‘We’ll let Quinlan stew for a while,’ Anna said to Walker when they were back in the ops room. ‘Meanwhile, get someone to go back over his phone records and online history. Let’s find out how often he’s been in contact with Craig Sullivan.’
DS Prescott had already been digging up info on Sullivan and the sex trafficking gang his brother had run. He’d spoken to the Yard’s anti-trafficking unit who had told him that the gang stayed in business after Sullivan was banged up.
‘They bring kids into the UK from all over Europe and Africa,’ Prescott said. ‘Most of the children have been kidnapped, but in a number of cases they’ve been sold by their parents. The children – some as young as five – are then sold on or rented out to paedophiles. It could be that Jacob Rossi was one of their victims.’
‘But if that’s the case then why send the note to his father?’ Anna said. ‘Surely they’d just be content with having the boy so they could put him to work.’
‘Well perhaps they wanted us to think that it was an act of revenge by a grudge-holding individual,’ Prescott said. ‘That way the spotlight wouldn’t fall on them.’
‘So where does Neville Quinlan come into it?’ Walker said. ‘Are we thinking he could be part of the gang?’
Anna shrugged. ‘We shouldn’t rule anything out, but I think it more likely that he’s connected to them by way of being a customer. And one possible scenario is that he’s spent months perving over kids at schools near to where he lives. And while doing so he noticed how Jacob walked home alone along a stretch of road with no cameras. So he flagged it up to Sullivan who realised they could grab the boy fairly easily. Quinlan might have been paid cash or given some free time with kids.’
Just talking about it was making Anna’s spine tingle. But she knew that such things were going on every day on a huge scale. Human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children was big business across the world. Hundreds of thousands of kids were seized by crime gangs every year and then farmed out for sex. It was therefore quite conceivable that Jacob Rossi had been snared for that purpose. But if so then why had he been held captive in the cellar of a derelict pub in Camberwell? Surely a well-resourced and experienced gang would have taken him straight to a more secure place.
Anna went into her office and called DCS Nash to brief him on the new lead. The Sullivan name rang a bell with him and he remembered the case from three years ago when a total of four men were jailed for their parts in the multi-million-pound sex trafficking network.
‘I’ve cautioned the team not to build their hopes up,’ she said. ‘We’re still lacking solid evidence linking Quinlan or anyone else to the abduction. Plus, forensics have produced sod all. So I’m afraid we’ll just have to hope we get lucky at some point.’
Nash explained that he would be spending yet another day at the Yard helping to coordinate the Met’s response to the riots.
‘I’ve been told what happened to Tom and your daughter,’ he said. ‘Thank God they’re OK. When this crisis is over, I’ll be insisting that you take some more compassionate leave so that you can spend some time with both of them.’
‘And I’ll be sure to hold you to that, sir.’
Walker entered her office just as she came off the phone and handed her a mug of coffee.
‘I made it myself because the machine is on the blink,’ he said.
‘Thank you, Max. So what’s the situation with Craig Sullivan?’
‘DC Sweeny just called in, guv. She and DC Mortimer have arrived at his house in Norwood, but he’s not there. They want to know what they should do.’
Anna gave it some thought. ‘Tell them to park up a discreet distance away and keep the place under surveillance. If he turns up they’re to call me for further instructions.’
Walker’s phone rang so he stepped back out of the office to answer it, and Anna took the opportunity to call Chloe to check that all was well with her.
She sounded in good spirits and told Anna that Tom was napping and she was eating crisps while watching television.
‘A doctor came to see him and he’s doing well,’ she said. ‘We’ve been talking and playing games and he’s been telling me a lot about you that I didn’t know.’
‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that,’ Anna said.
Chloe laughed. ‘Don’t panic, Mum. It’s all good stuff, mostly about what you did to try to find me over the years and how you never gave up.’
Anna was reminded that her daughter and Tom hadn’t spent more than a few minutes alone together since Chloe’s return a month ago. So this was the first time Tom had been able to give her his take on what it had been like for Anna during the ten years that Chloe was missing from her life.
‘I probably won’t be able to pick you up until quite late,’ Anna said. ‘Are you OK with that?’
‘Of course, I am. Have you caught the man who kidnapped that boy?’
‘Not yet, sweetheart – I mean Chloe. But we are getting close. I’m sure of it.’
Anna hung up after telling Chloe not to hesitate to call her if any problems arose. Then she called the team together so that she could update them. There were only nine in total, including four admin staff. She told them about the Quinlan interview and reminded them that they should soon receive the warrant allowing them to force their way into Roy Slater’s home.
‘As soon as we get the warrant we’ll go to Rotherhithe,’ she said. ‘And we’ll also need to be ready to shoot off to Norwood if DC Sweeny tells us Sullivan has turned up. It could be a long wait.’
But it wasn’t. After just half an hour Sweeny reported in to say that Sullivan had arrived back home.
‘Stay in position and continue watching the house,’ Anna told her. ‘Don’t move in or do anything to alert him until we get there.’