Last night he had needed her so much, and she had given him solace. He reflected on the quiet and gentle way she had tended to him, listening to the horrors he relayed without making any response or judgement. He knew he needed to be a better and more caring person for her.

  He wanted to apologise to Maggie before he left for the station, for not treating her the way she deserved. He straightened his tie and ran his hands through his hair, deciding to stay in his suit. He shoved all the files and papers into his briefcase, then hurried down the stairs and into the kitchen, stopping in his tracks at the sight of the gleaming chrome and yellow plastic toaster. He called out for Maggie as Penny came into the kitchen.

  ‘You just missed her,’ Penny said. ‘She’s gone for a run, pushing Hannah in her stroller. I don’t want to talk out of turn, but you know she’s under so much pressure at work, and with you working all hours too, you need to spend some quality time together, go out for a nice meal. I can always babysit. You need to look after her, Jack.’

  Jack smoothed his hair and smiled at Penny. ‘That’s a very impressive toaster, Mum. Tell Maggie I’ll see her in the morning. I’m on nights now so I won’t be back until then. Please just tell her that I love her, and I’ll organise a dinner for just the two of us.’

  He left quickly, not wanting to get into any further conversation.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Jack was surprised to see how many officers were on duty. The incident room was a hive of activity and the crime board had now got two additional sections listing the officers assigned to various duties. Jack checked which department was dealing with contacting the missing girls’ families, but nothing new had been added, so he went to his desk, which was piled with files and other paperwork for him to deal with. He sat down and opened his notebook.

  Laura came in, wearing a bright yellow quilted coat that made her resemble a Michelin Man and carrying a McDonald’s takeaway bag.

  ‘Good evening, Jack.’

  He waved in her direction as she hung up the outrageous coat. It reminded him of his new toaster.

  ‘I’ve just been out to get a burger.’

  Jack had started sifting through all the files on his desk and didn’t reply.

  ‘I must say, you’re looking very dapper, all suited up.’

  She approached his desk.

  ‘You want a few fries? They always give you too many. I even asked for a child’s portion.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say no, thanks,’ Jack said.

  Laura tipped some of the fries into a paper napkin and passed them over.

  ‘What are you working on? I wouldn’t mind you popping into the boardroom to have a look at what I’ve been doing. Anik was working on it during the day but was called out to do something else, so I took over. Why are you looking so smart?’

  ‘I felt I needed to be ready for the long night ahead. I have a theory, which may be a waste of time.’ Jack ate a handful of the fries.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Well, Middleton’s been able to use his medical history to get away with claiming mental incapacity, and that’s obviously the last thing we want now.’

  Jack finished the fries and threw the napkin into the waste bin.

  ‘You know Middleton’s very manipulative. Well, what I found odd were the two assaults. They didn’t make sense because he was known at both of the shops and could be recognised by the owners. He also gave up his weapons, admitted the offences in interview and told them he would plead guilty. Now, at the last arrest, he came out of the flat with his hands up.’

  ‘Yes, I know that, so what are saying? He’s stupid?’

  ‘No, to the contrary. I believe he’s a psychopath, as well as being a narcissistic shit. I think he plans it out and is almost wanting punishment. Or perhaps he wanted to be removed from the flat to give himself an alibi of sorts. So, I reckon he did these assaults after he had murdered and dismembered the missing girls.’

  ‘We obviously don’t know he did that yet,’ Laura countered.

  ‘I know. But I was there when they uncovered the blood bath in the coal hole. I now just need to match the dates the girls went missing with his arrests.’

  ‘Right now, Jack, we don’t have confirmation that it was all human blood. And we are assuming there were more than two girls, aren’t we?’ Laura said, still playing devil’s advocate.

  ‘Yes, we are,’ Jack insisted. ‘He may have dismembered them and put the body parts into bin bags. Forensics found bloodstains in the bins – not confirmed as human yet – but if Jamail was the first victim, Mrs Delaney’s husband saw her at the flat, so that gives us a time frame. Mrs Delaney also spoke about a stench from the basement, which Middleton claimed was rat-infested.’

  Laura nodded as she munched on her burger. Jack ruffled his hair.

  ‘Middleton needed help to carry the bins up to the pavement because they were very heavy, right? Are you still with me?’

  ‘Yes, but if Jamail was the first, didn’t he get arrested after she disappeared?’

  ‘I thought of that. She would have gone missing around the time of the stench. I’ve looked back at all the refuse collections and the bins were all collected as usual, until the last one after his second arrest. That may have been around the time of Nadine O’Reilly; there was a strike in that area and the rubbish was mounting up on pavements.’

  ‘At the moment it’s still all supposition, Jack, and until we get an ID on the victims you might be wasting your time. So far, the most damning evidence we have is the bracelet that we know belonged to Trudie. The girlfriend told you she found it in the bed sheets, right?’

  ‘Yeah, but she also said it belonged to Jamail, so she lied about that.’

  Jack leaned back in his chair, frowning. Laura went back to her desk and picked up a flask.

  ‘Come into the boardroom and I’ll give you a proper cup of coffee.’

  He pushed his chair back and followed her out of the incident room into the boardroom. The table was covered with photographs of the items of jewellery that had been taken out of the boxes found in Middleton’s plastic container. The boxes were lined up in a row, and above them were photographs of the items taken from them.

  ‘Anik made sure they weren’t all jumbled together. The team going up to visit the missing girls’ parents have photographs. We placed them in separate clear bags beside each box. As you can see, we have five small boxes, indicating that we could possibly have five victims. But in a couple of the boxes there are just small items, broken chains, a crucifix and a silver necklace . . .’

  Jack moved around the table and picked up one of the photographs. He stared hard at it for a while.

  ‘Let me see the contents of this one.’

  Laura picked up the bag and placed a sheet of white paper down on the table, to tip the items onto. Jack pulled on surgical gloves. There was a beaded friendship bracelet, a string of cheap pearls and red beads, one earring, a hair grip and three painted false nails. Jack peered closer, using a pencil to divide and separate the items. He separated out a small gold ring with a ruby stone.

  ‘This belonged to Amanda Dunn; she traded this for the bracelet she said Trudie gave her.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because she told me it was not a fair trade; the bracelet clasp broke shortly after they had swapped. She said that Trudie refused to give the ring back to her. She described it as gold, with a real ruby.’

  Laura leaned forward. ‘Shit, this would mean that Trudie . . .’

  Jack straightened up, still staring at the ring. ‘Any news on Amanda?’

  ‘We know she’s recovered, but she’s on suicide watch whilst we determine what to do with her. I think the guv wants her in a safe house for her own protection; they refer to it now as “special measures” because obviously she’s going to be a valuable witness, unless it’s proven that she was an accessory. What do you think?’

  ‘She’s naive, but at the same time she’s cunning and a very good liar. She told me that she was always locked away in the back room when Middleton was with one or other of the runaways, but who knows what the truth is. She also, as I just said, initially lied about the bracelet belonging to Jamail. I did put this all in a report. If we’re to believe that Amanda was with Middleton from the age of twelve, he could have manipulated her into being an accessory, helping to pick up the runaway kids from the station. If it was up to me, I would arrest her and put the frighteners on her. She could be a mine of information.’

  ‘But she’s still a juvenile, Jack. I think we should take good care of her; maybe out of his grasp, she will come to her senses.’ Laura replaced the items Jack had looked at as they all still needed to be taken to the labs for testing. She then indicated a large evidence bag at the end of the table. ‘We had this taken to the forensics and they’ve done some tests, but as yet nothing conclusive. However, when it came back to us, I took a good look.’

  Laura carefully withdrew a rolled-up sleeping bag from the evidence bag.

  ‘Is that the sleeping bag Amanda was using?’ Jack asked, moving closer.

  ‘Yes, and it’s pretty disgusting. Anyway, when I was checking it over I pulled up the flap at the end of the bag. It’s probably used to cover the sleeper’s face if you’re outdoors. It’s very faint, and easily missed as it’s in the folds.’

  ‘What?’ Jack leaned forwards.

  ‘It’s a name, faded but written in felt tip pen. Heather 4B.’

  ‘No surname?’

  ‘No, maybe the 4B could be a class when she went camping with her school.’

  ‘Shit, she could also be another victim,’ Jack said.

  Laura nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what I thought. So we need to find out from Amanda how long she’d been using this sleeping bag and obviously ask her about a girl called Heather. I’ll start running her name through mispers, but with so little to go on, we might not get a result.’

  Jack smiled. ‘Good work, Laura, even if it does mean more legwork for everyone.’

  Jack returned to the incident room. The evidence board was filling up, with new information coming in minute by minute. After being shown photographs, Trudie Hudson’s mother had identified the jewellery as belonging to her daughter and this new development was being written up on the notice board. Trudie had gone missing four years earlier and there had been no sighting of her since she left Liverpool. Jack made a note, underlining the timing. It tied in with the date of the first assault case carried out by Rodney Middleton.

  At 10.30 p.m. another piece of information came through, this time regarding Nadine O’Reilly. Her stepfather had identified the photograph of the silver crucifix as belonging to his fifteen-year-old stepdaughter. Nadine had last been seen eighteen months ago before she ran away from Leeds. She was reported missing a week later as her parents had initially believed she had gone to see family in Dublin. The officers visiting both families had taken DNA swabs to compare to the crime scene blood, and also brought back photographs, which would be added to the board as soon as they returned to the station.

  All of this new information served to validate Jack’s suspicions. They were still waiting on the information from Jamail Brown’s family, but if Jack was correct, she was Middleton’s first victim, although they now had to add another name to the board, the one from the sleeping bag. And it would take forensics a while to match the blood samples they had acquired from the basement to the new DNA evidence that had just been brought in.

  The team that had been working on collecting the evidence from the basement flat were now ready to finish up. They had taken further blood and hair samples from the drains, and various items of clothing belonging to Middleton, including a pair of underpants found under the sink, that had been used for cleaning. They had also bagged up shoes and stained garments and bedding, including the sleeping bag Amanda had used. Her small collection of clothing and personal items had also been bagged and taken for evidence.

  The night was dragging on. The team on duty prepared the files ready for interviewing Middleton. Laura was back in the incident room to detail the items of jewellery that had been identified, and was feeling despondent: although it had been confirmed that some of the jewellery belonged to two of the missing girls, there were four more boxes to go through. Sara had put forward a list of several missing girls who might turn up to be the additional victims. They were all young runaway teenagers who had not been sighted for years.

  ‘There could be more girls, Jack,’ she said, looking over at him.

  He nodded grimly. ‘I know that. I expect the forensic team will eventually confirm just how many blood groups we’re dealing with.’

  He swung back in his chair. ‘You know Amanda said she remembered a girl called Nadine or Naomi, and we know we have some items from Nadine, so see if there’s a missing girl called Naomi, and the latest one, Heather.’

  ‘It’s heartbreaking that these kids could just go missing for all these years,’ Laura said sadly.

  ‘He had five years in that basement flat, so Christ knows how many girls became his victims.’

  DCI Clarke’s office door opened. He looked exhausted.

  ‘We’ve just had verification from Ishmail Brown that his daughter, Jamail, owned the pearl and bead necklace; he brought it back from Jamaica for her eleventh birthday. He also identified a silver bangle and a fake pearl and amber earring.’

  ‘How old was she when she went missing?’ Laura asked.

  ‘She was thirteen. Mr Brown is currently serving time in Strangeways for domestic violence and sexual harassment of Jamail’s mother. She continued contacting mispers to try and get information about Jamail, but it’s been such a long time, and with her husband in prison she returned to the Bahamas six months ago. We’re trying to contact her.’

  ‘So, we’ve done Liverpool, Manchester and Huddersfield to date. Do you think the girls knew each other?’ Laura asked as the DCI stood in front of the board.

  ‘Predators are able to spot the runaways at the train stations, especially the young ones, then they pick them up like lost puppies,’ he said quietly.

  ‘And if you have another young runaway in tow with you, like Amanda Dunn, that will give any new girls the confidence to go with him. She admitted to me that’s what she did,’ Jack added.

  Clarke walked over to Jack’s desk. ‘We know that, but we need her on the prosecution side. So I want her wrapped in fucking cotton wool until I’m ready to question her. In the meantime, we keep working round the clock.’

  He turned and walked back to his office, closing the door behind him. Laura waited a moment before speaking.

  ‘He’s run ragged. I think this is the biggest case he’s ever had. If you ask me, he needs to take a break. He’s been here 24/7 and did an all-nighter as well. You know, I really miss old Ridley . . . He was much calmer. We have so many officers assigned to this case now; Ridley would be in his element.’ She sighed and stepped closer, lowering her voice.

  ‘I did hear a whisper that he was in some kind of legal trouble, and not actually ill as we assumed. Have you heard anything?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, if you ask me, something is very wrong. What do you think’s going on, Jack?’

  He shrugged. ‘I really don’t know. With so much going down right now, I’ve not really given him much thought.’

  Laura went back to her desk, as Jack yawned loudly. He was already feeling tired. He revisited the notes he had taken after the meeting with Joyce Miller, as well as the later interaction at the basement flat when Mr Miller had brought Middleton back from Brixton. Jack then re-read the letter from Rodney’s father, saying that he wanted nothing to do with him, and that he was financing Joyce and paying her husband to care for her. Jack speculated that he was more likely to be feeding her to death and wondered if there might be a reason for that.

  The long shift continued, and Jack spent it cross-referencing and putting the accumulated evidence into chronological order, ready for Rodney Middleton’s interview.

  At 2 a.m. refreshments were brought in for the team, including pizza, hot dogs and flasks of tea and coffee. It was a ‘down tools’ break for everyone, and Jack didn’t recognise some of the officers who trooped in to partake of the food and drink.

  Two overweight male officers circled the refreshments, with an equally rotund short woman who had a wonderful head of snow-white hair. She was loudly complaining about cold hot dogs and no mustard. ‘Considering we’ve been here since 7 p.m., I’d have thought a decent hot meal could have been provided. When I worked in Wimbledon, we used to get Krispy Kreme donuts. It’s a bloody liberty. I wouldn’t feed my poodle this rubbish.’

  Jack hid a smile but straightened up when she marched over to his desk.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Warr, they said you were good-looking, but they didn’t say you were a savvy dresser . . . very nice suit. I’m Glenda Bagshot, leading the CCTV footage investigation. I think you should come up to our dank hole on the top floor . . . we’ve come up with a few things of interest.’

  Jack immediately stood up, eager to see what they had unearthed. Glenda waddled ahead of him, still complaining about the refreshments, as he followed her up the stairs. They eventually went into a room at the far end of the top floor corridor. Because the team had to focus on monitors for lengthy periods the blinds were down and there was only a low light overhead. Three Perspex screens separated the areas, and it appeared that Glenda was working on two screens at the same time.

  ‘Pull up a pew. Have you got a mask? If not, there’s a box of them on the side of my desk if you can be bothered. But I’m not worried. Lot of people don’t bother now. I took my wee poodle in for a groom and they wouldn’t let me in without a mask. I said it’s my dog that wants a wash not me! I’m wearing one, but only as it limits the smell of BO. Right, I’m working on footage from the security cameras positioned across from the basement flat, and next to the house. There are also two further cameras up the street. It’s a relief that they’re all up to modern digital standards as having to work on old tapes is a nightmare. This makes my life a lot easier.’