Sanderson finished her drink and returned to the bar for a refill. She chided herself for being so negative. Surely it was possible to find someone – Charlie and many others like her had managed it. Privately, Sanderson rather envied Charlie – her happy home, her baby girl. She knew it meant sacrifices on a personal and professional level, but at least it meant something. Charlie’s life seemed very grounded compared to hers. But she was never going to get there unless she tried and she had been looking forward to meeting Will tonight. He sounded fun from his emails, had an interesting job and he was certainly easy on the eye.
The question was whether she would make it. Helen had told the team that finding Gary Spence was their top priority and a number of his known haunts were now under surveillance. His home, his mates, a couple of snooker halls and this pub – a place he liked to frequent at the end of stressful day, extorting money from desperate debtors who hadn’t read the small print properly. As Sanderson returned to her seat in the corner, she felt several sets of eyes following her progress. Did they suspect her? Or did they just like the look of her? It was feasible that they had already called Spence and warned him not to come. It was impossible to tell and as with all stakeouts there was only one way to find out.
Watch and wait.
He recognized her immediately. As she put on her protective suit, mask and goggles, he took in her trim figure. She was pretty and well groomed, her glossy chestnut hair always secure in a very professional-looking bun. He had observed her at a number of burnt-out properties over the past year, diligently carrying out her work, and had even looked her up on Facebook. Her name was Deborah Parks and he always felt a little charge when looking at her.
She had been working at Travell’s Timber Yard since lunchtime. The massive site looked like a war zone – the main warehouse had burnt to the ground, as had most of the stock, temporarily turning the skies over this part of town black. It’d been an amazing thing to witness and had drawn big crowds, but now they had all disappeared. Back to X Factor and Celebrity BB. They thought the show was over. They didn’t value what was right in front of them. They couldn’t see what he could see.
Deborah Parks was on the move now, entering the shell of the warehouse and temporarily out of view. A couple of uniformed officers guarded the main gate, but the site was huge and the chain link fence had not been well maintained – they obviously didn’t get too many timber thieves round here. It was a matter of a few seconds to haul up the bottom of the fence and roll underneath.
