Lexi tried to push away the feelings that statement brought up for her, its unspoken implications. ‘Uh, you said you have a new suspect?’
Dan cleared his throat. ‘Yup. I’m keeping an eye on Cooper now because he came up in connection with our third victim, Jordan Hennessey. And my gut tells me there’s something off about him. But Burrows wouldn’t approve surveillance, so here I am, outside his flat, freezing my balls off.’
‘What a lovely image.’
Dan grunted a laugh. ‘Anyway, our main suspect is a guy called Kieran Meade.’
‘The charity worker.’
‘That’s it. We’re looking for him right now.’ Dan ran through their evidence against him. She was pleased he seemed to be using her profile. She just hoped it was on point. As he was speaking, the bus pulled in and Lexi raised her mask and hopped on as the doors hissed open.
‘Why don’t you come in tomorrow?’ he said. ‘I’ll run you through it in more detail.’
‘Sure.’ Lexi tapped her card on the reader and made her way to the rear of the bus. ‘I’ve got a full day in the clinic, but I can come by after that. Like, five thirty?’
‘Great. And there’s something else. I might’ve solved the mystery of our crime scenes.’
Lexi recalled the churches, their cleanliness and lack of forensic evidence. ‘You mean where the murders took place?’ she blurted. A large woman two rows in front turned around and stared at her. Lexi shrank into her seat.
‘Yup. And where he prepared the bodies and moved them without leaving any evidence.’
‘Go on,’ she said quietly.
‘I reckon he’s using a van, and that’s why we can’t find a crime scene for the murders. Because it’s inside a vehicle. You remember what you said about it?’
‘A private place,’ she whispered, ‘where he has control, but not so isolated that a kid would get creeped out going there.’
‘Right. So, the private place could be the van. Or, more likely, the back of it…’
‘Of course. Especially if it’s a vehicle they recognise from somewhere, like the charity. He lures them in, maybe with the promise of something, and then…’ she tailed off.
‘We find that van,’ he said. ‘We find our crime scene. And our killer.’
Seventy-Nine
After six hours of searching for Kieran Meade with sod all to show for her efforts, Smith had decided to give it a rest for the night. She’d left Khan and Richards watching Meade’s home address, while Parsons had drawn the short straw of a lone vigil outside the offices of Youth Rise Up. She knew the guvnor was hedging his bets by keeping an eye on Eric Cooper, solo, while Guptill had been given her first night off in a week. Smith had passed up on Lockhart’s suggestion that she head off and get some kip, though. She still had work to do.
She was back out in the common land around Barnes railway station that was the last known active location for Charley Mullins’s mobile handset, nearly two weeks ago, now. Smith had her own phone out, its metal detector app up on the screen, as she combed the undergrowth for any sign of the device. In her ‘different’ hand, she was gripping a mini Maglite – for all the good that was doing, its little beam virtually swallowed up by the darkness.
This was her fourth trip out to the strangely isolated pocket of woodland, slap bang in the middle of one of London’s most exclusive postcodes. The thought had occurred to her more than once in the past minute – as it had done every minute since she’d arrived here – that this was a kind of madness. Scrabbling around in pitch-black, wet vegetation at the side of a road, freezing her ovaries off, looking for the proverbial needle in a bloody haystack.
But something was keeping her going.
Or, at least, it was until her foot slipped on a raised tree root. Smith’s leg slid uncontrollably away from her. Suddenly, she was fighting to keep her balance. Instinctively, she thrust out her left hand to catch herself, dropping her torch, but it was too late. She crashed sideways into a bush, its hard branches and twigs jabbing into her ribs and leg. At least there was no one around to be offended by the torrent of profanity she unleashed.
Smith caught her breath and, after the pain had subsided, levered herself back into a sitting position, ready to stand again. Then the sound came from her right hand.
Boop.
She peered into the darkness beside her, but couldn’t see anything. Moved the phone again, sweeping it over the little patch of scrubby ground.
Boop.
Smith fumbled for her torch and shone it where she was holding her phone. She could scarcely believe what she was looking at. Under the bush, poking out of a thick clump of leaves, its hard, sleek lines unmistakable against the plants, was a smartphone.
Thursday
21st January
Eighty
Paige Bradley had been so excited last night that it’d taken her ages to get to sleep. And she’d woken up even earlier than usual this morning. After a quick shower, she got into her school uniform and put an extra set of clothes into her rucksack. She’d need jeans and a sweater for what she was doing later. She didn’t really care though if she ended up freezing cold, because today she was finally getting to do something she’d been dreaming about for years.
Riding a horse!
In the living room, Paige found her mum over by the little kitchen area. She had a dressing gown on, and her hair was up in a bun. She was standing over the toaster, staring into it. She looked exhausted. Maybe a bit cross too, although Paige knew that wasn’t her fault because she hadn’t done anything wrong. Not yet…
Obviously, she wasn’t supposed to go off somewhere without telling Mum, but she did it half the time anyway, like when Mum had her men friends round to the flat and told Paige to go out and play or get some dinner. Besides, it was a condition of riding the horse, the man said. And if she told Mum now, it’d spoil the surprise for later. Paige could hardly contain herself. She really wanted to tell Mum about it, and the more she tried not to, the funnier it seemed.
‘D’you want some toast, love?’ her mum said.
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah what?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘That’s the one. Peanut butter?’
‘And jam.’
‘All right.’ Her mum took a slurp of tea and reached into the cupboard for the jar.
Paige imagined her mum’s face when she found out that Paige had ridden a horse, and then she couldn’t hold it anymore. She burst out laughing.
Her mum spun round and Paige’s hand flew up to her mouth.
‘What you laughin’ at?’ asked Mum.
‘Nothing.’
Mum stared at her for a moment, then shook her head and turned back to the toaster. ‘Get yourself a glass of milk if you want. We’ve run out of juice.’
‘OK.’ Paige got up and went to the fridge.
‘I’ve got someone coming round, later,’ said Mum.
‘Is it your friend who’s always here on a Thursday?’
Mum nodded. ‘And you know how he is sometimes.’
Angry, Paige thought. But she didn’t say it.
‘So, I don’t want you being around, yeah?’ added Mum.
‘I know.’ Paige took out the milk bottle. There wasn’t much left in it. She unscrewed the lid. It smelled a bit funny.
‘Oh, love. I didn’t mean it like that.’ Mum put an arm around her. ‘I do want you around, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I always want you around. It’s just sometimes friends have private conversations.’
Paige understood that. It was just like the man had said while they were eating their pizzas together the other day.
‘It’s OK,’ she replied, screwing the lid back onto the milk and replacing it in the fridge without taking any. ‘I’ve got hockey after school today anyway.’
‘Aw, that’s nice.’ The toast popped up and Mum plucked it from the toaster and dropped it on her plate. She pointed the knife at Paige’s
bag. ‘You got your kit, then?’
‘Yes, Mum.’ That wasn’t completely a lie. She did have kit in her bag. Horse-riding kit. The man had said she should miss the after-school club and go straight to meet him. That he wouldn’t tell anyone if she wouldn’t. It’d be their secret.
‘Well, have a lovely time, eh?’
‘Thanks, Mum.’ Paige stifled another giggle. ‘I will.’
Eighty-One
Lucy Berry had spent most of her morning scouring data connected to Kieran Meade. She’d requested location analysis and call records for his mobile – which was currently switched off, according to the network provider – and compiled a list of vulnerable children whose records he’d created or accessed while working at Richmond Social Services. She was trying not to think about the possibility that any one of them might be his next victim.
Lucy knew that the team had an arrest warrant for Meade, signed by a magistrate, and it was just a question of finding him now. She didn’t imagine that would take long; it was hard to stay hidden these days, particularly in London. In the meantime, though, she’d do whatever she could to help bring him in. She glanced across to the Op Paxford whiteboards, where Meade’s portrait from the Youth Rise Up website now sat dead in the centre of a grim triangle whose corners were formed by photographs of Donovan, Charley, and Jordan.
When she looked back to her computer screen, she saw that a new email had landed in her Gmail inbox. It was from Marshall Hanlon, and the subject line simply read: Results.
Lucy checked around her to make sure no one was observing, then clicked into the message and read:
Hey Lucy,
Looks like the extra data you sent was the missing link for my algorithm. Check it out! (attached PyOD output + code)
Let’s chat to see what you’re happy for me to publish – I can give you an author credit on the paper if you like?
And would be cool to know what happens with this person. My uni dept. is always big on recording ‘real world’ impact…
Cheers,
Marshall
Her stomach lurched as she read the line about publication, recalling that he wasn’t even supposed to have that Social Services data in the first place, that she’d supplied it to him without permission. But her heart was also thumping at the prospect of seeing what he’d found. She gave a final surreptitious check over her shoulder, and opened the attached file. Lucy ignored the chunk of code and the graphs of clustered, coloured dots and went straight to the interpretation. She sucked in a breath as she saw what Marshall had discovered. And what he meant by what happens with this person.
Marshall’s initial study had identified an unexpected number of missing children who shared demographic characteristics. Now, it was clear from his new analysis that one name in the Social Services records connected those children. And Lucy Berry recognised it because it was on their Op Paxford board. Someone who had barely registered on their radar. But whose job it was to look after vulnerable children.
Whatever Marshall’s motivation for working on this project, Lucy trusted his ability to code and assess the data correctly. And she had faith in the output. Which meant that she wasn’t going to stop now. She’d already crossed one line, so it probably didn’t make much difference if she crossed another. Especially if it could show whether this individual was really – as Marshall’s findings indicated – at the centre of a web of missing children in south-west London, stretching back a long time.
If she was caught, it might be the end of her career. But that was a risk she’d run once this week, and deemed worth it to circumvent the bureaucracy, get justice for those missing children, and potentially protect others. So, she took the logical next step: a financial trace request on the individual concerned. If this person had been profiting from the disappearance of children, an obvious place to look was in their bank account. She’d hidden her initial enquiry into Social Services under Op Paxford, so why not this one, too?
Twenty minutes later she had the form filled out. She pinged it to Dan, then walked over to his desk. He was on the phone, but noticed her approach and swivelled in his chair, holding up an index finger to show he wouldn’t be a minute.
‘All right, appreciate it,’ he said, and hung up. ‘ANPR hit on the Youth Rise Up van earlier today,’ he told her while massaging his forehead. ‘Just trying to follow up to see where the hell it went. We’ve got to assume Meade’s behind the wheel, but God knows what he’s up to.’
‘Um, I’ve just sent you an email,’ she said.
‘OK.’ His expression of curiosity indicated she should elaborate.
‘It’s just, I wondered if you could take a quick look at it now,’ Lucy added.
Dan glanced at his watch. ‘I’m supposed to meet Porter downstairs at half past to update our media strategy.’ He pulled a face that showed what he thought of that particular task.
‘It’ll only take a minute.’ She waited as he located it at the top of his inbox. ‘It’s about the missing children.’
‘Really?’ He arched his eyebrows, then opened the message and scanned its heading. ‘Financial trace?’
‘Yup. And if you open it, you’ll see who it’s for.’
Dan double-clicked and brought up the form. ‘Christ,’ he exclaimed, turning to her. ‘How’d you find this?’
Lucy broke eye contact. ‘Just lots of searching,’ she mumbled. ‘I got lucky.’
He pressed his lips together and looked at her in silence for what felt like ages.
‘I wouldn’t ask for this if I wasn’t ninety-nine per cent confident it was right,’ she added.
‘Not a hundred per cent?’
‘That’s not statistically possible, in this instance.’
Dan blinked. Then he nodded once, spun back to the screen, added his signature at the bottom, then saved it and attached it to a reply to her. He was already on his feet as he pressed the send button before grabbing his laptop, notebook and pen.
‘There you go,’ he said.
‘Thank you, Dan.’ Lucy felt herself reddening.
‘Let me know what you find.’
‘Will do.’
She watched him stride across the office. He was almost at the door before Smith shouted.
‘Guv!’
Dan froze. At a set of desks in the centre of the room, Max was standing behind Mo Khan.
‘We’ve just got the download from Charley Mullins’s phone,’ she called across to him. ‘And you’re going to want to take a look at it.’
Within seconds, he was over at the desk. Half of MIT 8, including Lucy, was crowded around Mo’s screen.
‘Porter can wait,’ Dan said. ‘Show me what you’ve got.’
Eighty-Two
Lexi was pedalling hard against the cold, damp night, cycling as fast as she could to keep warm. She’d finished up at the clinic as soon as possible after her last patient had gone home, leaving her usual pile of paperwork and computer notes for the following morning. It had been another tough day at the clinic and, although she’d made really good progress with a couple of clients, she was still drained. Lexi knew it was because her emotional reserves were generally pretty low right now.
Despite that, she did feel a little better because of a decision she’d made today. She had gone ahead and bought a plane ticket for Sunday to go see her dad. The flight to Connecticut via D.C. had cost almost a thousand pounds that Lexi sure as hell didn’t have, but she was past caring about that. Being near her dad was more important than her bank balance. And she wasn’t going to let him play down his condition anymore.
After seeing how bad his health was on their last call, she’d thought about flying even sooner. But, when you were responsible for a caseload of patients in the NHS, you couldn’t just up and leave. She’d already started making arrangements to cover her work while she was away for a couple weeks. She’d do some sessions by video or voice call from the US, postpone a few clients until she got back, and hand the most severe and riskiest ones over
to her colleagues to cover in case of emergencies.
Travelling on Sunday would also give her a little extra time to help Dan with the case before she went away and, perhaps, more chance to make a difference. At least on this case Dan seemed to be using her offender and victim profiles to help guide his investigation, rather than totally ignoring them as he had done in the past.
But, as soon as Tim had come into the picture, she’d had the feeling that Dan hadn’t shared everything with her. That he hadn’t been completely open and honest, as he had been in their previous cases. Maybe there were good reasons for that – Lexi dealt with confidentiality and disclosure issues all the time in her work – but it still hurt. She wondered briefly about that reaction. Would she have had the same response if it’d been another member of the MIT shutting her out?
Despite Dan still searching for his wife, and Lexi being in a relationship, she couldn’t ignore the fact that she felt something for him. She always knew it at some level, but after she’d discovered Tim’s drug use and argued with him last night, a feeling had crystallised for her. Maybe Tim wasn’t the man she needed in her life. And Lexi knew it was ridiculous, but she almost felt as though there was something symbolic about Dan inviting her back inside the building. Telling her that he needed her. Had he only been talking about the case? Or was she being stupid to imagine there was anything beyond that?
In more concrete terms, though, Dan’s invitation also meant that Tim was in the clear, now. In fact, Dan had said as much on the phone. What kind of fucked-up situation was it when she was happy to find out that her boyfriend was only a secret, habitual user of Class A drugs, rather than a serial murderer of children? Jeez, way to pick ’em, Lexi, she thought as she cycled on. She almost smiled at the absurdity of it, although the situation with Tim was still on her mind.
Lost Souls Page 28
