Without a Trace

Book 1: Kate Daniels

by Mari Hannah

Genres: Crime Fiction; Mystery

Synopsis

An international disaster.

A plane en route from London to New York City has disappeared out of the sky. This breaking news dominates every TV channel, every social media platform, and every waking hour of the Metropolitan Police and US Homeland Security.

A private tragedy.

The love of DCI Kate Daniels' life was on that aircraft, but she has no authority to investigate. This major disaster is outside of her jurisdiction, and she's ordered to walk away.

A search for the truth.

But Kate can't let it lie. She has to find out what happened to that plane—even if it means going off book. No one is safe.

And there are some very dangerous people watching her....

Release date: March 19, 2020

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 400

Sample

Autumn, 2014

Kate needed to be calm but was struggling to process the scene facing her. In a major incident suite unfamiliar to her, the names of passengers and crew of a missing transatlantic aircraft were being uploaded in real time onto an enormous electronic screen, the plane disappearing from the radar around a hundred and fifty nautical miles short of New York’s JFK. Having driven through the night at breakneck speed – almost three hundred miles from her Northumbria base – she was in no fit state to take it in. Dripping wet in the doorway of the Metropolitan Police’s Casualty Bureau (Aviation Security Command), Kate was counting down the seconds until it was time to sell a pack of lies that would give her access to an investigation that was well outside her jurisdiction.

DS Hank Gormley glanced sideways. His SIO’s face was ashen as she took in the mayhem, physical and audible. Phone lines were hot, personnel jammed into every available space, traumatised by their task. On the journey south, he’d been constantly on the phone, checking the net for updates, consulting press colleagues, an information-gathering exercise he fed to Kate as the miles flew by. The missing flight was breaking news. Predetermined emergency telephone numbers had gone live on TV and radio within fifteen minutes of notification that a plane had been lost. A designated contact centre had been set up, manned round the clock by trained call-handlers from Met Police and other forces – all this replicated in New York.

Kate checked her watch: almost ten a.m. Nine hours earlier, when Hank told her that Jo Soulsby’s flight was missing, the glass she was holding fell from her hand, shattering as it hit the deck. Symbolic. She was in bits, her breath coming in short, sharp bursts. She stumbled into his arms, the only prop she could cling onto. With her father’s coronary and life-threatening, emergency surgery a matter of hours old, she’d half-expected a death today – if that was what this was – but not Jo. Never Jo. Jo was vibrant and full of life, a skilled professional and loving mum. A survivor. Maybe she hadn’t travelled after all – maybe it was all a mistake.

Hank remained silent. Kate hadn’t cried, not when he’d shared the news, nor on the drive south. She was too numb. He knew her well enough to see beyond her professional persona. She was deeply distressed, trying to keep a lid on it for his sake. Jo was more than a colleague to both of them. Kate was in denial, unable or unwilling to accept that she was missing. There was a deep affection between the three, a camaraderie that was hard to come by, even by MIT’s standards. Hank couldn’t reject the notion that Jo might have changed her plans. Detectives didn’t write people off on the balance of probabilities. He’d attended enough accidents to know that people who were deemed to be aboard a bus, a train or travelling in a car were sometimes not among the casualties. That improbable hope died in his head but stayed alive in his heart.

What was taking so long? Fifteen minutes ago, Kate had asked to speak to the Gold Commander. He hadn’t appeared. On the other side of the room, two men were deep in conversation, one of them making his mouth go, an arrogant stance. He glanced her way, deeply suspicious of the stranger who’d blagged her way into the Casualty Bureau, in no hurry to hook her up with the man she’d come to see. Locking eyes with him, Kate held her bottle, the enormity of what she was about to do feeling like a heavy weight in her chest. In her head, she replayed Hank’s attempt to comfort her in that grim hospital corridor back home. She’d never forget the panic that flashed across the face of her second-in-command. Hank was in shock, too, battling hard to keep his composure so that she could fall apart. She was damned if she would.

Hank eyed the Met detectives. The cocky bastards turned their backs, making the Northumbria officers wait. If they took any longer, Kate would lose her cool. He wouldn’t put it past her to march over there and intervene – and it wouldn’t be pretty. She looked smaller somehow. Grief did that to people. She appeared to have her shit together but you never knew in situations like these. Had he been able to summon words of support, they would have been woefully inadequate. She was on leave with no authority to pull this off and no hope in hell of doing so. She needed her mettle now. He could only hope that she knew what she was doing and why she was doing it.

It hit Kate then, the enormity of a situation she wouldn’t have thought possible a few hours ago settling in her gut. She focused on the man approaching, a detective with a confident presence, an arrogant swagger. He was late forties. Tall. Fit. Unfriendly eyes. A brave face was required. The cause of the lost flight – deliberate or accidental – would be determined by others in due course. So traumatised was she by either scenario, she didn’t answer when Hank asked what her plans were. She didn’t look at him either, though she expected his condemnation for going off-book. Kate had one focus. She had to find out for sure if Jo was on that flight.

‘DS Blue. Can I help you?’ An aggressive stance.

Instinctively, Kate knew he wasn’t the Gold Commander she’d asked to speak to. Proffering ID, she said: ‘Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels, Northumbria Police, Murder Investigation Team.’ She thumbed in Hank’s direction. ‘This is my 2ic, Detective Sergeant Hank Gormley. We’d like to offer you any assistance we can.’

‘Northumberland is a long way off, ma’am.’ The Met detective glanced at the wall clock – 09.59 – then at her. ‘You must’ve been motoring.’

Kate sidestepped the comment as if it were of no consequence. She didn’t have time for small talk. He needed a nudge, a credible reason why she was sticking her oar into business that was outside her remit as a murder investigation SIO. ‘We have reason to believe that our force profiler, Josephine Soulsby, was on board Flight 0113. My guv’nor has been in touch.’

‘Really? That’s news to me.’

No wonder. It was a downright lie.

Kate’s frustration grew. Blue was clearly suspicious of her motives. ‘DS Blue …’ She fixed him with a steely gaze. ‘Are you questioning my authority?’

‘No, ma’am. I’m just making the point that we’ve had no word from your force—’

‘You take all calls personally?’ A pause. ‘No, I didn’t think so. Has it occurred to you that his offer hasn’t filtered through yet?’

‘That’s entirely possible.’ Blue gestured to the mayhem going on around them, a resigned shrug. ‘As you can see, we have our hands full. In the last few hours, we’ve received thousands of calls from concerned friends and relatives. In the wake of Hillsborough, BT recorded half a million via the Sheffield exchange. Only a small percentage of which got through to the Casualty Bureau—’

‘Yeah, we’re from the sticks, not outer space,’ Hank said. ‘You’re busy. We get that. Do us all a favour and save the history lesson.’

‘Leave it, Hank. I’m sure DS Blue didn’t mean to insult us. We don’t want to fall out before we get our feet under the table.’ Kate refocused on the Met detective. ‘Excuse the northern bluntness. Hank meant no offence by it. In his cack-handed way, he’s making the point that we’re up to speed on HOLMES 2.’ HOLMES was the acronym for the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System on which the enquiry would be run, the number signifying the fact that it was second-generation.

‘None taken,’ Blue lied. ‘But in case you didn’t know, we normally put out a formal request for help, if we need it—’

Kate’s tone hardened. ‘Up north, we’re proactive, Sergeant. I suggest you check your call log. As I said, we’ve come a long way. We’re here to help for the foreseeable future.’

Hank’s eyes were on Blue, his expression inscrutable. He didn’t need telling that the police had learned by their mistakes, nor that forces nationwide could now pool resources to assist at peak times in cases like these. Blue met his gaze, hinting that the Northumbria detective duo had had a wasted journey, considering that calls could be input from all points in the UK, transferred electronically to the home force via an updated computer system.

A momentary stand-off.

The two detective sergeants were about to lock horns. Kate kept her composure, allowing them a moment to finish their game of blink first. Tuning them out, she thought about the high level of calls the Casualty Bureau had already received. There would be more. Many would be duplicates. Experience had proven that to be the case. Among the callers listed, Jo’s sons from a former marriage would figure there somewhere: Thomas and James Soulsby.

In the early hours of the morning, prior to leaving Newcastle, Kate had grabbed some clothes from home and woken Tom, the oldest, before he heard the news on TV, then called on James in Sheffield to repeat the process. She made the South Yorkshire city in ninety minutes, topping a hundred miles an hour for most of the way on dry, empty roads, Hank urging her to stick to the speed limit, not because she might get pulled over, but because she was in shock, a situation guaranteed to slow her reactions.

She wouldn’t listen.

Bad news was best conveyed face-to-face, not over the phone. Kate didn’t offer any likelihood to either lad that they would see or speak to their mother again. Although she chose to keep the faith on that subject, it would be cruel to give them false hope. They were both shattered, James taking the news much worse than his older brother. The exchange unnerved her, made worse by the fact that, for them, this was déjà vu.

Kate had been the lead detective in their father’s violent death.

Hank had interviewed James in the course of the enquiry into the shooting that ended his father’s life. The lad Kate had since come to know as laid-back – much like his mum – had a very different temperament then. Belligerent was how she’d describe him. He made no secret of the fact that he didn’t rate his father, before or after death. Consequently, he was high on the list of suspects, a murder his mother had later been wrongly accused of. Kate had worked tirelessly to prove her innocence, putting her job on the line in order to do so, and now she was digging her own grave at the Casualty Bureau, risking her career all over again. All that distressing history came flooding back, though it seemed a lifetime ago. And now, this …

How much more could one family take?

How much could she?

Kate wondered if James remembered the day she’d broken the news of his father’s murder or if it was all a blur, a jumbled recollection that he hadn’t properly taken in at the time, an event he’d blocked out since. Even now, hours from receiving reports of the plane’s disappearance, Kate was struggling to recall the exact words Hank had used in the hospital corridor with her own father hanging on by his fingernails in a ward not far away.

Cowardly, Kate had let the breakdown in communication between herself and Jo go without a mention to either Tom or James. If they had questions to ask, she’d answer them truthfully, but not today. She’d already handed them enough grief to cope with without adding to it. It was James’s likeness to his mother she found particularly difficult. Emotional: open and honest. Physical: ashen hair, identical pale blue eyes.

That image made her want to weep.

Having taken care of the distressing revelation to Jo’s sons – almost, but not quite, a death message – Kate abandoned all thoughts of her leave period. She was state zero, off duty, with no authority in London, but she wanted in on the action so she could investigate Jo’s whereabouts, exhausting all the possibilities before she gave up hope, unwilling to accept anyone else’s word for it. Hank was staring at her, wondering what the hell she was playing at. In order to support her, he’d gone AWOL without permission. No doubt he’d be looking to dissuade her from getting involved.

He could think again.

Kate hadn’t ordered him to accompany her to London. He’d volunteered, as he always did when she was about to commit professional suicide. It wasn’t the first time she’d gone over to the dark side, but it may very well be her last. She was thinking on her feet – moment to moment – one step at a time. She hadn’t consulted him on the drive south, but she needed him onside. If anyone could get her through this, he could. Left alone, she’d go into meltdown. Hank was so much more than a competent and loyal 2ic; he was her best friend, in and out of the job. He might have to be dragged kicking and screaming to see her point of view now and then, but he’d never let her down, unlike the Met detective facing her.

Blue was stalling. ‘Thank you for the generous offer, ma’am, but I need confirmation from your guv’nor before I take it to mine. When I get it, I’ll speak to my commander and call you.’

Handing him her business card, Kate withdrew.

She knew a knock-back when she saw one.

Her eyes swept the Casualty Bureau as he moved away. Met personnel were going about their business with professional detachment, something she’d always prided herself on, except things were different now. Today, no officer held the same status as yesterday. Today, like Blue, they appeared hard-arsed, unable or unwilling to offer her instant answers – precisely what she was after. She took it on the chin. There was no comfort for law enforcement nor for the families of victims at times like these. Despite her extensive training, Kate was dying inside, ill-equipped to deal with the urgency of a major incident due to her close connection with someone on board that fateful plane.

As she made for the door, she pulled out her mobile, pressing the speed dial number of Detective Chief Superintendent Philip Bright, head of the Criminal Investigations Department, Northumbria’s most senior detective. She needed his help.

If she had to beg for retrospective authorisation, then so be it.

His new PA picked up. Kate asked to be put straight through. The woman was intuitive; the fact that there wasn’t time for niceties didn’t faze her. She wasn’t affronted by it. What some saw as unfriendliness, the woman who kept Bright’s motor running recognised as Kate’s preoccupation with her job.

Seconds later, the line clicked.

‘Morning, Kate. How’s your old man?’

It was a good question. One Kate had no answer to. Pushing open the door, leaving the Casualty Bureau, she took shelter from the relentless rain beneath the portico, sucking in a lungful of much-needed fresh air. Her mouth was dry, head pounding. How she handled the next few minutes was crucial.

‘He’s fine,’ she said. ‘I’m not.’

‘What’s wrong?’ He knew it was serious.

It didn’t surprise her. They had known each other forever. Her voice sounded wobbly, even in her own head. The man on the other end had been her mentor since she was nineteen years old. He was the detective who’d moulded her; the man to whom she owed everything. In one way or another, every commendation and successful resolution of a case she could trace back to him.

She found her voice. ‘You’ve seen the news?’

‘Yeah, dreadful.’

‘Guv, Jo was booked on that flight.’ It was hard to say her name.

It wasn’t often that Bright was speechless. It took a while for him to respond. ‘I don’t understand … I thought you two were off to Crail.’ He was referring to the tiny fishing village Jo loved so much in the East Neuk of Fife in Scotland, their cancelled holiday destination. He may as well have pointed an accusing finger.

‘We broke up. Her decision, not mine.’

‘Because of Atkins? Oh, the irony …’ Kate had recently been outed to her team by her nemesis and former boss, DCI James Atkins. Bright had jumped to the wrong conclusion. ‘That snake will get what’s coming to him—’

Kate cleared her throat. ‘He had nothing to do with it.’

‘Then why?’

‘What can I say? I was a rubbish partner.’

‘You weren’t.’

‘Jo wasn’t prepared to play second fiddle to the job, Phil. She couldn’t hack it and I don’t blame her. She ended it, cancelled our plans and booked a trip to New York.’ Kate felt compelled to explain that their relationship boiled down to moments like these, that her decision to keep the union a secret for fear that she wouldn’t reach her full potential if it became common knowledge; because of someone else’s homophobia; a callout from Control taking precedence over their plans. ‘If only I’d listened—’

‘That’s the nature of the job, Kate. This is no time for recriminations. Neither is it your fault—’

‘Isn’t it?’ Her tone was bitter. ‘Jo was sick of lame excuses that didn’t stack up. She deserved more. She thought, hoped, that I’d put her at the top of my agenda just the once. Our work asks too much sometimes. I may never have failed you, but I certainly failed her.’

Kate locked eyes with Hank.

He thought so too.

He looked away through a curtain of rain. When he’d found out about the split, he was gutted. He’d played peacemaker for a while, hoping that the situation would resolve itself, as it had done many times before. Aware of Jo’s decision to take off without her, Kate knew different. Hank was angry, believing that she should have made more of an effort to rescue her failing partnership. That was her time. That was her moment. And now that moment had passed.

It took a split second for the terrible truth to dawn, a moment more for Bright to offer condolences Kate didn’t want to hear. Even before Atkins’s spiteful intervention, motivated by jealousy, an attempt to disgrace her, Bright had known that Kate and Jo were an item, still very much in love. Discretion personified, he’d kept it to himself, believing that who Kate slept with was her business and no one else’s. His feelings for his favourite DCI were deep and unconditional.

‘Stay where you are,’ he said. ‘I’ll come over.’

‘No, guv, I’m in London … at the Casualty Bureau.’ Kate held her breath, bracing herself for a verbal backlash. ‘I want an in and you’re how I get it.’

‘That’s not going to happen.’ There was no hesitation. ‘Get your arse home now. That’s an order—’

‘I’m on leave—’

‘And off duty,’ he reminded her. ‘Step away, Kate. There’s nothing you can do. You know that as well as I do. Stand down and let them do their jobs—’

‘I’ve offered my assistance.’

‘On whose authority?’

There was a pause.

‘I’m begging you, Phil.’

‘Seriously? Incidents like this run and run—’

‘I’m aware, but I’m not the only SIO on the force. The North-East won’t descend into anarchy if I’m not around. I was once arrogant enough to think that it would and look where it got me. I need your support.’

‘And you’ll have it as soon as you get here.’

‘No! I do this or I resign.’

‘Start typing.’ The dialling tone hit her ear.

‘Damn him!’

Hank was on the verge of saying something. A call to her mobile cut him off. Taking the device from her pocket, she prayed that her guv’nor had reconsidered. She should’ve known better. Bright didn’t respond to threats. It wasn’t Jo either – much as Kate hoped it might be. She’d called her several times and received no response.

The display screen showed the name Fiona Fielding.

Kate didn’t take the call.

Hank eyed her phone. ‘Who was that?’

‘Fiona.’ She didn’t add, the woman who shared my bed two days ago, believing that my relationship with Jo had finally run its course. How ridiculous that now sounded. Nor did she need to explain who Fiona was. The three had met during a previous investigation. An artist of international standing, Fiona had been a witness in the case of a missing girl whose portrait she’d painted years before. The two women had remained friends.

‘If you’re about to launch headlong into a fishing expedition, as I suspect you are, maybe you should talk to her,’ Hank said.

‘Why?’

‘She was one of the last people to see Jo before she left Newcastle, Heathrow-bound, the very person who told you she was flying to JFK and delivered the news to me that the plane had fallen off the radar.’

Hank was right – Fiona might have insight to share.

The sequence of events that led up to Jo’s departure was highly significant. It was vital to gauge her mood, any conversations she may have had, any lingering doubts over her travel plans. Casualty Bureau personnel wouldn’t be investigating that. Their sole focus would be the passenger manifest, collating information of persons missing presumed dead, recording the details of loved ones. The aircraft went down on the other side of the Atlantic. Homeland Security – a cabinet department of the US federal government – would deal with everything else, aided by air accident investigators, British and American, all desperate to establish cause: pilot error, devastating mechanical failure or technical fault, explosion on board or another mindless act of terrorism. Kate would help in whatever way she could, though how she would go about it when US agents were in the driving seat was less clear.

‘Maybe I should call Fiona,’ Kate said. ‘Wait in the car.’

She watched him walk away, head down. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Fiona. He believed, wrongly, that she was complicating Kate’s fucked-up relationship with Jo. Before Kate made the call, she took a moment, remembering a conversation she’d had with the artist. The day before yesterday, Fiona had turned up at Kate’s house uninvited. She wasn’t in, but Jo was standing outside when Fiona arrived. Jo had told her that she’d come to return her door key, asking her to pass it on to Kate. Revealing her travel plans to Fiona was proof, if it were needed, that her relationship with Kate was over. The coast was clear. Over and out.

Fiona wasn’t buying it.

Her voice arrived in Kate’s head. ‘There’s time to catch her if you hurry.’

Kate hadn’t hurried. Reeling from their last meeting, she’d done nothing to dissuade Jo from running away to America. She’d let her go, convinced that in a few days she’d reconsider, that they would kiss and make up, an arrogant assumption she bitterly regretted now. She’d seen the end coming and taken no action whatsoever. She’d simply buried herself in work as a diversion from their split. Then, with her investigation almost wrapped up, an admission of guilt in the bag, she’d had the audacity to send Jo a text to try to put things right …

The case won’t be long. We’re not far away. There’s time. We still have the booking and you’re off for ages. I’ll be able to disappear for a week before I sign off on the murder file.

Jo’s answer was short and to the point:

Enjoy Crail – I’ve made alternative arrangements.

Please reconsider.

I’ve made my decision.

I love you.

Jo didn’t respond and Kate knew why. Her text had fallen short of an apology for letting her down. It was grossly unfair and condescending. The great detective was free now. Fall in step while you have the chance. Was it any wonder she got no reply? Kate had known then that she’d blown it.

Aware of Hank’s interest, Kate tapped in a number on her mobile phone and turned her back on him. Fiona answered on the first ring, as if she’d been sitting by the phone waiting patiently for the call.

The artist was rattled. ‘Oh, thank God! Kate, are you OK? I’m so sorry. The minute I saw the news, I knew. I don’t know what to say. I’ve been calling you. If there is anything I can do, ask.’

Kate had no words.

She liked Fiona. She was an amazing woman, a strong woman and great conversationalist, a free spirit in every sense of the word. She believed that marriage was an unnecessary institution, that monogamy was too lofty an ambition for most people. Consequently, she had neither the need nor inclination to tie herself to one person. Maybe that was the attraction. A relationship with her was never going to get heavy … but she wasn’t Jo.

She’d never be Jo.

Kate missed the first half of her apology …

‘I couldn’t bear to be the one to tell you, so I rang Hank.’ Fiona’s anxiety was almost palpable. ‘I had to be sure you had company when you heard the news. I called on you in the early hours but the house was in darkness. Are you there? I won’t come over if you need to be alone. I would too in your position, but I want you to know that you don’t have to cope with this alone. I’m here if you need to talk.’

Kate tried to speak but no sound came out.

Fiona filled the silence. ‘Kate? Are you still there?’

Kate cleared her throat. ‘Yes, and I need you to be honest with me—’

‘When have I ever been anything else?’ Fiona back-pedalled, begging Kate to forget what she’d said. Solidarity was called for, not taking a pop at one another or picking up on insults that weren’t really there. She apologised again. ‘I have no idea why I said that. I’m such an insensitive cow sometimes.’

Fiona was a lot of things: relentless flirt, laugh-a-minute escort, but never insensitive. Telling her that, Kate moved on. ‘Listen, no matter how brutal it might sound, how hurt you think I’ll be by it, you need to be straight with me now. Did Jo give you any indication whatsoever that she might change her mind about her trip to New York?’

‘No, quite the opposite – but then that’s not surprising, is it?’

Kate knew what she meant. The minute Jo caught sight of Fiona getting out of a taxi, she’d have jumped to the conclusion that the artist was there by invitation. The thought that a misconception like that may have sealed her fate was sickening. Panic squeezed the breath from Kate’s lungs. What did Fiona know? In the face of competition, Jo wouldn’t want to convey the impression that she was in two minds.

‘When you got out of that taxi, you said that Jo was about to push her key through my door.’

‘She was. Well, I assumed she was.’

‘Assumed?’ Suppositions were not what Kate was after. ‘Jo had a key to my place for a reason, Fiona. Is it possible she was about to let herself in? She often did if we’d fallen out. I’d come home and find her cooking dinner—’

‘Are you suggesting that I chased her away?’

‘No …’ Kate stepped aside to allow more staff to enter the Casualty Bureau. ‘Just hoping that she had an ulterior motive for being there, that perhaps she wanted to talk things through.’

‘Kate, don’t do this to yourself—’

‘Is that a euphemism for clutching at straws?’

‘You said that, I didn’t.’

‘Yeah, well right now, straws are all I have and mine are of the short variety. What else do I have to cling onto? Never, ever think that I’m blaming you. There’s only one person at fault here and we both know who that is. Did Jo say how long she’d be away?’

‘No. Why is that important?’

Kate was asking herself the same question. Except, deep down, she knew the answer … A fortnight, a week, a day, an hour, was too long a time to be away from someone you loved. If Jo was in two minds about ending their relationship, she’d have planned a short trip, a few days to calm down and reconsider. A longer journey meant that she’d finally made the break, and Kate couldn’t accept that.

The enclosed yard was filling up, detectives abandoning cars in every available space, keen to get inside and start work. From the car, Hank used his hands as winders, urging her to get a move on before they were blocked in.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said finally. ‘It’s probably academic. Thanks for the help. I’m hanging up now. I’ve stuff to do—’

‘Kate, call me. Day or night. I mean it. I’m here if you need to talk.’

Kate’s voice was small, like a desperate child who’d lost her favourite toy. ‘I have to find her.’

‘I know … I know.’

Kate hung up, tears pricking her eyes. She blinked them away, for fear that she would crumble if she allowed herself to feel, unable to cope with sympathy – Fiona’s, Hank’s or anyone else’s. She would rise above her emotions, find her detective persona and then find Jo, dead or alive.

As Kate walked towards the car, an image of the Lockerbie bombing forced its way into her thoughts. The twenty-first of December 1988. Two hundred and forty-three passengers, sixteen crew and eleven victims on the ground wiped out in the worst terrorist incident on British soil. Kate had talked to officers who’d been in the Northumbria control room at the time. They were inundated with distressing calls from people who’d found pieces of the fuselage, seats, luggage and other wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 strewn over two thousand square kilometres, some not far from her family home.

Given that Flight 0113 had pitched into the sea, there would be less recoverable wreckage. From the moment it left the radar, US emergency response teams had swung into action: police, search and rescue teams, crash scene investigators, comms units, press and public relations. In the UK, HOLMES was eating data, constantly being fed by a dedicated team of professionals who’d work round the clock until they were stood down.

Kate reached the car, unsure where to go next or what her intentions were. The car park was jammed with emergency vehicles. It was debatable if she’d