Page 15 of Nothing Hiding

She looked from one to the other, getting her bearings.

Sierra's finger tapped the screen, then stopped. "There. That's her, I think." She zoomed in on a small figure walking down the street, her face partially obscured by a baseball cap, wearing a dark jacket and high heeled boots.

"She's on the next footage too. Turning the corner. Those were the only two cameras I could find."

Juliette studied the footage carefully, trying to orient herself in the streets and buildings. "Can we enhance the image?" she asked.

Sierra shook her head. "This is the best quality we have. It's not a great angle, and the lighting's not great either."

The most important question next. "Anyone following her? Or waiting ahead?"

Sierra shook her head. "No, I checked that. A few other people were out walking, but nobody was obviously following her. Using other cameras, I could track their movements, and they went elsewhere. The problem is that if you look here, you can see that there are other streets going parallel. It's a close network of roads, and there aren't cameras on all of them. So, someone could have seen her leave, and if they knew where she was heading, they could have gotten there without being seen on camera. It's possible."

Looking at the map, and the streets that had camera footage, Juliette nodded. Sierra was right. What this footage proved was that Daisy had been heading to the rendezvous point and had clearly gotten almost all the way there, out of sight of the second camera, before she was taken.

Either this had been an extremely lucky coincidence, or someone had kept stealthily out of sight while following her.

Now, it was time to find out who that someone could be.

"Let's take a look at the three people we have on the list," Juliette said.

They all sat down and opened their laptops, with phones at the ready.

Juliette started out by calling the Greek embassy.

After several rings, a woman answered the phone in Greek. Juliette greeted her in the same language, although her Greek was rusty, hoping to establish a rapport.

"Hello, my name is Juliette Hart, and I'm with the FBI task force investigating Ambassador McKay's daughter's kidnapping. I was hoping to speak with someone who can help us with some information about Don Kostaki."

"I am sorry, Agent, but Don Kostaki is no longer working here," the woman replied. She didn't sound sorry.

Juliette felt a twinge of disappointment. "Do you have any idea where he may be?"

"He stepped down from his role two days after a diplomatic incident and returned to Greece immediately. He's currently working at the embassy there," she said.

So, the incident had had repercussions for Kostaki. Thanking her, Juliette hung up. He'd been asked to leave and had returned to Greece.

But the British diplomat would surely still be in London.

Juliette called the weekend emergency number for the UK embassy, introduced herself, and was soon speaking to a brisk sounding man.

"Yes, I'm aware of that incident. I believe that Mr. Boardman had problems at the time.”

“Can you explain in more detail?” Juliette asked.

“It’s a personal issue.” Now, the man sounded worried about giving out information.

“Perspective on this will help us a lot,” she encouraged. “A personal issue is still very important for background information.”

The man sighed. “He was called into a disciplinary hearing the day after the incident. He was highly emotional and said that he’d drunk too much because he’d just heard his son had just been admitted to the hospital in Cornwall after a serious motor vehicle accident. He apologized unreservedly to us, and based on that, we gave Mr. Boardman a written misconduct warning and a month of unpaid leave to see to his son's recovery. He's down in Cornwall with his wife at this time, caring for him. We have been requesting regular updates from him," the man said kindly. "He sent one yesterday to say that he was waiting for him to be discharged after another minor operation, and another this morning to say that the boy had a good night and is now on the road to recovery."

"Thank you," Juliette said. “This has been very helpful.”

It was clear that Boardman, too, had not been in London and had been caring for his son in the south of England.

But what about the ex-aide, Thomas Collins?

He was no longer with the embassy and that meant they'd have to go to his place of residence to ask him the questions.

---