14.09
Amanda May @BuskinforBritain
I can’t believe it – someone just said that #DaisyMason’s father had been grooming young girls on a website? Is that true? #disgusted
14.10
MtN @Nuckleduster1989
Those #Mason shits deserve to rot in jail – I reckon they were in it together – he was abusing the kid + the mother covered it up #sick
14.11
MickyF @TheGameBlader666
@Nuckleduster1989 I hope they get cancer. I hope they die a vile & horrible death #Masons
14.11
Anon Anon @Rottweiller_1982
@Nuckleduster1989 @TheGameBlader666 Jail’s too good for them – they should burn in hell for what they did #DaisyMason #guilty
14.14
MickyF @TheGameBlader666
@Rottweiller_1982 @Nuckleduster1989 Perhaps someone should help them on their way. Police r so shit theyll never prove nothing
14.15
Beat Pete @dontgivemethatshit
Wd be doing the world a favour to kill those bastards – wish theyd fuck off and die @TheGameBlader666 @Rottweiller_1982 @Nuckleduster1989
14.15
Anon Anon @Rottweiller_1982
Can’t be hard to find out exactly where they live??? @TheGameBlader666 @dontgivemethatshit @Nuckleduster1989
14.15
UK Social Media News @UKSocialMediaNews
So who do you think is guilty? Barry Mason or Sharon Mason? Tweet us and join in our poll #DaisyMason
14.15
Emma Gemma @TiredandEmotional
#DaisyChain #FindDaisy
14.16
Ellery B @InTheKookoosNest
@UKSocialMediaNews I think it was the mother – looks like an utter utter cold-hearted bitch #DaisyMason
14.16
Anne Merrivale @Annie_Merrivale_
I really want to believe the Masons are innocent, but how can you? You just need to take one look at the way they were on TV #DaisyMason
14.17
MickyF @TheGameBlader666
Those Mason scum are going to get away with murder someone ought to go round there
14.18
Ellery B @InTheKookoosNest
Police shd give them a lie detector bet they wd fail #liars #DaisyMason
14.18
Linda Neal @Losingmyreligion
I truly do not know how those parents can live with themselves #DaisyMason
14.19
Angela Betterton @AngelaGBetterton
@Losingmyreligion You have it *so* wrong – they’re a nice normal family – I know them, you don’t. #DaisyMason
14.20
Janey Doe @VictoriaSandwich
I bet the body will never be found. It’ll be just like all those other missing children. #DaisyMason #RIP
14.20
Seb Keynes @CastingAspersions
@UKSocialMediaNews I think the wife did it too – just look at that TV appeal #DaisyMason
14.21
Ellery B @InTheKookoosNest
Here r the Qs I wd ask 1) how did an intruder supposedly get into yr garden when all those ppl was there? #DaisyMason
14.22
Ellery B @InTheKookoosNest
2) And Y R the police now asking about the time B4 the party? #DaisyMason
14.24
Linda Neal @Losingmyreligion
Is that tweet I just saw true? Do the police think she was dead before the party even started? #DaisyMason #appalled
14.26
Sandra Bowen @SheffieldThursday
It still might not be the family – what about those pedophile rings that were in the news last year? Could it have been them? #DaisyMason
14.26
Janey Doe @VictoriaSandwich
I think theyre in it together – father killed her & the mother covered it up. Just shows u never know what goes on in private #DaisyMason
14.29
Bethany Grier @BonnieGirlie9009
A friend of mine says she’s sure she’s seen the father’s face on FindMeAHotDate.com – the cheating bastard #DaisyMason
14.32
Holly Harrison @HollieLolliepops
OMG I just found out I was only emailing the father of that poor little #DaisyMason – he was on a dating site under another name . . .
14.35
Holly Harrison @HollieLolliepops
. . . he’s deleted his profile but I downloaded it – you can see it here #cheat #liar #DaisyMason
14.37
Linda Neal @Losingmyreligion
Well if the father can #cheat then perhaps he can kill as well – clearly had a lot of nasty secrets #DaisyMason
14.55
ITV News @ITVLiveandBreaking
BREAKING Reports coming in that the father of #DaisyMason has been leading a double life under a false name and frequenting dating sites.
14.56
ITV News @ITVLiveandBreaking6
More to come on this story as soon as we get it. #DaisyMason
*
Outside Bishop Christopher’s, I park up and call the station. Apparently the magistrate isn’t playing ball. Wants to talk to the Super first, and since he’s out today we’re going to have to wait till tomorrow morning. I swear. First at Quinn and then, after I end the call, at the universe in general. Then I sit for a moment before turning off the engine. A few yards away, two young women are talking by one of those two-seater Nissan Figaros. One of the women has long dark red hair in a ponytail and a hessian bag with raffia flowers around the top, the other’s standing by her bicycle. Her bleached hair has bright pink ends, and she has a stud in her nose and a pair of camouflage cargo pants. It strikes me suddenly that she’s the only real human being I’ve seen since this investigation began. All those people leading their plastic Stepford lives. Not a hair or a blade of grass out of place. I get out and lock the car, and as I walk to the door I’m aware the two women are talking about me.
* * *
—
When I find the caretaker’s office, there’s a woman there with Baxter. She gets up at once and comes towards me, hand outstretched. She’s nervous, edgy.
‘Alison Stevens, I’m the head. DC Baxter asked me to pop over and look at the footage he’s found, but I’m not sure I can be of much help.’
I pull out a chair and sit down next to Baxter. ‘What have you got?’
‘The quality’s not great,’ he says. ‘No sound and it’s only black and white, but it’s better than sod all. The first one is early April. After the Easter break. This is lunchtime on the twelfth.’
The image is of the school gates, which are closed, and the chicken-wire fence either side. There are kids running in and out of the shot in the playground. Balls bouncing, two girls doing some immensely complex clapping game. Three skipping. Then I see her. Daisy. She’s alone, but she doesn’t seem bothered by her lack of company. She stoops to look at something on a leaf, then watches as it flies up and away. A butterfly, perhaps. It’s strange, watching her like this – this girl I have thought about every minute of every day since she disappeared, and yet know so little about. She couldn’t possibly have known anyone would look at this footage. She might not even have known the camera was there. It feels curiously intrusive and I realize suddenly that this is what paedophiles do. It’s not a good thought.
And then a figure appears on the pavement opposite. He must be fourteen or fifteen. Tall, blond. He comes up to the gate and calls Daisy over. She’s clearly intrigued, but wary, and she stays a good foot shy of the gate. They talk a while – or rather he talks and she listens – and then the bell must go because the kids start to drift towards the school door, and the boy disappears out of shot, leaving Daisy gazing after him.
‘The next one is a couple of days later,’ says Baxter. ‘Pretty much the same thing, only Daisy’s keener to talk that time, it seems. And then there’s April nineteenth. At 12.05 there’s a delivery and the van blocks the view for five minutes or so, then it moves away and this is what we see.’
Daisy is alone on the pavement. She keeps looking around, presumably to check if any of the supervisors in the playground have noticed she’s outside the gate. A few moments later, the boy arrives. Daisy seems really happy to see him. They talk briefly, and once or twice the boy looks over his shoulder, as if at someone just out of view. Then the two of them head off together towards his unseen companion.