24
The incident room for the hunt for Bella Harper was on the fifth floor of Southampton Police’s Operational Command Unit, on the western approach to the city. The eight-storey limestone and glass building with its double-height canopy and public plaza was starkly modern, as were the thirty-six custody suites that were full to capacity most weekends. More than a hundred officers and another hundred civilian staff had been assigned to the case, and while the majority were out on the streets there were still more than fifty men and women answering phones and tapping away on computer terminals. It was just after eight o’clock in the morning and a lot of the people in the room had worked through the night.
The blinds were drawn and there was a line of whiteboards in front of the windows. There were photographs of Bella and a hand-drawn timeline and on one board a list of all the men on the Violent and Sex Offender Register who lived within fifty miles of the city. All the names on the list were being visited and their homes inspected.
On the opposite side of the corridor six offices had been taken over by the senior officers on the case. Word had come down from the Chief Constable that overtime wasn’t an issue and that no expense was to be spared in the hunt for the missing girl.
One of the civilian staff, a man in his fifties with a greasy comb-over and sweat stains in the armpits of his shirt, was sipping coffee as he looked at the largest photograph of Bella. It was the one they were using on posters and on the TV appeals, a blow-up of her school photograph. Standing next to him was a young Asian police community service officer in a high-visibility fluorescent jacket that was a couple of sizes too big for her.
‘It’s true what they say, you know,’ said the man, gesturing at the photograph.
‘Yeah, what’s that?’ said the PCSO.
‘It’s the ugly ones that come back,’ said the man. ‘Paedos keep the pretty ones.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a fact.’
A massive hand grabbed the man by the back of the neck. ‘My office, now!’ hissed Superintendent Rory Wilkinson. The superintendent frogmarched the man out of the room, across the corridor and into his office. He threw him inside and kicked the door shut.
The man put up his hands as if he feared the superintendent was going to assault him. ‘You can’t do …’
‘Shut the f*ck up!’ shouted the superintendent. ‘How f*cking dare you make a cheap crack like that! A girl has been abducted and you think it’s f*cking funny?’
‘I … I … I …’ stammered the man.
The superintendent pointed a finger at the man. ‘You’re a f*cking civilian so I can’t sack you but I want you out of this office now. Tell your f*cking boss that you’re off this investigation and if you’ve got anything like a brain behind that pig-ugly face you’ll get transferred to another station because I am going to make your life a living f*cking hell every time I see you. Now f*ck off out of my sight.’
The man turned, fumbled for the door handle and rushed out. The superintendent took a deep breath. His blood pressure had been borderline high at his last medical and dealing with civilian idiots wasn’t helping. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. He was fifty-four years old and hoped to retire in another year. His three children were all married with families of their own, and he and his wife had their retirement all mapped out – they had already bought a canal boat big enough to live aboard and they planned to spend six months of the year cruising the canal system and six months in their villa in southern Spain. Thinking of the canal boat always calmed him down – there was nothing more relaxing than pottering along at four miles an hour, the tiller in one hand and a mug of tea in the other.
‘Sir?’
The superintendent opened his eyes. It was Aaron Fisher, a young detective who had only recently joined CID. ‘Yes, lad?’
‘I’ve just had a call that sounded like the real thing.’ He mimed putting a phone to his head as if the superintendent might not understand what he meant. ‘Old couple out in Lyndhurst.’
Lyndhurst was a small town close to the New Forest, half an hour’s drive from Southampton. ‘Spit it out, lad.’
‘They say their neighbours turned up with a kid a couple of days ago. They didn’t get a good look but they’re pretty sure it was a young girl.’
‘A couple of days ago?’ It was Tuesday morning. Bella Harper had been snatched on Friday.
‘Sorry, sir. On Friday.’
‘They’ve seen the appeal pictures?’
‘They know what Bella looks like, but they say the girl taken into the house was being carried so they didn’t get a good look. They’ve not seen the girl since, so they think she might be in the house.’
‘Who lives there?’
‘According to the electoral roll a guy called Eric Lucas. The caller doesn’t know anything about them.’
‘Checked the Sex Offenders Register?’
Fisher nodded. ‘No Eric Lucas.’
The superintendent rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The unit was getting several hundred calls a day, and the bulk of them were false sightings of Bella Harper. ‘What makes you think this is the real thing?’
‘The timing, sir.’ Fisher looked at his notebook. ‘Mrs Pullman, she’s the lady who rang in, said she’s pretty sure she saw the girl at three o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday. She went missing at just before two-thirty.’
‘And this Eric Lucas doesn’t have kids?’
‘There’s no wife on the electoral roll and Mrs Pullman says she’s never seen a child there before, there are no toys in the garden.’
‘Today’s a school day. She’s sure the kid didn’t leave for school today?’
‘I asked that. Mrs Pullman was in her front garden all morning. She’s not a great sleeper, she said, and she was doing some weeding. No one has come in or gone out.’
‘So this Eric Lucas doesn’t work?’
‘That’s another thing that made me think she might have something. He usually leaves for work at seven-thirty in the morning. Today his car is still in the drive.’
‘Car? So no white van?’
Fisher shook his head. ‘Blue Mondeo,’ he said.
‘What does he do?’
‘Mrs Pullman doesn’t know.’
‘Do they know who the woman is? Girlfriend? Sister?’
‘She’s been living there for the past year or so. But they keep themselves to themselves.’ He tapped his notebook against his leg. ‘Mrs Pullman isn’t a timewaster. She kept saying she hoped she wasn’t being a bother, but she had seen the TV appeals and she felt she had to let us know what she’d seen. Do you think I should go and check the Lucas house?’
The superintendent looked at his watch. It was just after mid-day.
‘I keep getting this tingle on the back of my neck,’ said Fisher. ‘I know that sounds crazy.’
‘It doesn’t sound crazy at all,’ said the superintendent. ‘A copper’s hunch has helped me out more times than I can remember. You’re right, the timing is bang on and the car still being there is a red flag. Get Dave Hopkins in here and we’ll get something sorted.’