‘It’s a good way to engender loyalty.’
‘Agreed, if you’re looking for a way to engender loyalty because you haven’t got the team’s respect. Would you like me to ask my team if they feel the need?’ Anna felt the heat rising in her face.
‘I know what your team thinks of you, Anna. None of them want to work with anyone else.’
Anna blinked. She hadn’t known. ‘Sir, if I can speak plainly and off the record, I’ve learned that Sergeant Woakes had something of a reputation at East Mids. Effectively, he did well on a case through luck and they’ve taken the opportunity of shoving him up the chain and dumping him on us.’
Rainsford frowned. ‘He came with a glowing reference.’
Anna snorted and gave it to Rainsford with both barrels. ‘From an ACC. You’ll forgive me for saying this, sir, but ACCs are not always the best people to know what an officer is really like. It may be that he was badly advised. I’d like to think so. But the fact is, Woakes is a loose cannon. Sir, I spoke to Dr Hawley yesterday. He rents a room in a house in Bristol. He told me it had been broken into and an iPad stolen and the place turned over. Someone was looking for something. Hawley is convinced it was Woakes.’
‘Does he have any proof?’
‘No. And he doesn’t want it investigated.’
‘Then it’s his word—’
Anna interrupted him. ‘Sir, I’ve seen Woakes at work. I would not put it past him.’
‘We all know it’s difficult for someone new to settle in. Is it a question of him being too eager to please?’
‘I’m not sure what’s going on with him, but this is not a settling in problem. It’s more unsettling.’
‘He’s still on probation here, I told him that. We agreed that if the job didn’t suit him we’d discuss other options.’
Anna tried to imagine what job Woakes might be good at and failed.
‘Where is he, sir?’
‘I’ve put him in an office down the corridor indexing in HOLMES. He’s not happy, but better to have him here on the job with something to do than wandering about, festering.’
Anna sighed.
‘I know. It leaves a bad taste, but welcome to my world of inclusivity and political correctness.’
‘Sir, he’s already messed up the Morton case. What if he does it again? Something important?’
‘Then there’ll be lots of ammunition for us, won’t there.’
She left with her face glowing from grumbling resentment. Everyone knew they needed help and a new sergeant should have been champagne-worthy, but this situation ran the risk of turning into a fiasco. Find something for him to do?
She’d ask traffic if the bike shed needed painting.
Thirty-One
Anna texted Holder and asked him to bring her back a coffee. Rainsford’s criticism niggled and bothered her though her mind was buzzing with what Shaw had told her. She needed to assimilate it and decide on an action. Anna punched Gacy’s name into a search engine. It did not make for easy reading. When she’d finished, she stood and walked into the squad room to look at the images of the stolen girls. They stared back at her. Lost and silent.
When the DCs returned Anna took the coffee and gave Holder the money for it. Trisha took out her earbuds and they all turned towards the whiteboard.
‘First of all, a word about Sergeant Woakes. I don’t think we’ve got off to the best of starts with him, but for now he’ll be providing intelligence support, is that clear?’
Oh, wouldn’t Rainsford have been proud.
The exchanged glances told Anna it wasn’t.
‘Is that clear?’ she repeated.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Right. No more distractions.’
Anna stood and contemplated the whiteboards. Blair’s image brought the immediacy of her predicament into sharp focus, especially in light of Shaw’s explanation of red rooms. Anna dragged her gaze across to Rosie Dawson’s photograph. She turned to Khosa. ‘Anything new from Varga?’
Khosa opened her notebook. ‘She spoke to me this morning, ma’am. Nothing specific, I’m afraid. But Edinburgh did find another image of Blair on UWAntme.co.uk, which is the sister site of an American third-party advertiser. It’s the image used on TV and in the press, supplied by Blair’s mother.’
‘How does that help?’
‘It doesn’t. Not in terms of Rosie, but the posting was fresh and dated yesterday. UWAntme has sites in over 900 locations across almost 100 countries. They use a data outsourcing company. But it’s a free listing for the first week. Varga thinks it might mean the abductor is trying to alert other people, to drum up business. She thinks because of that, Blair might still be alive.’
Drum up business.
A little spasm of anger tightened in Anna’s gut.
‘What did the advert say?’
Khosa placed a sheet on the whiteboard. Blair Smeaton’s school photograph stared back at them. The caption with it said:
Missing awaiting action.
Pinocchio for interested parties #crypto #pogo.
‘Pinocchio, if you remember, ma’am, was the site Edinburgh found Blair’s other photograph on.’
Holder stared at the UWAntme ad, his face grim. ‘That’s sick.’
‘Prospects of tracing who placed this?’ Anna asked.
Khosa shook her head. ‘Varga was not hopeful. If it’s the same guy, he will have covered his tracks.’
‘Thanks, Ryia.’ There wasn’t much to be gained from this new intel, except that it reinforced everything she’d learned from Shaw. The anger inside her skipped up a notch.
Khosa, her expression distant and haunted, asked, ‘Do you think Blair’s still alive, ma’am?’
The question shook Anna.
‘I’d really like to think so.’
After a long beat, Holder spoke in a low voice. ‘Maybe it would be better if she wasn’t.’
Khosa stared at the image as if she was trying to make it talk. ‘I wish I knew what #pogo means.’
‘I do,’ Anna said. ‘It’s a reference to a serial child killer.’
Her harrowing words brought them all up short. Both Khosa and Holder were staring at her with expressions of dull horror.
‘Are you sure about this, ma’am?’ Holder asked.
‘No, I’m not sure. But I want to be. Rosie has been our priority here and the link to Blair was a bonus. Edinburgh’s manpower is naturally focused on finding Blair and currently, they believe the link might implicate a ring. It’s a strong theory, and Varga and the cybercrime team in Scotland have come up trumps with finding images. But what if it’s worse than that? What if it isn’t a ring but just one man? One very troubled and dangerous man who may have learned to monetise his obsession.’
And as the afternoon wore on, she told them about red rooms. She told them about Hurtcore. She told them about Gacy, about Pogo the clown.
‘I don’t know how closely this man identifies with Pogo. I dread to think. But Gacy’s victims were all murdered… eventually. Murdered and then buried. Is this what our perpetrator was trying to do with Rosie’s bones in Charterhouse?’
She watched their faces harden, Trisha excusing herself once to go to the bathroom, coming back with red rims around her eyes.
‘I’m going to talk to Edinburgh about this now. While I do that I’d like you to look hard at the other cases.’
She walked over to the posted images from Hawley’s cuttings. The innocent faces looked back at her. ‘Katelyn Prosser, Lily Callaghan and Jade Hemmings. I want to know what happened to them. Get on to Varga and ICAT and ask them if there have been any web images of these girls posted. Focus in on their medical histories, too. See if there is anything that might link them together. I know I’ve asked you to do this once, but let’s do it again. Fresh eyes, different angle. One each. I’ll take Katelyn.’
They already had files. Summarised reports from the separate forces involved in the searches and investigations over an eight-year period during which the three girls had gone missing. Anna took Katelyn’s file through to her office. But before she began reading, she phoned Danaher again.