Читать книгу The Angry Sea - James Deegan - Страница 50

37.

LIAM HAD INPUTTED the information he’d gleaned from the surviving couple, and Justin Nicholls picked it up on MI6’s confidential feed just after midnight UK time.

There was varying levels of background on each of the eight members of the party.

All under thirty years of age.

A Times journalist – Charlotte Morgan’s boyfriend, Edward Hanson.

Two lawyers, Charlie herself and a trustafarian solicitor called Emily Souster.

An investment banker called Nick Chandler who had travelled with Souster.

Jeremy Percival, who was a director at Percival Wareham, the London estate agency, and his wife, Martha.

Finally, the two lucky ones: financial adviser Thomas, and his nursery teacher girlfriend, Jemima.

Much of the focus would be on the three women who had been taken, but there was a decent new lead – the young guy in the Manchester United shirt who had followed them from Málaga arrivals, and then been seen on the beach. Some decent CCTV imagery of him had been found, and was being distributed.

And then there were the two who’d been shot dead; the results of DNA tests and fingerprint lifts from those bodies would be available soon.

If any or all of the men could be identified in some way, this would be a major start in working out where they were from and, most importantly, where they had gone.

It was early days, but they had a thread to pick at.

On the muted TV in the corner, tuned to the rolling twenty-four-hour Sky News channel, they were showing pictures of grieving family members starting to arrive at Málaga airport.

It was alternating with looped footage from Whitehall, showing people climbing into cars after the Civil Contingencies Committee meeting in the Cabinet Office Briefing Room.

Truth was, that wasn’t much more than theatre: the media loved COBRA, but the real work was being done elsewhere.

He looked at his watch.

Nicholls had developed the ability to work for long stretches without sleep, but he was also long past any macho need to prove himself by staying longer, working harder, sticking at it.

There would be days ahead when he needed to pull longer hours, and he had to save his strength for those.

He switched his work station off, pulled on his jacket, and left the office.