Lost Girls by Angela Marsons Page A

hope he ain’t they'll all be on different networks anyway, making it almost impossible for us to approach the providers.’
    â€˜Can't we just track the mobile phone numbers?’ Dawson asked.
    For a detective he watched way too much television.
    Stacey shook her head. ‘Mobile positioning is a technology used by telecom companies to approximate the location of a mobile phone.’
    She placed her own coffee mug and Bryant's about ten inches apart and placed her pencil between them.
    â€˜It's based on measuring power levels and antenna patterns, ’cos a powered mobile phone always communicates wirelessly with one of the closest base stations. Advanced systems determine the sector where the mobile phone resides and roughly estimates the distance to the base station, sometimes down to fifty metres in urban areas.’
    â€˜Well, surely that's a starting point?’ Dawson asked.
    Stacey moved the mugs to the edges of the dining table and left the pencil where it was. ‘In rural areas there might be miles between base stations, so a hit on a tower can be pretty useless in terms of location.’
    â€˜But we have the telephone numbers,’ Dawson said.
    Stacey rolled her eyes and turned to Kim. ‘Guv?’
    â€˜Because the phones will be switched off, Kev. No tracking technology will work if the phone isn't at least powered.’
    â€˜Do we know for sure …?’
    â€˜Checked them both last night,’ Kim said. ‘They're off, maybe even broken up and thrown away by now.’
    Bryant took his mobile phone tower and drank from it.
    Dawson was unconvinced. There were days when his tenacity proved invaluable, but sometimes it was wrongly directed.
    â€˜But I read an article about accessing a mobile phone's internal microphone to eavesdrop on the conversation.’
    â€˜Yeah, good luck with getting anyone to sign a warrant on that,’ Stacey said. ‘But it probably wouldn't do any good. I'm betting the batteries ain’t even in the phones.’
    â€˜But can't we do anything?’
    Stacey sighed. ‘Oh Kev, we can get permission to position phones in emergency situations but it's pretty clear he's gonna use a different phone for every communication and the phone would still need to be switched on. All I can do is fire off emails to the four main networks with the numbers and see if they'll carry out a search – but we're talking days, if not weeks, and an invoice that will run into thousands from each of ’em.’
    Stacey looked to Kim for confirmation.
    Kim didn't hesitate. ‘Do it anyway, you never know. We need every chance we can get on this one.’
    The room fell silent, enabling Kim to hear activity from the kitchen next door.
    She pushed back her chair.
    â€˜Okay, any downtime is to be spent reading through the old case files. We may get lucky with something that was overlooked.’
    She hadn't yet assigned herself and Bryant a task.
    Kim had a feeling they were going to be taking a field trip.

Twenty-Four
    I nga stumbled over a raised slab as she accessed the public walkway.
    She had managed to exit the play area without being detected. The night in the wooden castle had been cold and uncomfortable but for a few hours she had felt safe. The conditions had prevented her from falling into a full, dense sleep but her body had stolen the occasional catnap, interrupted only by the intermittent glare of the security vehicle headlights during its passing patrol.
    It was during the ambulance ride that she had realised how ruthlessly she had been used. Listening to the voices of strangers showing real concern about her wellbeing as she lay still, deceiving them. Tears had pricked at her closed lids and she had never felt so lonely in her life. Except maybe once.
    She marvelled again at the skill with which she'd been seduced into doing something totally against her own beliefs. The manipulation of her own insecurities and fantasies had