Buried Secrets: The Freeman Files Series: Book 11 by Ted Tayler (highly recommended books txt) 📗

“I even wondered if there was a significance to the nicknames and the position each man took in the photograph, guv,” said Blessing. “I’ve watched too many spy movies.”

“Your mind must have run riot when you found the loose photos this morning,” laughed Lydia.

“I was creating scenarios that made sense of the photographs, not sticking to the facts,” said Blessing. “When I sit with Alex’s computer expert to work through these images, no doubt the fog will clear and I’ll see them for what they are; simple snaps they took for fun. Two colleagues who stopped for a second to create a memory on a rare day off. After all, they could have just spent ninety days trapped in a nuclear submarine under a polar ice-cap.”

“Never stop thinking outside the box, Blessing,” said Gus. “I’ve done it hundreds of times. If you can discard the more ridiculous notions before you convince yourself they’re valid, then you’ve got it made.”

“Sorry, guv,” said Blessing.

“Don’t apologise,” said Gus. “At least, not until Divya has exposed what lies beneath the surface of those photos.”

“I see what you did there, guv,” said Lydia.

“You’ve got a green light to join Divya in the Hub tomorrow morning, Blessing,” said Alex. “She can make a start this afternoon. Send her the file with an outline of what you’re looking for from her endeavours.”

“Thanks, Alex,” said Blessing. “I’ll do it straight away. What’s parking like at London Road? I visited Reception in a taxi when I first arrived here. It’s the only building I know.”

“The main entrance is on your left when you drive from here,” said Alex. “The Hub is in a new building to the left of the main block. Access is by a security card. Here’s Divya’s number. Call her when you’ve parked the car, and she’ll come to let you in. Relax, don’t worry about parking, you’re fine.”

Easy for you to say, thought Blessing. She could feel the tension building already. Tomorrow morning she was driving to an unfamiliar place and meeting new people. Blessing would be as nervous as her father.

Blessing accomplished the one thing she knew she was good at doing. The file was soon on its way to the Hub for Divya to analyse.

“Ready for me, guv,” asked Lydia.

“Anna Phillips? Am I going to learn something new?”

“We did as you suggested, guv,” said Lydia. “We arrived a few minutes before Wayne was due to return from the dentist. Anna wasn’t keen on starting the interview without him. I suggested we go into the kitchen, leaving Alex to keep an eye out for her husband. Once I’d closed the door, I clarified that we would stay there until I was happy that she’d given satisfactory answers to my questions. I stressed that anything she said to me wouldn’t get shared with Wayne. Alex told Wayne the same thing when they talked. Anna wasn’t thrilled, but to leave the kitchen, she had to get through me.”

“I don’t know where you two girls have picked up these strongarm tactics,” said Gus. “Blessing threatened Bob Duncan, a senior citizen, with something similar this morning.”

Lydia gave him one of her one-thousand-watt smiles and continued.

“Anna told me that her boss at the call centre had received a phone call in the autumn of ’93 from a young girl desperate for a job. Anna was twenty at the time and hadn’t met Wayne. The firm hadn’t been open long, and there was barely enough work for the staff they had on the books.”

“Was she already calling herself Maddy Mills?” asked Gus.

“Yes, guv,” said Lydia. “I didn’t tell Anna we knew her friend’s actual name. I asked why they offered Maddy a job if things were that tight. She said her boss took pity on Maddy, and she didn’t want to see her end up homeless, so she gambled that the firm’s client list would improve.”

“It must have done,” said Gus, “both girls stayed there for years.”

“Anna said she and Maddy got on well. They egged one another on to sign up more new clients. Their boss was pleased because they regularly performed up to twenty percent better than the other girls.”

“If they got on well at work, did they socialise together as well?” asked Gus.

“Anna said Maddy was shy. Maddy drank and laughed with the crowd that Anna hung around with, but she didn’t get off with any of the lads. Several tried, but Maddy knocked them back. A couple of times, Anna said she got annoyed when someone she fancied got away because of Maddy’s reluctance to chat with his mate. That changed six months later when Wayne arrived on the scene.”

“Didn’t Wayne always live in Chippenham?” asked Gus.

“He moved there from Calne with his job, guv,” said Lydia.

“Did that drive a wedge between Anna and Maddy?” asked Gus.

“They were still as thick as thieves at work, guv,” said Lydia, “and they still socialised.”

“When Wayne played five-a-side football, when he went cycling, and possibly while he played football on a Saturday afternoon,” said Gus.

“There’s no fooling you, guv,” said Lydia. “Wayne cycled twice as much in the summers, but in the winter months he played eleven-a-side football.”

“Could Anna remember how Wayne met Alan Duncan?” asked Gus.

“Anna said the same as Bob Duncan, guv,” said Lydia. “Wayne was in Halford’s one Saturday morning checking out yet another gadget for his racing bike, and they bumped into one another. Neither was keen on joining a local cycling club, but they agreed to cycle together at weekends after comparing their different level of ability. Anna stressed it was a fun way to exercise as far as both men were concerned, and having a companion was preferable to slogging it out on the roads on their own.”

“Did they socialise on other occasions?” asked