Chloe woke up screaming twice during the night. She had insisted on sleeping in her own bed, so Anna had had to dash into her room to comfort her.
It wasn’t unexpected, of course. Nightmares were inevitable after such a terrible ordeal. And Anna knew that they might well continue for weeks or even months to come.
The child counsellor who was already on Chloe’s case would have to be informed at the earliest opportunity. Anna would just have to pray that what had happened to her daughter would not cause any lasting psychological damage. But coming so soon after the heart-breaking incident on the warehouse roof that had to be a possibility.
Despite the nightmares, they each managed to sleep for between six and seven hours. When Sunday morning arrived, they were both too hyped up to stay in bed. Anna was pleased to see that Chloe’s facial injuries did not look any worse, and she wasn’t in pain.
They had breakfast together, and Anna asked Chloe if she was still happy to spend the day at the hospital with Tom.
‘Yes, I am,’ Chloe insisted. ‘I don’t want him to be by himself, and I don’t want to be left with someone I don’t know.’
‘But I could stay at home,’ Anna said. ‘I’ve told you that won’t be a problem.’
Chloe shook her head. ‘If you do that then you won’t be looking for the person who put that boy in the cellar. And that wouldn’t be fair.’
Her daughter’s response caused Anna’s heart to swell with pride. For Chloe to be so concerned about someone else after the hell she’d been through was commendable, and it said a lot about her resolve and strength of character.
While Chloe packed her rucksack with her phone, tablet, snacks and books, Anna switched her attention to the television.
It had been another shocking night on the streets of London, and Anna was surprised she had managed to sleep through most of it. Mob violence had broken out in Lewisham, Brixton, Stratford, Battersea, Islington, Holloway and Fulham. Two more people had died and three police officers and a soldier had been hospitalised.
Scenes captured on video included more battles between rioters and police, an Asda superstore engulfed in flames, vandals smashing up vehicles, and looters running out of high street shops with large bags of swag.
More politicians were taking to the airways to appeal for calm, but on social media activists and extremist groups were stirring things up and encouraging violence with inflammatory rhetoric.
Luckily Anna and Chloe had an incident-free journey from Vauxhall to King’s College Hospital in Camberwell. Anna went inside with her daughter to see Tom and to clear with the staff that it was all right for Chloe to stay with him. They said it wasn’t a problem even though he’d been moved to a ward.
After a brief chat, during which Tom assured her that he was recovering well, Anna gave Chloe a kiss and a cuddle and left the pair of them to get to know each other.
It was time for her to refocus on the job she’d been given, which was to find the cruel bastard who had abducted and imprisoned Jacob Rossi.
*
Anna arrived at MIT HQ at eight a.m. She had phoned ahead to say that she wanted the morning briefing to kick off at eight-thirty. The rest of the team had already reported for duty, having snatched at most a few hours’ sleep.
The night shift officers had handed over the reins, and DI Walker was ready to present the updates. But first everyone was eager to hear what had happened to Chloe and Tom. There were murmurs of shock and disbelief as Anna told them.
‘Thankfully they both survived what were dreadful experiences,’ Anna said. ‘But it seems that they were among the lucky ones.’
This was Walker’s cue to provide a few headline points relating to the riots, including the appalling death and injury statistics.
‘I’ve spoken to DCS Nash,’ he said. ‘He’s back at the Yard with other senior officers and will feed us information throughout the day on what’s happening. But as we all know things are still extremely serious out there. Our colleagues on the front line are all knackered, and every custody suite in the city is full with those who’ve been arrested. More officers are being drafted in from other forces today, but not nearly as many as we need because of disturbances elsewhere in the country. Things have been particularly bad here in London since this time yesterday, but despite that we have managed to make at least some progress with our own investigation.’
He pointed to a photograph that had been added to one of the evidence boards. It was a mugshot of a shaven-headed man with a wide, flat face and protruding ears.
‘This is Roy Slater, the man whose wife had an affair with Mark Rossi,’ Walker said. ‘We’re keen to question him about Jacob’s abduction, but we still haven’t been able to trace him. He’s been on leave from his job as a warehouse packer and a neighbour said that he drove away from his house in Rotherhithe on Friday afternoon. This would have been shortly after Jacob’s body was discovered in the pub cellar. So far the guy hasn’t returned home, and his mobile phone is switched off and isn’t transmitting a signal. But we’ve obtained his bank and credit card details from his employers and landlord, and they show that he’s made a series of contactless payments using his Visa card. All purchases have been under thirty pounds so he hasn’t had to use a PIN. They include petrol, booze and cigarettes. The last purchase was last night at a pub in Bermondsey, only about a mile from his home.’
‘Well that suggests to me that he hasn’t gone away somewhere on holiday,’ Anna said. ‘But it also strikes me as pretty odd that he hasn’t been back home since Friday.’
‘I did wonder if someone else is using his card without his knowledge,’ Walker said. ‘It could be that he lost it and doesn’t realise it yet so hasn’t phoned his bank.’
‘Or it could also mean that something’s happened to him and the card has been stolen.’
‘Hopefully we’ll find out soon enough.’
Anna mulled this over for a few moments, then said, ‘So what else do we know about the guy?’
Walker shrugged. ‘Not much, except that he lives alone and has a gambling addiction. A PNC check revealed a conviction for shoplifting, and as we know he went to Rossi a few months ago asking for money but was knocked back. So it’s feasible he could have snatched Jacob because he planned to demand a ransom. As you know I’ve applied for a warrant to gain access to his house, but I’m still waiting for it to be authorised. Meanwhile, his car registration has been circulated, but there’s been no sign of it. However, it’s worth noting that a great many CCTV and APNR cameras have been vandalised by the rioters.’
‘What about his ex-wife?’ Anna said. ‘Have we contacted her?’
Walker nodded. ‘Indeed we have, guv. Her name is Ruth and she now lives just outside Rouen in France. She claims she doesn’t know his whereabouts and hasn’t spoken to him in over a year.’
Walker moved on to forensics and the news was just as disappointing. The only prints on the items recovered from the cellar belonged to Jacob. There were none on the note that accompanied it or on the envelope itself. And no DNA traces either, which suggested that whoever had sent them took great care not to leave any evidence.
Walker then reminded the team that Roy Slater was one of five people who were so far in the frame. The others were Neville Quinlan, the convicted paedo; Gavin Pope, whose wife also had a fling with Mark Rossi; Michelle Gerrard, the internet troll; and Joseph Metcalfe, Rossi’s stepbrother.
DI Benning had been tasked with running down Metcalfe. He stood up to read from his notes, and it looked to Anna as though he’d had a rough night. He was sallow-faced and unshaven, and he kept having to clear his throat between sentences. It made Anna wonder if fatigue aggravated the symptoms of his early onset dementia.
He began by reminding everyone what Mark Rossi’s mother, Emily, had told them.
‘We asked the family if anyone had a connection to The Falconer’s Arms pub in Camberwell,’ he said. ‘Emily told us that her late husband Isaac had an ex-partner named Hilary Metcalfe, who was living in Camberwell when she died about five years ago. She was the mother of Isaac’s estranged son, Joseph, and therefore Mark’s stepbrother.
‘Isaac abandoned the boy, along with his long-term partner, when he married Emily. And he didn’t bother to stay in touch with his son. But then five years ago Isaac discovered by chance that Hilary had terminal cancer. He went to the hospital to see if there was anything he could do to help, but his son Joseph was there and apparently told him to piss off.
‘Emily knew that Hilary had got married some years ago, but Isaac never told her what the woman’s married name was. However, it hasn’t taken me long to find out. I rang the hospital and got them to check their records. Sure enough a woman named Hilary Walsh died there five years and three months ago. Her next of kin was a son named Joseph, whose stepdad, Brian Walsh, had died some years earlier. The address given at the time was a house in Camberwell just three streets away from The Falconer’s Arms pub. Using the names I did a quick search of births, deaths and marriages, which provided confirmation that Hilary Walsh’s maiden name was indeed Metcalfe.
‘First thing this morning I went to the Camberwell address and found out that Joseph Walsh sold the house four years ago. The current occupants say he moved to Australia. They’ve given me the name of the estate agents who handled the sale and I intend to call them after this meeting to see if they have contact details for him.’
‘Well it doesn’t sound very promising,’ Anna said. ‘But I still reckon it’s a bit of a strange coincidence that Mark Rossi’s stepbrother used to live so close to The Falconer’s Arms pub.’
‘My thoughts exactly, ma’am,’ Benning said. ‘I’ll try to find out if Joseph is actually living down under and if so whether or not he returned to the UK in recent weeks.’
‘Stick with it then.’ Anna turned back to Walker. ‘Now what about Neville Quinlan? Anything new to report on him?’
Walker pointed across the room to where DS Prescott was sitting behind a desk with a phone clamped to his ear.
‘I’m waiting for Doug to update me on that,’ he said. ‘Something interesting turned up on CCTV apparently and he’s checking it out. Meanwhile the pathologist emailed over a preliminary post-mortem report. There are no surprises, though. The boy almost certainly wasn’t beaten or sexually assaulted. There’s no trace of semen in or on his body and cause of death was smoke inhalation for sure.’
‘Well that’s a relief,’ Anna said. ‘We need to let his parents know that he didn’t suffer in that way. Now what about the house-to-house in Camberwell? Did it bear fruit?’
‘Negative, guv,’ Walker said. ‘We’ve spoken to the estate agent about the dark-coloured car that one of the neighbours spotted on the pub forecourt several times during the past few weeks. But they say it doesn’t belong to any of their staff.’
‘And what about the homeless guy who was usually seen sleeping outside the pub?’ Anna said.
Walker asked Detective Khan for an update.
‘As I mentioned yesterday, the guy goes by the name of George,’ Khan said. ‘Before the riots started, he was usually seen kipping in the pub doorway. But the last reported sighting of him was well over a week ago when he was seen begging across the road from a local café. He hasn’t been spotted since then, and we haven’t got the manpower to trawl the streets looking for him.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Anna said. ‘It’s yet another coincidence that gives me cause for concern. Homeless people tend to be creatures of habit so we need to find out why he stopped bedding down there.’
‘We’ve asked people living around the pub to call us right away if they see him,’ Khan said.
‘Good. As far as I’m concerned tracking him down is a priority.’
Anna was about to ask for suggestions on where to go next with the investigation when DS Prescott shot to his feet and raised a hand to attract her attention. He was off the phone now and the look on his face sparked a surge of optimism.
‘We need to bring Neville Quinlan in for questioning, guv,’ he said. ‘It turns out the bastard lied to us.’
‘About what?’ Anna asked.
‘Well he claimed he went for a walk by himself on Monday afternoon between three and four, which was when Jacob was abducted. He said he didn’t meet or speak to anyone. Well we’ve finally come across several clips of CCTV footage that shoot a hole in his alibi. It appears he did go out for a walk, but he didn’t return to his home at four. Instead he met a man in a pub about a mile from his flat and after one drink they drove off in the other guy’s car.’
‘About bloody time we got a break,’ Anna said.
Prescott held his notebook aloft. ‘That’s not all, guv. It gets better. The call I just made was to check who the car belongs to. And I’ve been given the name of a character who is more than a little interesting.’