Page 43 of Dissection of a Murder
“A doorstop? Good work, Davina!” I grin at her. “And have you seen Jack’s phone evidence that’s come through?”
“Yep. Who was he messaging incessantly for seven months?” Davina asks. “Given how shady he’s being, I’m going to take a wild guess and say that’s the person he’s protecting in all this.”
“Agreed,” I confirm, nodding.
“The communication begins on Tuesday, February 6, 2024, at 7:57 p.m., and over the course of seven months, there are 1,284 text messages. No phone calls to that number at all. Only texts.”
“It’s a burner phone,” I say. “We checked and it’s not registered anywhere.”
“But look at the times of the texts—most of them are late evening or past midnight. Selling drugs?”
“Or an affair with a married woman.”
Davina’s eyebrows jump as she reaches for her glass of sauvignon blanc.
“But it’s what happens after Anton is killed that intrigues me the most. The cell site analysis is quite revealing.”
Cell site analysis is an absolute gem in criminal cases. Every time your mobile phone passes a transmitter, it sends information to your mobile phone provider, who collates that data and determines where you are. Provided your phone is switched on, you’re trackable. You don’t need to have the physical device to analyze it, and you can comb through months of data.
“Have you seen what happens to his phone?” I continue. “Cell site analysis traces it to Temptation in the center of Durham at 10:41 p.m. The signal is then terminated; the phone is presumably switched off or the battery dies. Now, Jack calls 999 from the club landline at 11:07 p.m. and he’s arrested shortly after. When the mobile phone signal is received again, at 11:27 p.m.—forty-six minutes later—it’s moved, and look at its location.”
“Pickford?” The relevance of this information balances on the tip of her tongue. She recognizes it, but doesn’t know where it’s from, so I tell her.
“Pickford is twelve miles away from the center of Durham. It also happens to be the tiny, remote village where Anton Smythe lived. Not only that…the cell site placed the phone signal within five meters of Anton Smythe’s drive. So, basically, just outside his house.”
Davina’s eyes widen and she takes a deep breath. You can almost see the cogs whirring inside her head, wondering how to piece everything together.
“I’m assuming you don’t think it’s a coincidence?”
“You know I don’t believe in such things,” I reply.
“It gets weirder by the minute. The prosecution must be going wild with this information.”
“Oh, I know. They’ll have gone through that area with a fine-tooth comb trying to find it. It’s all fields and countryside over there, so I imagine it’s been dumped.”
“Didn’t Jack say his phone was stolen on the day of the murder?” Davina asks.
“He did, but it’s far too…convenient that it ends up close to the victim’s home, if it was randomly stolen and has nothing to do with the crime.”
“The other question it throws into light is how did the phone get turned on in Pickford at the time the cell analysis states, when we know for certain Jack was already in police custody by then? Where else does the cell site place his phone during the day of the murder? Does that help us determine his location? He did say the key to this was finding out where he was that day.”
“His phone was at his apartment all day. Doesn’t mean he was,” I remind her. “Jack’s clever. He’s been in and out of the system since he was a kid. He knows all the tricks in the book. If he’s up to something—or going to see someone he shouldn’t be connected to—he knows better than to take his phone with him.”
“But there’s always CCTV. He’s not completely invisible from being tracked,” Davina says correctly.
“No, he’s not. Don’t you see? The person who took the phone the night of the murder must have known they’d be tracked, which is why they turned it off.”
“You think someone else was there that night,” Davina states.
“A good criminal does his homework and is always prepared. They’re meticulous. That’s how they get away with it.”
“So we need to think like a criminal, find the phone and whoever took it.” Davina smiles.
“Yes. In fact, organize a site visit. It might help us gain some clarity, see the events of that night in a clearer way.”
“I’ll get it sorted,” she barks, picking up her diary to add it to the million other jobs I’ve given her over the past week.
Finally, we have a tiny glimmer of something to grab on to.
