Touch (27 page)

The car drove away, Donal in the back with Davies, the detective grinning and patting Donal on the shoulder. Meanwhile Hardin was mulling things over. Maybe Mitchell
had
killed Kelly. It would solve a lot of problems, he explained. His reasoning was that in the ring of depravity comprising Mitchell’s group of rapists, Mitchell had gone one step further.

‘Anyone capable of carrying out so many attacks is surely capable of carrying out murder as well. He probably killed the Olivárez girl. Why not Kelly too?’

‘I’ll see what we can find to eliminate him, sir.’

‘No! I want you to see what you can find to evidence him.’

‘He didn’t kill Kelly, sir.’

‘Fuck it, Charlotte! He didn’t do it or you want to believe he didn’t do it? What’s got into you?’

Hardin began a rant about Savage’s obsession with the
Zebo
case, how she was wallowing in her own self-pity, wanting the agony to be prolonged, enjoying the masochism. He wanted her to face the truth. Fact, Mitchell was linked to Forester. Fact, Mitchell was a serial rapist. Fact, he was sadistic. Fact, he had the opportunity and ability.

The words washed over Savage although she realised Hardin was right about the self-pity. The loss of her daughter and the loneliness she felt with Pete being away should have had no bearing on her police work, but emotionally the whole lot were bundled up together, threads of feeling intertwined and looping back and forth until they created one huge tangle. That didn’t change the evidence though. If Mitchell was the killer then where was Forester’s Shogun, and where was Alice Nash?

‘Harry,’ she said. ‘We are looking for a man named Harry.’

Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Thursday 4th November. 1.40 pm

Sorting out the chaos created by Donal killing Mitchell had taken up most of the rest of the day and a good part of the next so it was Thursday afternoon before Savage was able to return her attention to
Zebo
. Because Savage had been present at Mitchell’s murder an inquiry had been initiated and the PIP, or Post Incident Procedure, was in full swing. Whether the matter would be dealt with internally – by Standards – or whether the IPCC would need to get involved, Savage had no idea, nor did she really care. She had done her best in the circumstances and had slept easy, knowing Donal, at least, was alive. Thank God she had persuaded Hardin that immediate suspension would be an overreaction and he had agreed she should carry on working.

Hardin was now ensconced upstairs somewhere, getting all friendly with the incident manager no doubt and trying to charm away any trouble. Sometimes Hardin was a right pain, but Savage knew he would support her all the way.

Back on
Zebo
and Savage was getting the team to focus on finding someone called Harry.

‘Nothing in our records, ma’am,’ Enders said. ‘Nothing in the statements, no witnesses with the name. Checked the Henrys as well. Nowt.’

‘Everett Mitchell also said something about this Harry liking the caring sort, whatever the caring sort means.’

‘Alice Nash,’ Calter said. ‘She is the caring sort, I mean. She works part-time at Cotton Socks Nursery in Ivybridge.’

‘What?’ The realisation hit Savage like a psychological battering ram. ‘Kelly Donal was doing an Early Childhood Studies course at the university and she had a work placement at Little Angels nursery. How did we manage to miss the connection?’

‘Alice worked as a checkout girl as well as at the nursery. The supermarket job is down as her main employment. I only remembered now because the photograph her Dad provided for the appeal was of her in her nursery uniform.’

‘Ma’am?’ Enders said. ‘This gets worse. I’ve just run the misper search again. Remember the results included a number of girls who did not match Kelly’s description?’

‘Don’t tell me...’ Savage groaned.

‘Yes. Simone Ashton. Full time job at Robins in Plympton.’

‘Ma’am?’ Calter, sounding even more tentative than Enders had. ‘Rosina Olivárez.’

‘So?’

‘Just a hunch, ma’am. Bring her up, Patrick.’

Enders switched programs and brought up the
Leash
files. Click, click and Rosina’s details flashed up on the screen. Occupation: Student. Occupation Notes: Degree in Aquaculture. Part time job at Tina’s Teds Playgroup in Mannamead.

‘Bloody hell,’ Savage said. ‘There needs to be a major review of how the data is entered and analysed. The connection was right in front of us, but the system hid the link away. Whatever, this isn’t looking good.’

‘Coincidence?’ asked Enders.

‘Possibly. If not then I sure don’t know what to think. I mean, are these girls being targeted because they are child minders?’

‘Isn’t there a fetish where men dress up as babies, complete with nappies and dummies and stuff?’ Enders said, a look of disgust on his face.

Riley came into the room carrying a pile of documents. He dumped them on a desk and nodded at Enders.

‘Paraphilic infantilism is the correct term: the desire to be treated like a toddler again. But last time I looked your average toddler wasn’t killing teenage girls, or stripping them and having sex with them.’

‘Alright Mr Fast-Track, what’s your suggestion then?’ Enders said.

‘As you guys are always telling me, I am the ebony boy from the ivory tower. What do I know about the real world?’

Touché, thought Savage.

Calter moved over from her desk to join the boys and soon the three of them were talking about fetishes, Enders arguing that if sex wasn’t in bed and the light wasn’t out then it was not for him, Riley insisting that having some kind of fetish didn’t make you mad, Calter saying she would try anything once with the right person. The conversation wasn’t leading anywhere useful so Savage grabbed her cup of coffee, got up and moved away.

The main whiteboard had one victim photograph taped slap in the middle: Kelly Donal. How many more would they need to add? How many girls who never knew each other linked forever by death. How many more families destroyed?

DS Collier joined her.

‘Problems, ma’am?’ He nodded at the board.

‘I think we may have some more,’ Savage indicated the screen which Enders was sitting at, with the thumbnail pictures of the girls smiling out. ‘We need action points on those three. Their workplaces, Rosina Olivárez, Simone Ashton and Alice Nash. I want their pictures up here on the board as victims.’

‘Sorry, ma’am, you’ve lost me.’

Savage realised she was rambling, but she did her best to explain the nursery angle, how the victims had something to do with caring for young children. Collier said he didn’t like it. He didn’t want to generate a load of new actions around hunches.

‘We don’t know these new mispers are victims yet,’ he said. ‘We are stretched enough as it is and this will simply generate more and more threads to follow. We will be wasting precious resources on girls who might turn up tomorrow. We will have officers out on wild goose–’

‘Shut it, Collier,’ Savage said, angry with Collier’s focus on silly administrative details. ‘If the girls turn up alive and well then that is a result in my book. If, God forbid, they turn up dead then we will have done some useful groundwork. And anyway, I might remind you the Olivárez girl is very much dead.’

Collier shrugged. He didn’t dare argue with his superior, but Savage saw he was riled. His office system was in danger of being overloaded now he was going to have to insert material from
Leash
into operation
Zebo
. All his careful planning was being blown out of the water. That couldn’t be helped though. Every piece of data would need to be re-evaluated in the light of the new evidence. It was going to be a mammoth task. Savage attempted to placate him by placing an arm around his shoulders.

‘Come on, I’ll get some fresh coffees and we will see how we are going to handle the new data. And then I will go and see Hardin and persuade him to get me some extra bodies in here.’

*

Savage had got the coffees and Collier began to explain about the problems of not letting
Zebo
get overloaded by the sheer quantity of data that had been gathered during the
Leash
inquiry.

‘
Leash
has been going on for twelve months flat out,’ he said. ‘
Zebo
has been going a week. There must be a hundred times more material in the
Leash
case.’

Savage didn’t have time to address his concerns because DI Davies and DC Jackson had come in. Their faces wore glum expressions, like little kids who had opened all their Christmas presents at once and didn’t have anything else to look forward to.

‘It’s that little prick, Dickie boy Trent,’ Davies scowled. ‘He retracted his confession. He is now saying Mitchell carried out all the rapes and he just drove the car. He fingered Forester too. Told us Forester supplied the GHB and took the videos. Says he was too scared to tell us before.’

‘He knows Mitchell and Forester are dead?’

‘We had to tell the bitch Bradley, yes.’ Davies looked downcast. ‘Disclosure of evidence and all that fucking crap.’

‘Very convenient.’

‘Yeah. With those two out of the way, him and the bloody lawyer can concoct whatever story they like.’

‘So you are here about Forester?’

‘Clever girl!’ Davies beamed, a smile spreading like the Cheshire Cat just got the cream. ‘We need to get into his network and find out what connections he had.’

‘Have you threatened Trent?’

‘What with? Having charged him with the nine rapes he is going down for life even if he tells us where Elvis is living.’

Savage could imagine Trent had worked everything out. Once he had admitted the rapes he would have known his situation couldn’t get any worse if he kept his mouth shut. He had been right because the other two suspects were dead and by changing his story he now had a way out.

‘We’ve got Forester’s mobile phone logs, they might be some help.’ She nodded at Collier and he went off to get a printout.

‘Great. We think Trent had a Pay As You Go contract, because we can’t find anything in his bank statements and we can’t locate the bloody phone. If we can get Trent’s number from Forester’s phone we can go to the mobile operator to get the complete record set.’

‘So where did the phone go?’

‘Little wifey,’ Jackson said. ‘She seemed so sweet and put upon, but we reckon she grabbed the phone while we were running around securing the house. If you remember she refused the offer of a FLO and went off to a friend’s for the night. Must have ditched the thing because she is denying all knowledge.’

‘Wait a minute...’ Savage paused ‘Can’t you put it to him the wife must have known?’

‘And she goes down as well? We tried, he just shrugged and said “prove it”.’ Davies tapped his head with his forefinger. ‘Mr Know-All. He’s got an Excel bloody spreadsheet up here filled in with all the possibilities. His wife going down for any more than being a pain-in-the-butt isn’t one of them.’

‘Here you are, sir,’ Collier had returned and he handed a printout to Davies. ‘All the numbers Forester called in the month before he went missing, ordered by frequency.’

‘You gone through these yet?’ Davies asked.

Savage sighed and was aware of Collier looking at her with a little smirk on his face.

‘No, it’s on the to do list.’

‘That’s Trent’s direct line at the university.’ Davies pointed to a number in the middle of the sheet. ‘We will need to get a reverse look up on the other landlines.’

‘Do that. If you could get the results back to us that would save another job. And if you find any numbers on the list to do with nurseries then let me know as a matter of urgency.’

Davies looked puzzled, his head tilted on one side like a squirrel with a nut it couldn’t crack.

‘Nurseries? What, you mean geraniums and stuff?’

‘No, babies. Child minders, nannies, day-care staff. There’s a bit of a shortage of them around here at the moment.’

*

Thursday afternoon at Cotton Socks nursery and DS Darius Riley was bricking himself. A little girl had toddled over to him and introduced herself as, ‘Lisa and I’ve got a big poo in my nappy.’ Riley hadn’t had much experience with children; as an only child and thus with no nieces or nephews he didn’t have a clue what to say or do. A druggie rushing at him full of ketamine and armed with a knife he could deal with, but an infant in possession of a hazardous substance? Way too scary.

Thank goodness Enders was covering him and, being a family man with three of the little brats under seven, he knew how to handle the incident. He bent down, held the girl’s hand and took her across to one of the nursery staff. Simple when you had done the training.

‘Thanks mate,’ Riley said. ‘Thought I was a goner for a moment.’

The nursery in Ivybridge was the third they had visited so far that morning, but Riley still hadn’t got used to the stench of urine in the baby and toddler rooms.

‘Don’t know how you manage at home, the smell from the shit and piss makes me gag.’

‘Oh, once you’ve got past the thousand nappy milestone you get used to it. The first poo they do is the worst. Long, black, sticky and stinks like you wouldn’t believe.’

‘One would be bad enough, but a thousand! Never going to happen to me for sure.’

‘I can see Ms Meadows looking lovely with a couple of kids in her arms.’ Enders winked. ‘And I hear she was in town last night at that new tapas bar. With a handsome black guy. Now I wonder–’

‘How did you...?’

Enders dropped out of Riley’s line of sight onto his haunches to talk to a little boy hugging a big pink teddy bear. Riley smiled to himself. Enders was right, and not just about the fact he had been on a date last night. Julie Meadows would look beautiful holding a baby,
his
baby. Then he shook his head. Broody, him? Mr notch-em-up-on-the-bed-post-new-girl-each-month Riley? Yes, quite possibly. Still, he reckoned he could do without the smells.

Alice Nash worked at Cotton Socks so the nursery had been visited before, but not by members of the
Zebo
team. Savage had insisted the work places relating to the four dead and missing girls should be visited or revisited. This time by the same people.