The traffic must have been light. Either that or he drove fast. Ridpath tried to remember how he had arrived at Stretford nick, but the details of the journey eluded him. He remembered getting in the car outside the Coroner’s Court and working out the journey, heading towards Stretford up the A6, past the O2 Apollo and onto the Mancunian Way.
Since then, it had all been a bit of a blur. He must have been on autopilot, his body driving the car but his mind thinking about the two cases he had to solve quickly. They both seemed to be linked, but how to pull it all together?
He locked the car and strode up the steps and through the lobby. The sergeant in charge merely nodded as he passed. They had become used to the arrival of the detective inspector from MIT now.
The others were waiting for him in the situation room.
‘Right, we’re all here,’ said Dave Connor, rubbing his hands together. ‘Chrissy sent me a message. She’s still at HQ but she’ll join us on Zoom when we’re ready.’
Ridpath opened up his laptop and connected to the Zoom meeting. Emily sat there quietly, a coffee from the canteen in front of her. Oliver Davis was poised in front of the whiteboard, marker pen in hand. Dave Connor tapped the desk nervously while waiting for the link to connect.
‘I’ve had Holloway in my ear all afternoon, Ridpath, he’s hassling for a result,’ he whispered.
‘He made it clear this morning, Dave, but you know what we have to do.’
‘But he doesn’t. His background is traffic.’
Ridpath’s eyes rolled. ‘OK, you want me to handle him?’
‘No, I’ll do it.’
‘Hiya.’
A bright voice and even brighter face appeared on the screen.
‘Hiya, Chrissy, I hope you have some good news for us.’
‘I do, Ridpath, and some bad news.’
‘Go on.’
‘I’ve tracked down the list of people who worked at Daisy House from 1986 until it closed in 2006. There are thirty-two names on it, including ancillary workers, residential social workers, managers and admin and even gardeners. Joseph Rowlands’s name is on the list.’
‘Great, Chrissy, so what’s the problem?’
‘Well, it only includes full-time staff. It doesn’t include any volunteers or part-time staff.’
‘Why is it a problem?’ asked Dave Connor.
‘Well, it doesn’t include names like Jimmy Savile, who we know visited the home in 1996 and 1998.’
‘Because he was only volunteering?’
‘Correct, Ridpath.’
‘Still, it’s a start. Can you look into those names and find out where they are now?’
‘Will do, Ridpath.’
‘And how did you get on with Jane Ryder’s missing documents?’
‘You want me to do that now, or after this meeting?’
‘Now, please. I’ll explain why later.’
‘I still haven’t found them, but I have a good idea of where they might be. I’m heading there later, after I’ve been through the 2013 Operation Pharaoh files. Too much to do and too little time, Ridpath.’
‘Don’t I know it. Emily, how did you get on?’
The detective took out her notes from her new backpack, covered in a skull motif. ‘Bagsy did sell the CLAK backpack. It was part of a limited edition produced in early June 2009. According to their inventory ledger, the shop only received three pieces and all of them sold out in one day. The owner remembers it clearly. She tried to get more stock, but the factory said there wasn’t any.’
‘Who bought them?’
‘I don’t know. I went through her sales records, but the ones for 2009 weren’t there. She thought she threw them out a while ago when she cleared old paper from her office.’
‘A dead end?’
‘Not quite. She remembers selling them all on one day. June 1, 2009, the day they arrived. She seems to think they were all bought with a credit card.’
‘Great, we can check with the company for receipts for the day.’
‘Already on it, Ridpath. They are going to get back to me.’
‘See if you can push them, Emily. Dave, how did you get on?’
‘I tracked Joseph Rowlands’s movements after he came out of prison in 2014. He returned to Manchester, reporting on the Sexual Offenders Register as he was supposed to, but disappeared after the operation to remove the plate in his hand in 2015. We don’t know what happened to him or where he went until he turns up in 2016 in Wolverhampton—’
‘We found him through DVLA. He applied for a HGV licence, working for a haulier in the West Midlands,’ interrupted Oliver Davis.
‘Are we sure it’s the same man?’
‘Positive. I sent a mugshot of him from his 2013 arrest and the haulier confirmed it was Rowlands. He worked there until early 2017—’
‘They remembered him?’
‘Yeah, said he was a good, conscientious worker, always on time, but he didn’t mix much. A bit of a loner. Then he vanishes again until the missing person report on him in 2018. He was living in Moston and working for Oldham Council.’
‘What happened between 2017 and 2018?’
‘We’re still looking at it.’
‘Keep going, but good work, Dave and Oliver.’
‘Anything from Hannah?’
‘Nothing more. I’ll give her a call, but I’m sure she would’ve let us know if they’d pulled more DNA.’
‘Of course. Now, I said I would explain why I want Chrissy to follow up on the coroner’s misper, Jane Ryder.’ He placed the photographs Sophia had found on the desk. ‘Come and look at these. Chrissy, I’ll send you copies later.’
‘Right-oh, Ridpath.’
The others stood up and rushed across to the desk. It was Oliver Davis who spotted it first. ‘The backpack. It’s the same as the one we found in the house.’
‘These photos were taken at the Mad Ferret Festival in 2009. A girl, Jane Ryder, this girl—’ he pointed at one of the images ‘—disappeared there and vanished completely. No contact with her parents, no phone calls to friends, nothing. And there is no documentation on her after 2009. The backpack in the photo matches the one with the hands. Was it hers? We have to prove the link.’
‘I’m on it, Ridpath,’ said Emily.
‘Plus who was this man standing with her?’
‘But—’
‘What is it, Dave?’
‘If this is her backpack, one of the hands we discovered belonged to a teenager. You said this girl—’
‘Jane Ryder.’
‘Was sixteen when she disappeared.’
‘Exactly, Dave. Is our female hand Jane Ryder? If it is, we need to find this man as soon as possible.’ Ridpath prodded the photograph with his index finger. ‘He could be our killer.’