Edmund cycled back full tilt, then ran full pelt down through the mazelike corridors of Oxford HQ, and after not finding anyone in Hawes's office, got directions down to the interrogation rooms. He met Hawes standing, lips in a tight line, outside one of the cells, and finally stopped his sprint, panting.
"Where's Anna?" he demanded breathlessly. Hawes looked at him like he was dirt on her shoe. Edmund currently didn't care.
"Anna Kovlova. Your niece. Where is she?" Edmund repeated again. Hawes rolled her eyes, muttered something along the lines of 'lovestruck idiot' and looked away.
"Where's your phone, ma'am?" Edmund tried, very, very firmly and meaningfully. Hawes looked back at him, her hand slipping subtrusively to her jacket.
"Not...in my pocket" she replied pensively, looking a little bemused under her mask of emotionlessless.
"Anna just called me on it" Edmund told her. "From your office. She's seen something. And now I think she's in trouble."
"What kind of trouble?" Hawes asked, beginning a slow, leisurely walk to the door. Edmund darted ahead and held it open for her, trying to get her to speed up.
"She said she was working late on the night Yuki died" Edmund explained quickly. "She was walking past Observatory Street on her way home and saw a man with a mask on the back of his head coming past her, from Observatory. She saw his face, and he saw hers-where are we going?"
"To the CCTV tapes" Hawes replied flatly.
"Right" Edmund puffed, as she had picked up the pace quite a bit.
"And you're saying Anna was in my office when she called you?"
"Yes."
The two of them burst into the CCTV office, frightening the life out of the skittery young officer sitting on duty.
"Davies, I'd like to see the CCTV tapes for my office" Hawes ordered sharply. "Now."
Davies nodded abruptly at the command, clicked a few buttons with his shaking fingers, and brought up a screen.
"Take it back around half an hour" Hawes snapped.
The tape rolled back half an hour. They watched it on fast forward, until the slim, dark-haired figure of Anna Kovlova slipped cautiously in at the door. Edmund took a deep breath in, crossing his arms across his chest. Hawes remained stoic and emotionless. Davies didn't dare make a comment.
They watched Anna make the phone call to Edmund, and then as something moved behind her Anna hung up on the call. The door opened, and a man in a suit who Edmund hadn't seen before came in, seemingly speaking to Anna. Although she had her back to the camera, it didn't seem yet like she thought she was in any sort of danger.
"Follow her" Hawes ordered, as the two figures left. "Outside corridor, same time."
On the flickery monitor screen, Anna and the suited man left one room, and Davies clicked the CCTV onto the corridor outside. They followed the pair, almost in real time, clicking from one camera to the next, until the two came out at the back exit, heading towards the car park.
Edmund, stroking his chin worriedly, as Anna and her companion took a left turn, down a small side alley along the side of the HQ. Davies clicked to the camera out at the front of HQ, and they all expected Anna to come into frame soon enough.
She didn't.
"Go back five minutes" Hawes said quietly. She sounded legitimately frightened. Edmund tried himself not to panic.
YOU ARE READING
Two Heads.
Mystery / Thriller-The first extract from the casefiles of D.I.Hawes & D.S.Gray- Edmund Gray is already under pressure. He's just been promoted to the rank of Detective Sargeant at his job in the Oxfordshire Police, and his new boss, the infamously irritating Detecti...
