Sarah Hall- Chapter 4 As Detective Wood awoke the next morning, his mental to do list bustled around in his head. As he was boiling the kettle for a cup of strong coffee, he pressed the button on his answering machine next to the flashing display (1). He listened intently as the clear concise voice rang out 'First new message. Received at 5:38am on Monday.' Following this was the deep, strong voice of one of his team, Tom Lakesley. 'Good morning, detective. I've been in the office early this morning. Found some interesting stuff. Not sure this was a wrong place, wrong time murder. We got the girl's identity and some suspect names. But something doesn't add up, mate. See me in my office when you get it' . Wood was intrigued by Tom's tone, he sounded nervous, even scared of being over-heard. 20 minutes later, Wood was striding to the door labelled Lakesley, curious to see the 'interesting stuff' Tom had described. He hadn't lifted his hand to knock before the door was pulled open from the other side. Wood wasn't greeted just ushered inside by Tom and lead to a chair. 'This has escalated onto a whole new level, Wood. This isn't a girl from her mates party in a random killer's territory, she knew what she was doing and what trouble she was in and had been in for years. She was part of a high profile drug corporation. A secret identity company, constantly moving bases to avoid detection. Their most recent was on a backstreet in Chicago'. Wood listened intently and occasionally nodded to show his understanding. Tom took a deep breath before continuing. 'We have strong evidence to believe that she was out that night at a high profile exclusive party, trying to sell drugs to the host. It seemed that everything was going smoothly and she was about to propose the offer to the host before she spotted a lone man loitering in the corner. Being casual, we believe she approached this man, whom identity we have yet to discover and she found out he was a loan shark. He was there to offer quick cash to any wishing to purchase the girl's drugs. However this worried the girl. The company had got along fine by themselves for years an didn't want loan sharks complicating their smooth running. Worse still, this man posed a bigger threat. If he got any of the girl's customers in debt and physical danger, authorities would find out why they had asked for money in the first place. Their whole company was at risk of going completely bust and getting discovered. So, for the remainder of the night, the girl ditched all of her plans to sell and focused only on persuading the loan shark to leave the party, probably insisting her customers had enough money anyway, when really this man was a good opportunity to get cash for most. The man clocked onto her plan and without this party, his company would go bust for not enough customers. Both were fighting and could not compromise. In the end, a loud argument broke out, supported by nearby residents and the girl left 'in tears'. This loan shark is now our main suspect as he was seen leaving about 3 minutes after the girl and returning to the party about 2 hours later'. Wood leant forwards on the desk and closed his eyes, digesting the information. He finally spoke. 'Tom, you have done amazingly well and after this, I will be slipping hints about your promotion. Can I see the evidence for your findings?'. Tom got up and walked over to a filing cabinet. He reached inside and pulled out some papers. Everything was in here. Neighbours confirmations of the argument, the girl's name - Sarah Hall, the drugs company details and location and more. Detective Wood sat back and digested this for a few moments. He was impressed with Tom and could almost feel the weight of his workload disappearing. However, regardless of the evidence they had, including the identity, no-one had contacted the family yet. Tom had written down the names of the parents with the addresses- he'd done amazingly well. Wood got into car 10 minutes later and paused before setting off. He could call an officer to do this... No. What good detective would you be, running away from the toughest bit of the job? He set off for the address.