces start to fall into place. Kangna tailing Mark’s car to his garage, scouting for the perfect location where she was going to dump Alice’s body. Had she checked out the derelict building? Saw it was an ideal place to abduct Alice? Realised there was no CCTV around the lock-ups Mark Burrows used?

‘What’s more, ma’am, we ran a check for mobile phone activity against the times estimated for both deaths,’ added DC Chan. ‘The nurse’s phone was switched off.’

Jane watched as a click of DC Chan’s keyboard highlighted the route and then boldened Kangna’s movements across it. Another click and a spider’s web showed up.

‘These are her routes to see her patients,’ DC Chan explained. ‘She has a fairly steady list, so again we can track her.’

DC Chan pointed to one cluster highlighted in red.

‘Where is this?’

‘The Red Lion pub.’

Jane hadn’t heard of it but could see it was in the Trinity ward.

‘The pub is notorious,’ said DS Johnson, crossing to join them. ‘On any given evening you’ll find it crammed with people who have done time in our holding cells.’

‘And you’re sure that’s where Kandasamy’s location is showing?’ Jane asked DC Chan.

‘Yes. It’s a large, detached building with a car park. Her location is pretty steady there and there aren’t really any homes she might be visiting. No other major retailers, just some boarded-up shops and disused storage facilities.’