Blood Runs Cold_A completely unputdownable mystery and suspense thriller

by Dylan Young

  Szandra shrugged. ‘Not always, but we can usually get some information. I can’t do it here but I will get back to… Ryia, is it?’

  Khosa nodded. She stood to walk Varga out.

  Anna said, ‘Thanks, Szandra. You’ve been a great help and I appreciate you have a heavy workload. But I’d also appreciate it if you gave this some urgent attention.’

  Varga nodded and smiled. She understood. She’d heard it all before. And Anna sensed that hidden in that sanguine smile was a wariness that held no promises.

  * * *

  ‘Did any of that help actually help us with Rosie?’ Holder asked when Khosa came back into the room.

  Anna shrugged, ‘Only that we now know he’s computer literate and smart at covering his tracks.’

  Woakes, who had been quiet throughout the whole of Varga’s presentation, finally spoke. ‘So he’s bright. Like a doctor would be, for instance. And didn’t Hawley have his laptop in pieces when we called?’

  ‘He did,’ Anna said.

  ‘Therefore it would be a good idea to look at his laptop, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Anna said. ‘But this image is years old. We wouldn’t get a search warrant based on what we have and I, for one, do not want to start fending off a harassment accusation.’

  Woakes leaned forwards, both hands on the desk. ‘He might be sitting at home in his little Wendy house right now laughing his tits off.’

  Anna thought about reacting but bit her tongue. It was well after five by now. ‘Right, let’s call it a day. I’m sure we all have homes to go to. We’ll pick this up in the morning.’

  * * *

  Anna threw her body around a CrossFit circuit in the gym for an hour after work and let the day’s events simmer. They were no nearer to finding out anything else about Rosie Dawson but she’d learned a lot since getting out of her own bed that morning. Mainly that Woakes was a liability and seemed to have brought a lot more baggage with him than anyone had warned her about. In fact, there’d been no warning at all. Rainsford’s only handover information had been that Woakes had come to them from Leicester. He hadn’t actually said why. And they’d needed the help. Twelve months ago she’d been Woakes, a detective sergeant with a senior detective chief inspector running the team, and Holder as the detective constable beneath her. But DCI Shipwright’s ill health had opened the door for her promotion. Woakes was meant to bolster a depleted team. So far, he’d not only forgotten that there was no ‘I’ in team, he’d added a couple more.

  * * *

  Back in her Horfield flat, Anna ate some pasta and sipped her one glass of wine, pondering if doing this alone every night was the best that life could offer. Kate didn’t think so and her mother certainly did not. But did she pine? No. And despite Kate’s description of his backside, the thought of Woakes sharing this with her did absolutely nothing to her juices. And then Ben Hawley was there in his T-shirt with that surprised, hurt look on his face. She quashed the thought. There were well-established codes for maintaining professional boundaries and standards when it came to witnesses or victims. Vulnerability was always present and the power imbalance easy to abuse.

  But that didn’t stop her thinking about Hawley and what he’d been put through. Was that pity or something else altogether? Anna shrugged. He’d had a great deal of time to think about Rosie. Much more time than she or Woakes had. And his theories might all be simply nothing more than wool-gathering, unhealthy preoccupation or, if Woakes was to be believed, the arrogant mind-games of a perpetrator gloating over his triumphs.

  Anna became aware of an itch she couldn’t reach on the inside of her skull. Like a parasitic worm trying to burrow its way out. She didn’t like it, but she’d learned to trust it because it held all the pieces that would make up the pattern that was beginning to form around Rosie’s photograph with the PPV caption. They floated in front of her now, those pieces. Disconnected points that somehow remained all part of the same jigsaw:

  Rosie’s discarded bones on the path in Charterhouse.

  The conviction she held that in Rosie’s case, the killer had intimate local knowledge.

  The certainty, given Varga’s assessment, that they were dealing with a skilled, clever predator.

  She needed that one extra link, the something that might begin to make the picture whole. But where the hell was it going to come from?

  Twenty

  Wednesday

  Wednesday morning at HQ and the burrowing worm still gnawed in Anna’s head. The visit from Varga the previous afternoon had been interesting but frustratingly unhelpful. Yet, Anna sensed that her input in this case was vital. Unable to quell the urge, she rang Varga’s number.

  ‘Inspector Gwynne?’ Varga answered immediately. It sounded like she was walking.

  ‘I know I’m pestering but—’

  ‘I am in reception. I will be with you in five minutes. I have news of your image.’

  Varga breezed in, sat again at Khosa’s desk and got down to it with no fuss. Anna liked that about her. A lot.

  ‘Europol is very efficient. Seized data is an excellent way to generate new leads in any type of internet-related crime. The image you found came from a Belgian investigation which led to forty arrests. The image was buried in a chat room posting. The date of the posting is May 2009. The twenty-fourth to be precise. That is nearly a year after Rosie Dawson went missing.’

  No one spoke. Varga told a great story.

  ‘It looks as though the post was deleted, but another user had responded to the post and so the image was preserved on that user’s timeline.’

  ‘What did the user say?’

  ‘It is an irrelevance. All that is important is that this other user may have been not as careful as he should have in deleting his posts. The forum was on a site known to be a paedophile haunt. This one was called Littlefeet.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Woakes shook his head.

  ‘The bad news is,’ Varga continued, ‘that the site has long ago been taken down. The urls change all the time. But Littlefeet was not a deep level forum. None of the images from it were classed as severe. Some simple photographs of children. Clothed, taken in play areas or swimming baths with captions from the posters.’

  ‘What are you saying here, Szandra?’ Anna said.

  ‘I think that this image is nothing more than an advertisement. A sample to entice people into a deeper layer of the Dark Web. Those that could.’

  ‘Can you get in there?’

  ‘We don’t know where there is.’

  ‘What sort of sites are we talking about here?’

  Varga held Anna’s gaze. ‘I am not an expert. I am a technician but my work inevitably brings me into contact. If you want real details you would need to talk to the CAIT in Weston.’

  Anna knew about the Child Abuse Investigation Team. But she sensed that Varga was holding back.

  ‘We will, but tell us what you know.’

  Varga sighed. ‘I work in digital forensics, but we are part of a multidisciplinary team. Operational support, digital investigations and ICAT, the Internet Child Abuse Team. I spend a lot of time with them as colleagues. We all have counselling about the images we see. We talk all the time, obviously. So, I know that even in the depraved world of child pornography there are some rules. Deliberate harm is generally frowned upon, although I realise that those two words are a matter of semantics. We know, though, that despite this, all tastes are catered for.’

  Something opened up inside Anna. A dark hole into which her insides seemed to fall. The squad fell silent for several seconds as the impact of Varga’s words sank in.

  ‘OK,’ said Holder. ‘So how does that help us with Rosie Dawson?’

  ‘We can get Szandra to keep looking for photos of Rosie in these chat rooms,’ Khosa said. ‘There must be others besides Littlefeet.’

  ‘And add in the others from Hawley’s list maybe?’ Holder offered.

  ‘I can speak to someone in ICAT. But I know they are busy after last
week’s seizures.’ Varga shrugged.

  Holder said, ‘Yeah, I read about the raids. Ten addresses, wasn’t it?’

  Varga nodded. ‘And a dozen computer hard discs to analyze. I will try but I think it will take some time.’

  ‘How much time?’ Anna said and heard the frustration in her own voice.

  ‘Here our local resources are…’ Varga’s hands fluttered ineffectually.

  ‘Stretched. Yeah, we’ve heard it all before.’ Woakes looked suitably miffed. ‘Christ, it’s a wonder we catch any of these bastards.’

  Varga did not look offended. She had either chosen not to accept the challenge of Woakes’ cheap shot, or she hadn’t fully understood it. Anna didn’t care either way. Varga was good value.

  ‘There are several ways we do catch these… bastards,’ Varga said, looking directly at Woakes. ‘Seized data, as happened with the Belgian police raid. Following money, real money, credit card records and larger cryptocurrency transactions, we already discussed. Blockchain analysis does exist but only large organisations like the IRS can do this and they are only interested in money laundering. Large amounts. Small transactions remain completely under the radar. Your best option is source information, such as on discussion boards as I have demonstrated.’

  Woakes frowned.

  Varga said, ‘People leave digital breadcrumbs if they are not very, very careful.’ She pointed at Rosie’s image. ‘Like this preserved image in the chat room. And then there is mass surveillance, though intercepted information is not admissible in the UK. And then there are the covert operations. The traps. Pretending to be someone else online is much easier than going undercover. Covert operations are not usually run locally. Usually CEOP—’

  ‘Remind me,’ Khosa said.

  ‘The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command is part of the National Crime Agency. They might be able to help. But you need to remember that the Dark Web is vast and we have no idea what we are looking for.’

  ‘That’s not very encouraging, Szandra, but I could listen to you all day,’ Holder said.

  Varga’s eyebrows went up but she looked pleased.

  Anna nodded. ‘Szandra, this is extremely useful. I’ll get a formal action written up for you guys to look at Rosie’s image for us. And one of us needs to speak to CAIT.’

  ‘I look forward to it,’ Varga said and handed her report over to Anna.

  * * *

  ‘Bloody geeks,’ Woakes said when she’d gone.

  ‘Bloody geeks often get us the answers we need,’ Anna replied. She waited for Woakes to come up with the suggestion she expected him to, but all he did was turn back to his screen.

  What they had not investigated Hawley for was any evidence of cryptocurrency transactions. Anna felt sure Woakes would suggest this the instant Varga had said it. But clearly it sailed over his head. She filed it away for now and kept staring at the point in space where Woakes’ face had just been. The burrowing worm nudged against the inside of her skull. A different idea stimulating it. Their own Hi-Tech squad was stretched and all they had was one image. Searching for more links to Rosie was going to take time. But what about other areas where resources were being thrown at an all-guns-blazing investigation?

  Anna went back to her office, an idea taking shape in her head. She got Trisha to put her through to someone on the investigating team in Edinburgh. Police Scotland had different ways of doing things, and Blair Smeaton’s abduction, still eminent in the press, would be coordinated by a POLSA, as with every other force in the country. But for what she wanted, Anna decided on the liaison at the National Child Abuse Investigation Unit who’d been drafted in to help the Edinburgh team. A sergeant by the name of Julie Danaher.

  ‘DS Danaher.’

  ‘Hi. This is DI Anna Gwynne with the MCRTF at Avon and Somerset. We’re in the middle of reviewing a cold case. The abduction and murder of Rosie Dawson nine years ago. Something’s come up which may be of interest to you.’

  ‘Fire away,’ said Danaher. It took Anna a moment to work out what was incongruous, but then realised that Danaher had a Northern Irish accent.

  In the background, Anna heard Danaher issuing muted orders, her hand over the mouthpiece of her phone, not quite obscuring everything.

  ‘You’re busy,’ Anna said.

  ‘Mad.’

  ‘OK, I’ll be brief. I’m not sure if this is going to be of any help at all, but we’ve been looking at any links between abductions across the country. Specifically, girls aged between nine and twelve.’

  ‘So have we, ma’am. HOLMES has flagged them up.’

  ‘Then you’ll have Rosie included.’

  ‘Probably, ma’am,’ Danaher said. She sounded tired. No doubt wondering where all this might be leading.

  Anna said, ‘We’ve reopened our case because of some new information. Europol found an image on a site during one of their big raids. Turns out it’s an image of Rosie taken while she was in captivity. We’ve had input from our digital forensic unit and they tell us that the site they found her on was probably linked to other sites where other images might be for sale. I take it you’ve not found anything?’

  ‘I don’t think we’ve looked. We’ve been concentrating on searches and physical evidence.’

  ‘Obviously. And I know that would be your priority. But it might be worth your ICAT guys having a peek.’

  Danaher sounded surprised. ‘OK. But do you honestly think there’s a link between your case and ours?’

  Anna paused. She still hadn’t made her mind up about Hawley. But if there was the smallest chance that he was right and that there was a grain of truth in his theory, then she had a duty to spell it out.

  ‘We’re fishing for links, just like you are. Someone has pointed out that in a few cases, the victims all had medical histories. It’s pretty thin but—’

  Danaher came back right away. ‘You can take Blair off that list. She’s well. No issues, apart from the hearing problem.’

  ‘Hearing?’

  ‘She wears a hearing aid. Left ear. Recurrent otitis media. It’s in every school photograph.’

  ‘And do you have any leads?’

  ‘No.’ Danaher’s tone stayed flat. ‘Brick wall. Family’s in pieces as you can imagine. The sister worst of all because she was with her. All we know is that he’s white, no distinguishing features and he wore some kind of uniform. Probably nothing official, but enough to fool the girls.’

  ‘CCTV?’

  ‘Partial of a white van. No plates.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘No go. Hat and sunglasses. The sister got hit by a stun gun and that shook her up. We’re still working with her on a description. Accent not local. Height average or above, we think.’

  Big enough to carry a small child in a rucksack, then.

  ‘Anything else?’ Danaher asked after a few beats of silence.

  ‘No. I only wanted to check if your ICAT were involved and to give you a heads up. It’s a stretch, I know, but it might be worth them having a quick trawl through known paedophile forums looking for images.’

  ‘But won’t that take forever?’ Danaher’s voice was weary.

  ‘No. Not if they limit the search parameters to the time since Blair was missing.’

  There was a pause as Danaher absorbed this. ‘No, of course.’ She sounded suddenly awake.

  ‘I’ll get Varga’s contact details over to you. Let your ICAT people talk to her directly.’

  Danaher rang off.

  When Anna went back into the squad room, empty apart from Trisha, she asked her to get Varga’s contact details up to Sergeant Danaher. It wasn’t much, but it was something. If it helped Blair, all well and good. And it didn’t do any harm to know that someone else was looking.

  Twenty-One

  Woakes met with DCI Sutton from Thames Valley Major Crimes Investigation Team at the HQ in Kidlington. Sutton, losing a battle with his sizeable paunch, in short sleeves and tanned from weekend sailing, was affable eno
ugh and gave Woakes some tea as they sat in his office: a box decorated with Post-it notes and tacked-up bits of paper bearing flow charts and graphs. He remembered Rosie Dawson alright. Who wouldn’t?

  Woakes had already spent a fruitless morning talking with the Avon and Somerset CAIT. They knew all about Rosie but had nothing new to contribute, as he knew they wouldn’t. There’d been no evidence that Rosie or anyone in the family had any links to pornography but they did provide him with a list of known sex offenders who lived in the area at the time of Rosie’s abduction. They also implied that every one of them had been thoroughly looked at.

  Sutton, on the other hand, talked about how the investigation had faltered because of lack of evidence, and he walked Woakes through the months after her disappearance up until the bones were found. Though interested to hear that the MCRTF were looking again, he was not optimistic.

  ‘Best of luck. We spent thousands of man hours and came up with bugger all. I can’t tell you the number of times I walked through that park in Clevedon. We traced just about every red van in the south-west and came up blank. The post office almost took us to court. We must have spoken to every postie in Bristol with a bloody van. And everyone who bought a decommissioned one and stuck white doors on the back. It was the one definite piece of evidence we had. And now you say they’ve found images?’ Sutton shook his head.

  Woakes nodded. ‘Looks like he kept her somewhere. A basement most likely.’

  Sutton’s grizzled face hardened. ‘Is Shipwright still running that unit? Ted’s a good man.’

  Woakes shrugged. ‘Nah, it’s a DI, me and two DCs. The DI is newly promoted though. Bit of an ice queen, you know.’