by Salkeld, J J
The investigation had been split into its main elements the day before, and each officer-in-charge briefed Hall and the group. Door-to-door had generated nothing so far, and last night’s evening dog walkers had been canvassed too, again without success. They agreed to try again that evening.
CCTV had already picked up Amy’s car twice, and established that she was driving through town at 8.10pm. A couple of beat officers were calling at garages, pubs and shops to try to pick up additional coverage. Mann mentioned that they should look at the cars after Amy’s, perhaps the next dozen or so, and it was agreed that these would be checked.
The press officer from HQ, a former copper called Ray Hardy, and said that the first public appeals had aired last night, and the officer looking at the call-sheets just shook her head when Hall asked if there was anything interesting.
Hall knew that he needed to set the tone for the meeting, so he worked hard to keep his comments positive, and he thanked each person briefly when they made their contribution. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Robinson nodding slightly when he did so.
One of the old sweat DCs, Ray Dixon, had been through the list of local sex offenders, and anyone caught up to anything in Serpentine Woods. ‘We found a biggish haul of drugs up there last year, or rather someone’s pet Basset did, but otherwise nothing recent that could tie in. We had a flasher reported a couple of times, but that was years ago. And I’m working my way through the pervs parade: we’ve got half a dozen with an interest in young girls locally, and they’ve all been spoken too. All have alibis of sorts, but some are pretty thin. But then they do tend to live on their own.’
That raised a couple of wry smiles. ‘Stay with it’ said Hall, ‘can you talk to all of them yourself, and see what you can do to eliminate them? We’re not ruling out a sexual motive, so Ian, would you mind helping out?’
Mann didn’t look overjoyed, but nodded acceptance. So how about Amy’s laptop and phone asked Hall? A couple of civilian techies from HQ were tucked away in an office recovering everything they could, and reporting to a DC called Jane Francis, who’d only joined from Manchester a month or two before. But she’d worked drugs and vice before, and was used to mobile phone records and paper trails. So Mann had put her onto this aspect. Hall had only spoken to her briefly since she’d arrived, but his initial impression was that she was bright and hard working.
‘No luck when we pinged it, but we’ll keep trying obviously. They’re still working on the hard drive on Amy’s laptop’ said Jane, ‘but as you’d expect there’s literally hundreds, probably thousands, of recent texts, emails and social messaging contacts on her phone. Fewer calls though, probably less than 100 in the last month. But it’s going to take weeks for me to get through them all, because at a quick skim there’s nothing saying ‘meet me at the woods tonight’ or anything like that.’
Hall just started to feel annoyed: that sounded like a whinge to him. But that was just a flicker, because he also realised that he’d messed up and under-resourced the job. He knew well enough from watching from his own kids that they used all those media far more than someone his age.
‘OK Jane’ he said. ‘Tell you what, let’s get together in my office straight after this meeting and try to crack on with everything from last weekend together. This really is absolutely top priority. We all know that kids live their lives on these things now. And have you given the techies keywords to search for on the laptop?’
Jane shook her head. Hall suggested a few obvious ones, like ‘Serpentine Woods’ and then asked for other suggestions. Normally a few jokes would have been guaranteed at this point, but today that didn’t happen. Then Hall invited questions, comments and ideas. They talked around a couple of minor issues, then the meeting broke up.
Robinson looked pleased enough Hall thought, even though they’d made very modest progress. But good procedure makes for good outcomes, or so they said on all the courses. And Hall certainly hoped that was true in this case.
DC Ray Dixon was a career policeman in the sense that he had 28 years in, and had been counting down to his pension since he’d barely done 15. And while that wasn’t unusual in itself, it was still earlier than most to begin counting the days.
So as Dixon took Mann through his notes of yesterday’s enquiries Mann wasn’t surprised at what he saw. Solid enough work, intelligent even, but not what you’d call a day of really solid graft. Especially with a young girl lying stone cold on the slab.
Nevertheless, Dixon had eliminated four of their registered sex offenders who had the kind of offending history that might even remotely suggest a possible sex attack on a teenage girl, and that left two possibles. Both lived within a ten minute walk of Serpentine Woods, although the same could be said of half the town’s population, and both said they’d been in, alone, on Wednesday night doing the usual: drinking cheap lager and watching shit on TV. Dixon had already been to see both men.
‘What were your impressions Ray?’
‘Well obviously they’re both lying scumbags Sarge, but I can’t say either struck me as any more nervous than they usually are when one of us comes knocking at the door.’ But Dixon had been a copper more than long enough to know that instincts weren’t always to be followed, even with donkeys years in, and he half remembered going on a course when some university type said as much. So he added, ‘but of course that proves nowt, does it?’
‘Ok, let’s pop round and have another word. I expect they’ll both be home?’
‘I expect so Sarge’ said Dixon drily. He sincerely doubted that either man was ever out of bed much before noon anyway.
Andy Hall’s initial impression of Jane Francis’ work was very different. He knew that she’d had a different job for years before she’d joined the force, as a research scientist if he remembered rightly. She might even have a PhD. And her work so far had been fantastically systematic and thorough, if just a little short on common sense.
They sat side-by-side at his small meeting table, so they could both see her laptop screen. For some reason he didn’t get up and go to his desk to grab his reading glasses, and Jane showed him how she’d begun to tabulate and cross-reference every phone number called, and every text message sent and received.
‘I just imported it straight into Excel, so we don’t have to worry about any transcription errors. Where we know who the numbers belong to I’ve added the details, and here’s a table of the numbers ranked in order of frequency.’
Hall scanned the list. A couple of Amy’s friends were at the top, then her dad, then another couple of her friends. Hall scanned the list until he found Amy’s mum, quite a bit further down. ‘She doesn’t seem to have texted her mum much.’
‘Maybe they used social networks, because women of that age are more likely to use them than men I expect. And if she mainly stayed with her mum then she’d need to text less anyway.’
Hall nodded. ‘What are these numbers with no names attached?’
‘Pay-as-you-go SIM cards and numbers. We’ll be able to find out where and when they were sold, and where and when they’ve been used, but that’s about it.’
‘There aren’t very many. I thought kids used those all the time.’
‘Not any more, certainly the better off ones. The parents buy them phones with contracts these days.’
‘Can you just show the calls that Amy made and received on Wednesday please, ordered by time received, with the last on the top?’
It seemed like the table was up before he’d finished the question. ‘The last two are from and then to a pay-as-you-go number’ said Jane, ‘all voice, not texts. They’re very short too look, both well under a minute. And earlier on in the evening there are a couple of calls to another number.’
‘That’s a shame’ said Hall. He thought about what he’d seen for a moment. ‘How long before you’ll have the data from Amy’s computer?’
‘Sometime today apparently. But shouldn’t those techies be at school?’
Hall kn
ew what she meant, and tried to guess Francis’s age. At least ten or a dozen years younger than him, but still probably at least ten years older than the whizz-kids from tech support. ‘Tell you what’ he said. ‘Until thewunderkind give you something else to work with why not focus on these pay-as-you-go numbers? Try to find out everything you can about them.’
Jane started to fold down the laptop screen, but Hall held out a hand to stop her. ‘And one other thing before you go. Have you already checked how often Amy had received calls from that last number before? That might give us an idea if it’s a friend who we can quickly eliminate.’
‘No, I hadn’t thought of that boss. Sorry, I’ll do it now.’ In a few seconds they were both looking at another table. ‘Now that is interesting’ she said. ‘Amy has had that phone for nearly a year, and it’s the first time that one of those numbers has ever appeared, and it’s the last one. The other one has appeared twenty-odd times, but only in the last few weeks.’
‘Now can you tell me how many texts or calls Amy has made to both numbers?’
‘Yes. Just let me open the other spreadsheet. Looks like much the same pattern, almost twenty texts and calls to one number, and just the one call to the other, no texts at all. Shall I do a print-off with all the details for you?’
‘Yes, but I want you to concentrate on this today. Try to find out who used these phones, especially the one that only turned up on Wednesday. Are you up for that?’
‘I certainly am boss.’
‘Great. You can give us all an update at tonight’s meeting, or just call me or come and see me if you find anything that’s helpful, or even that you can’t understand.’ Somehow Hall doubted that there’d be much that Jane Francis wouldn’t understand if she put her mind to it.
Dixon had gone to the loo before they left the station, and it seemed to Mann that he’d been gone ages. But Dixon was pretty overweight, and Mann wondered if maybe he had trouble locating his belt buckle. He was smiling at the thought when Dixon returned. ‘Something funny, Sarge?’
They took Dixon’s car, and Mann soon regretted it. Andy Hall’s car was dirty on the outside, but reasonably clean, if a bit dusty and cluttered on the inside. But despite an air freshener Dixon’s car still smelt very odd. It was a cold morning, and sunny now that the sun was well up, but Mann still cracked his window open a little, and moved his feet around among the empty soft drinks cans and takeaway boxes in the footwell.
‘Sorry about the car sir, but I haven’t had a chance to clean it.’
‘Since when? 1985?’ Mann flicked through the file about their first scumbag. ‘This one doesn’t have a history of violence, does he?’
‘No, he’s a long term peeping tom and occasional flasher. Summer only I think. But he does like them young, and that’s why he made the cut. Not my choice Sarge, they got the consultant psychologist to go through all the possibles yesterday and pick out the most likely. And this bloke, Kevin Brown, was one of the turds that floated to the top in this particular toilet bowl.’
Dixon waved his hand at the street scene outside. Mann didn’t think it looked too bad at all. These were nice big inter-war council houses, most now in private hands, and some expensive cars were parked up on the street too. Dixon didn’t know what he was talking about.
As Dixon had predicted it was some time before Brown came to the door, but when he did he got them inside as fast as he could. Mann guessed that the neighbours didn’t take kindly to having Brown living on their road, and always took the arrival of CID as a sure sign that he was up to his old tricks.
The living room was pitch dark, and smelt even worse than Dixon’s car. Mann decided not to risk sitting down, but Dixon was braver. Brown turned on the main light, and sat down. He didn’t look especially nervous.
‘Like I told you, I haven’t done owt. I haven’t been out of the house, other than to walk to Iceland, for the last three or four days.’
‘Can anyone else confirm that?’ asked Mann.
‘The staff at Iceland probably remember me.’
‘Have you made any phone calls, or been online?’
‘Don’t have a computer. Don’t know how they work.’
‘Really? With your interests I’d have thought a computer would come in very handy. How about phone calls then? Have you made or received any in the last few days?’
‘Now I come to think of it my sister called a couple of night ago, about tennish. The news was just starting.’
‘Which night was it?’
‘I’m not sure. Wait a minute, that prat Cameron was on telly when she called, talking about something. I can’t stand him. So I turned over and the footy was on, and City scored while she was banging on down the phone. It was Wednesday then, must have been. Sorry, I’d forgotten.’
Well DC Dixon should have bloody well reminded you, thought Mann.
‘We will check the phone records’ said Mann. ‘What’s your phone number, and what’s your sister’s?’
The two policemen walked back to the car, and set off for the next interview. Mann just knew that it would be waste of time too.
‘How do people live like that?’ said Dixon, as they pulled away.
‘I really have no idea’ said Mann, kicking a carton under the seat with the heel of his shoe.
When he’d got home Ryan had gone straight to his room, and slept until long after it was light. He had no idea what time it was when he woke. He rolled a joint and smoked half of it slowly. He didn’t enjoy it, just wasn’t in the mood somehow. Then he took the pills out of his pocket, along with the cash, and laid it all on the bed.
Ryan sat and looked at it. Adam had never been generous before, so why would he start now? The fact that they’d never met hadn’t bothered Ryan at first, in fact he’d rather enjoyed it. He felt like he was moving into the big time, or at least away from the small time. Adam might even be an escape route from a world where neighbours only ever seemed to burgle each other.
But now Ryan wasn’t so sure, and he was beginning to see the disadvantages of the arrangement. For a start he had no idea if he could trust Adam, because it wasn’t like working with Wayne. They’d known each other since Ryan was a kid, and if either ever grassed on the other they’d never be able to set foot on the estate again. Their own families would cut them off.
Adam was different. Ryan hadn’t worried about telling what he knew to the police, partly because he didn’t know anything really, but also because he felt no bond at all with Adam. It was as if he wasn’t a real person. And now, for the first time, Ryan realised that exactly the same was true the other way round.
It was actually worse than that though. Because the more he thought about it the more Ryan wondered how much Adam knew about him. He thought back to their first contact, only a couple of months before. He’d been doing jobs for Wayne, who was a few years older than him, since Ryan had been ten or eleven. Just carrying, delivering and later a bit of dealing. It was always useful for Wayne to have a few kids on the payroll. They were easy to intimidate, and even easier to replace.
For some reason Ryan had never developed much of a taste for any of the merchandise, bar the odd joint. He found that he could even take alcohol or leave it alone too, which he knew was unusual. But then his dad had died when Ryan was small, and that had been caused by drugs and drink, so perhaps that explained it.
Most of the other kids of his generation now had serious habits, and Ryan knew that made them unreliable, as well as dishonest. So Ryan could see why Wayne had come to rely on him more and more in the last year or so, and maybe that’s why Adam had started to use him too.
But what should he do now? The money seemed like a decent gesture from Adam, but the drugs didn’t seem right somehow. It was like a pick ‘n mix from Wayne’s stock, and looked as if it had been put together with care, and that just didn’t seem like Wayne at all. If he’d had been a corporate motto it would have been, ‘we don’t care.’
So Ryan took a closer look at the gear in th
e bag. He didn’t recognise a couple of the pills at all, so he picked them up, got up and went to the loo, took a leak and chucked the pills in before he flushed.
Back in his room he took three twenties from the middle of the pile of notes, put them in his pocket and put the rest into the plastic bag with the pills. And then he put the bag of dope in too, and sealed the lot with a rubber band.
He went downstairs, got his brother’s bike and cycled to the old garage block, just a few minutes from the house. It was after 10am and there was absolutely no-one about, so Ryan pulled the bag out of his pocket and pushed it up under the eaves at one end of the block. It was a place that he’d used before, but told no-one else about. Everyone he knew was a thief, including his mum.
Ryan went home, and for the first time since he’d seen those blue lights on the M6 he started to relax just a bit. He’d keep his head down, give it a few days, and see what happened. Perhaps he was being too suspicious about Adam, but if not then Ryan was confident that he could take care of himself. Throughout his life everyone posh, and especially teachers, had underestimated Ryan Wilson. He knew that they had, and so maybe Adam had made the same mistake.