'Starting at the beginning!' It was John who broke the silence. 'Have you traced where the call came from?'

'That was easy!' Alex and John didn't need to be told that, as their organisation could trace and analyse any phone call, FAX or E-Mail message made anywhere on the massive UK network and to a good depth in the rest of the world. Daisy removed a file from her brief case and then opened it. 'The report we have is that it was made at nine nineteen on the evening of the first of April from a call-box near Victoria Park in East London, using a pound coin. We even have the pound coin that was used. No fingerprints!'

'He's obviously not hard up!' John broke in. 'Perhaps something smaller would have done! Or did he want to make sure that he had enough money to phone a mobile?'

'That's about all we know about the call? Except that it was dark and raining heavily! Not a well lit area either!'

'Have you any description?' Alex asked the obvious. 'Did anybody see him?'

'No! To both of those question! We've done as much as we can! Despite extensive enquiries and a complete forensic analysis of the box, we've got absolutely nothing at all!' She stood and looked as John turned towards his computer. 'I'd hoped that you could tell us more!'

'I'll see what I can find!' John typed and a map of Victoria Park appeared on the screen. A red dot showed where the phone box stood. 'Is that the one?'

Daisy looked and nodded. 'Nice map! We've searched all of the undergrowth inside the park.'

'Did you find anything?'

'Used needles, burger boxes and condoms! Cigarette ends! Lots of evidence of urban foxes! Four pairs of ladies knickers! Two left shoes!' Daisy shrugged. 'That sort of thing! Nothing that helped!'

John proceeded by clicking the dot and a window appeared on the screen that showed the complete details of the box. It showed that it was one of the latest type and it had been removed and replaced at six in the morning on the second. John was impressed at the speed. 'You didn't waste much time!'

'No!' She smiled at the compliment. 'My boss picked the message up just before midnight, called me out of bed and we came straight in and got to work. We removed the box to avoid contamination!'

'And it gave you nothing at all?'

'No fingerprints! No discarded paper! No dropped coins!' Daisy bit her lip! 'We even got DNA from all the urine on the floor of the box!' She obviously found that slightly funny. 'Forensic reckoned at least ten men had peed in the box in the last few days!'

'All men?' John asked.

'Yes! Women don't do that sort of thing!' She handed over a sheet of paper from the file she was holding. 'As you can see, we actually found one on our DNA database. He wasn't much help, but he won't do that again, as he's now convinced that we test the urine in all the phone boxes!'

***

'These are all the calls made from that box in the previous month.' John pointed to the screen to show how they had been arranged by day of the week, hour of the day, number called, failures and the method of payment. 'First thing is you'd be surprised about is the reliability of the box.' He clicked a small square on the screen labelled failures. 'Only one and that seems to have been caused by the guy who emptied it. It was fixed within thirty minutes, so he must have repaired it himself.'

'So it's reliable.' Daisy was impatient. 'What has that got to do with my bomber?'

'Good data is everything!' John clicked a few other places on the screen. 'Just checking a few other things! You only get bad answers from bad data!'

'So it's good data!'

'Yes!' John clicked another small square. 'What I've done now is investigate your boss' number. It seems it was only called once.'

'Is that our call?' Daisy checked the date and time against her information. 'It's correct!'

'Of course it is! Both you and this program are reading the same master data.' He looked smugly at Daisy. 'I'd be more worried if the details weren't the same!'

Daisy asked a question to change the direction of the investigation. 'What do these dark lines mean?' She traced the lines between the boxes defining the day, hours and numbers. 'Why are some darker than others?'

'The more calls, the darker the line.' He traced out the darkest line. 'See here! This guy has phoned the same number in Barrow, eight times in the month, between nine and ten. Usually between fifteen and twenty-five minutes past nine!'

'Now that is new!' Daisy broke in excitedly. 'I knew it was worth coming! Do you think it's someone phoning their girlfriend?'

'Let's look further back!' John was already typing, clicking, selecting a lot more data and within a few seconds a new chart had been drawn. 'We've now got all calls since last July' He indicated the line. 'Look! The line's still there!'

'So he's a very regular caller!' Daisy ran a red-painted nail along the dark line.

John clicked on the line and all the calls were displayed as a table. 'It appears he started calling in November and he does so between once or twice a week. Always around the same time. Usually he talks for about five minutes.'

'Any calls made the other way?' Daisy asked the question.

'No!' John displayed another set of numbers.

'Did he call on the first?'

'No!' He showed the two women, that he didn't between the twenty-ninth of March and the third of April. 'Wait! I have an idea!' He followed the statement with more clicking and typing.

'What are you doing?' Alex spoke for the first time in a few minutes.

'Suppose he went to his normal box and couldn't make the call as it was occupied! What would he do?' John posed the question. 'Wait? Go to another? Go home? If he did try and make the call then we might have a witness!'

'So then what are you doing?' Alex asked her question again. 'The computer seems to be taking its time.'

A different chart appeared on the screen. John started to explain. 'Here are the calls to the Barrow number from phone boxes in London, which I've arranged by the first few characters of their short post code.' He indicated five lines spreading out from the Barrow number and displayed a table of the calls corresponding to the darkest line. 'These are the calls from boxes around the Victoria Park area!'

'Did he call on the first?' Daisy tried to look at the table.

'Yes! He called at twenty-four minutes past nine.' More clicking and the map was returned to the screen, but this time with two red dots. 'That's about two hundred metres between them. Looks like our witness, could have gone to the first box, found it occupied and then went to the second.'

'In this work you learn not to be optimistic!'

***

'But I am impressed.' Daisy was summing up. 'We couldn't have done that trawling so quickly. Thank you!'

'It's very typical of what we do!' Alex was pleased they had been able to help.

'But it's only a start!' John turned back to the computer. 'I've done a lot of these analyses in the past and have some things I'd like to try!'

'Would you like us to disappear for an hour or so?' Alex knew how he liked to work and asked the question that she knew he wanted.

'Why don't you go down the Tiles?' He pointed at the door. 'You could take an early lunch!

Copyright 2004 by Ewart Higgins