It was definitely Stacey’s day for demonstrating her value to the MIT. She’d been delighted by Paula’s suggestion of searching the national DNA database for familial connections to the murdered teenagers. ‘We can do it with the boys,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask me to explain, but it doesn’t work with female relatives in the same way.’
Paula backed off in mock-horror. ‘Oh please, Stace. Not the scientific explanation, I’m just a simple city girl.’
But Stacey was already sending an urgent request to the database, attaching the three sets of DNA. Unusually, she followed up her email with a phone call to one of the analysts that she’d worked with before. Paula, still hovering in the background, noticed there was no small talk. If the ICT staff had needed that to make things run smoothly, there wouldn’t be a functioning system in the Western world, she thought.
‘Stacey Chen here, Bry. I’ve just emailed you three sets of data that we need checked. I need you to prioritise it. We’ve got a serial killer working on a tight turnaround, and this might just break it before he takes his next victim . . . Now? . . . Thanks. I owe you.’ She hung up her headset and without turning said to Paula, ‘He’s on it. You can go and get a coffee now.’
Dismissed, Paula went back to her desk and the mountain of paper that always came with a murder inquiry. Carol and Kevin were closeted with a team that had been put together from Traffic and Western Division, planning their surveillance of Ewan McAlpine, the dirt biker. There had been a big discussion about whether they should warn the boy and have him wired. Paula had been a strenuous advocate of that approach. She knew how wrong these set-ups could go, and she wanted maximum protection for the boy, even if it posed a different set of problems. But she’d been outnumbered and overruled. Her opponents argued that a fourteen-year-old boy wasn’t going to be able to carry off the subterfuge and the killer would sense a trap and abort, leaving them with nothing. They were probably right, Paula conceded. But at least her way meant the kid would have a better chance of coming out of it alive.
She pulled up the transcript of his conversations with BB on her screen and read it again. Ewan sounded like a nice kid. He made cute jokes and he didn’t pick on anybody. Stacey had managed to track him down via his email account. He lived with his mum and dad near the city centre in a small enclave of Georgian houses that had somehow survived the post-war developers. His dad was a consultant urologist at Bradfield Cross, his mother a GP in one of the inner-city health centres. That was one thing about dealing with victims who were here as a result of fertility treatment - they weren’t exactly skint. A couple she knew had spent the best part of twenty grand on IVF and still had nothing to show for it except a series of miscarriages. The downside was that they were dealing with the articulate middle classes, the sort of people who would gut and fillet them if anything went wrong with this operation.
Another good thing was that, thanks to Stacey’s infiltration of RigMarole, they knew where Ewan was meeting BB - presumably Warren Davy. Ewan was to take the Manchester bus to Barrowden, a small village about five miles outside the Bradfield city limits. BB had arranged to meet him at the bus stop so they could go to his farm, a couple of miles away. I’l com 4 u on t quad bike, he’d said. Another enticement to a lad gagging for a bit of wildness in his very civilised city life.
‘Alvin?’ Stacey called. ‘You got a minute?’
Ambrose strolled across to Stacey’s corner, Paula in his wake. ‘What is it, Stacey?’ he said.
‘Warren Davy’s cousin? The guy with the garage? What was his name again? For some reason, I can’t find your report on the system.’
Ambrose cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. ‘Sorry, I forgot. I filed it with Manchester but I didn’t send it to you when I got here. His name was Bill Carr.’
Stacey pointed to one of her screens. ‘That’s from the NDNAD. There’s only one hit on our DNA. William James Carr from Manchester comes up as having a familial relationship to all three boys. Probably cousins or nephews, according to Bry.’
‘Are you saying Carr’s our man?’ Ambrose was clearly puzzled.
‘Well, he’s a possible, I suppose,’ Stacey said sceptically. ‘But it strengthens the case against Warren Davy. If they’re cousins, then it means the three victims also have a blood relationship to Davy. So what was hypothetical and circumstantial becomes more evidentially based.’
‘But he’s still only a possible,’ Paula said. ‘And we still don’t know where he is.’
‘Which means we still have to do the surveillance,’ Ambrose said.
Stacey shrugged. ‘As everyone around here delights in telling me, it always comes back to old-fashioned coppering.’ She turned back to her screens. ‘I better email the boss. There’s nothing she likes more than another brick in the wall.’
CHAPTER 39
Ewan McAlpine woke up with the fizzle of excitement racing through his veins. Today, it was today. He was finally going to get a chance at something he’d craved for so long. By tea-time, he’d be bouncing over rough terrain on a dirt bike, a cloud of dust enveloping him as he breathed through a kerchief, like a cowboy on the range.
He’d never been allowed to do anything his mum and dad regarded as dangerous. They’d wrapped him in cotton wool all his life, like he was going to break if he so much as fell over. He could still remember the total humiliation of his first overnight school trip. He’d been eight years old and his class were staying at an outdoor pursuits centre up in the Pennines. As well as the teachers, some parents had come along to make sure there was the right ratio of adults to children. And of course, his mum had been one of them. And every time he’d been about to join in one of the activities - abseiling, climbing, kayaking or riding the zip drive, she’d intervened, stopping him from doing anything interesting. He’d spent two days on the obstacle course and the archery range. It had been God’s gift to his enemies.
His mum meant well, he knew. But over the years, she’d made him the butt of endless jokes and sometimes worse. Luckily for him, his primary school had been hot on stamping out bullying and teasing. When he’d moved up to his private grammar school, he’d worked hard at being invisible. The sporty guys didn’t know he existed, so they didn’t notice he wasn’t allowed to do anything remotely dangerous.
But still, Ewan craved the chance to do something exciting. He loved watching the extreme sports channel, and he’d worked hard over the last couple of years to get fit and build some muscle. Even his mum couldn’t object to him working out in the gym his dad had set up in the cellar. All he lacked was the opportunity to use his body for anything that would push it to the limits.
Until he’d met up with BB on Rig. Lucky bugger lived on a farm where he had his own quad bike and dirt bikes. Even better, he’d chosen Ewan to be pals with. And now, tonight, he was going to get his chance to experience what he’d only fantasised about.
His mum thought he was taking part in a debating competition over in Manchester. She wouldn’t expect him home till nine, which would work out perfectly. BB said he would lend him something to wear and he could shower before he left on the half past eight bus. It was all going to be perfect.
Ewan had no idea how he was going to get through the day without bursting with excitement. But he’d manage it somehow. He was good at managing his life.
A mile away, in the nearest police station to the McAlpine home, Carol was giving the surveillance crews their final briefing. There were three cars, one motorbike and an assortment of pedestrians, supported by a van where they could alter their look by changing jackets, hats, wigs and facial hair. ‘It’s going to be a long day,’ Carol said. ‘We’ll mostly be able to stand down when Ewan’s actually in school, but we will need someone front and back to make sure he doesn’t sneak out early. There’s no reason why he should - we know what the arrangements are. But the excitement might be too much for him. So we need to be alert. Any questions?’