DCI Warren Jones. Paul Gitsham

leaving work, he called an unregistered pay-as-you-go phone. It wasn’t the first time he’s called it, he does it at infrequent intervals roughly every two weeks. Short duration, about five seconds.’

      ‘An unregistered pay-as-you-go phone,’ mused Sutton. ‘Perfectly legal to own, but is anyone else’s nose twitching?’

      ‘Definitely,’ agreed Warren, ‘what do we have in terms of location data?’

      ‘We have cell-tower triangulation for his phone that entire day. To start, the phone is at his registered address overnight until about seven-thirty, when it moves along his expected route towards the abbey. It then remains within the abbey grounds until just after 5 p.m.’

      ‘So he didn’t leave for lunch?’

      ‘No, and it moves around a bit, suggesting he carries it with him rather than leaving it in a locker – which would make sense if he uses it to communicate with Baines during the day. We don’t have good enough resolution to narrow it down to precise locations within the grounds, but it doesn’t appear to go to the end of the complex where the chapel is located. However, he does spend the last hour of his day around the retirement home.’

      ‘Which gives a legitimate reason for any trace evidence that may be found at the scene,’ interjected Sutton.

      ‘Then what?’

      ‘The phone moves along the route taken by his car, travelling into the camera dead spot where we lost sight of the car itself. A few moments later, the phone appears to stop moving and then remains stationary for the next few hours, until shortly after he receives the call about the fire when it starts moving along the route that we tracked back towards the abbey. There’s no indication that the phone moved any appreciable distance at walking pace or in a moving vehicle, during those five hours.’

      ‘So that leaves us with three possibilities, either he was visiting a location within that area; he sat in his car for five hours …’

      ‘Or he left his phone in the car and disappeared off to do whatever he was doing before returning to the car sometime before he drove it to the abbey,’ finished Sutton.

      ‘What’s in that area?’

      Pymm switched to a more detailed map. A large red dot was surrounded by two concentric circles.

      ‘The resolution from cell-tower triangulation in that part of town is between fifty and one hundred metres, which covers this inner area, with a decreased probability of it being within this wider perimeter. There was a little movement, but only a few metres, and within the error range for a stationary phone. In total, it includes about four streets, no bookmakers, and one pub. There are two other small businesses, a newsagent and an off-licence, the rest of the properties are residential.’