At the Station, forensics bagged the clothes Tyler was wearing before she was reunited with her mother. Ed allowed them ten minutes together before Tyler was seen by the MO.
Anna Masood reported the girl appeared to be in good general health with no signs of sexual violation.
‘So, no physical injuries?’
‘None that I can find.’
Ed felt an immense sense of relief.
‘Has he started inseminating her?’
‘I’ll not know until the swabs have been checked.’
‘Please make that a priority and let me know as soon—’
‘Of course, you should hear by midday tomorrow.’
‘Thanks.’
Ed arranged Tyler’s ABE interview for the following day and then had uniform drive mother and daughter home. Roger Grieves had been charged, seen by the Custody Sergeant and taken to a cell. Tomorrow, his day would begin with breakfast and a psychiatric assessment interview.
It was 05.00 and dawn was breaking before Ed left the Station. Physically and emotionally drained, she was a different woman from the pumped-up DI who had stood on the threshold of the building in the woods. What can a lone abductor possibly do to hurt me? The image of Grieves with his ghastly specimens, his dishes and syringes, and the thoughts of what he planned to do to the defenceless girl he’d chained to the bed, would remain in Ed’s head for a very long time. Despite her revulsion at what he’d done, Ed was aware that at the centre of this case was a broken man, not born evil but driven to it by the trauma of his own past life.
Walking home, Ed noticed the sun catch the top of the central tower of the cathedral. After the horrors she’d witnessed at the building in the woods, Ed smiled in recognition that there was also beauty in the world.
Tomorrow would be a step towards justice for the taken girls and their families.