The detectives gradually stumbled into the situation room at Stretford nick. All had worked late into the night, returning at nine a.m. for this meeting.
Dave Connor had bought coffees for everybody. At least, Dave had paid for them, but it was Oliver Davis who’d had to stop off at Costa to pick them up.
Behind them, Oliver had marked up the boards, adding the latest information on the backpack, pictures of Jane Ryder and the festival.
Ridpath strode to the front. ‘Hannah’s decided to join us for this briefing. I hope you have some good news for us.’
The crime scene manager was looking as tired as everybody else. ‘I think so, Ridpath, two pieces of good news.’
‘I also asked Sophia to join. She works with me for the coroner.’
Sophia waved hello to the rest of the team. She was the only one who looked completely rested.
‘Away you go, Hannah.’
‘First off, we have a hit on the other male hand from the fingerprints late last night. It belongs to a Gerald Duffy. That’s spelt D-U-F-F-Y. He’s in the IDENT 1 database for a DUI back in 2006.’
Oliver wrote the name on the board.
‘Dave, can you follow this lead? Find out who this Gerald Duffy was, when he disappeared, where he last lived. You know the drill.’
‘Will do, Ridpath.’
‘What’s the other piece of news, Hannah?’
‘Well, we put the roach we found in the backpack through the VSC and it came up trumps.’ She showed a printout of the unfolded rectangle of paper. The letters, which had been invisible before, were now solid black.
‘And it turned out to be a corner of a ticket for the Mad Ferret Festival of 2009.’
Hannah Palmer laughed. ‘How’d you guess?’
‘Not a guess, Hannah.’ He stood up, walked over to the boards and pointed out Jane Ryder’s pictures from the festival. ‘As you know, we’ve been trying to trace this missing person from 2009 for the coroner. Last night, we had a breakthrough when Sophia found these pictures of her at the festival. Did the photographer get back to you, Sophia?’
‘He thinks he has other photos in his archive somewhere. He has to dig them out.’
‘Call him and put a rocket under his arse. This is important. Send any through as soon as you get them.’
‘Will do.’
Ridpath pointed to one of the pictures. ‘The backpack here is similar to the one found at Daisy House.’
‘You think the female hand could be this girl?’
‘It’s a distinct possibility, Hannah. Dr O’Casey, the forensic anthropologist, gave an age range of sixteen to seventeen. She was sixteen when she went missing. There should have been DNA in the misper file taken when she disappeared, but guess what?’
‘It’s gone missing too.’
‘Right first time.’
‘If you can find it, we can try to compare her DNA with our hand and see if we get a match.’
‘That’s what I was hoping you would say, Hannah.’
‘It still might be difficult, Ridpath, the lab thinks her hand was immersed in the embalming fluid for the longest time.’
‘Chrissy, did you find the files yesterday?’
‘Not yet, after this meeting I’m off to trawl through the old MFH cases. I think it may have been misfiled there.’
‘I’m interviewing the missing person’s manager later. She may know what happened.’
‘Knowing Doreen Hawkins, I wouldn’t bank on it, Ridpath,’ muttered Chrissy.
‘Emily, how did you get on with the backpack?’
‘As I said yesterday, three were sold in Manchester on June 1, 2009. Two people paid with credit cards, a Miss Wendy Taylor and a Mrs Hilary Swindon. I contacted them. Both remember buying the bag and Miss Taylor still has hers. Mrs Swindon said her bag was stolen two years ago when she was on holiday.’
‘It could be the one,’ said Oliver.
‘Except it was stolen in Greece, and she said her daughter had resprayed it bright blue.’
‘It leaves only one left. Sophia?’
‘I checked with Mr and Mrs Ryder earlier this morning. I showed him the picture and Mr Ryder remembered it well. He told me he gave his daughter the money to buy the backpack in 2009 as a present for finishing her exams.’
Ridpath stared at the pictures on the whiteboard. ‘Looks like we have our link. But how did it get into Daisy House nearly twelve years later?’
Oliver Davis wrote the question on the whiteboard in neat block letters.
‘Dave, anything else on Joseph Rowlands?’
‘We managed to pick him up back in Manchester in 2017. He didn’t report to the Sexual Offenders Register though. He was working as a gardener again, this time for Oldham Council. He seems to have kept his nose clean, no police reports or problems. Again, his workmates say he was a good worker, always on time and kept himself to himself. He was reported missing on June 10, 2018 by his partner. Apparently he went to work one morning and never came back. No note, no explanation, nothing. She reported him to the police two days later. Here’s the misper report Chrissy gave me.’ Dave handed over two sheets of paper. ‘I talked to the copper involved. They thought he’d had enough of the relationship and walked out. The copper didn’t know he was on the Sexual Offenders Register.’
‘So no follow-up?’
‘No. He was put down as low risk. His partner had three kids from a previous relationship—’
‘Shit,’ Emily said loudly.
‘I asked the partner as subtly as I could how Rowlands had behaved around them and she told me he had been a great stepfather, taking them to the beach and on camping trips.’
‘Without her?’
‘Apparently.’
‘Shit,’ repeated Emily.
‘Did you inform her that we may have found him?’
‘I did. She still misses him.’
‘Dave, how old are the kids now?’
‘Fifteen, twelve and eight. A boy is the youngest, still at primary school.’
‘You’d better notify Children’s Services at the council. They’ll need to follow up.’
‘Do I have to?’
‘We must, Dave, can’t let it go. Once we know of the slightest possibility of an offence, we need to report it.’
‘Even though nothing may have happened.’
‘Not for us to decide, Dave, children may have been at risk.’
‘OK, but the woman still misses Joseph Rowlands – this will devastate her.’
‘It has to be done.’ Ridpath turned to the civilian researcher. ‘Chrissy, how did you get on with finding the staff from Daisy House?’
‘Without applying for a court order for the information from Manchester Council, here are the names collected by the Pharaoh investigation. Thirty-two in total.’
‘So just those investigated, not all the people who worked there?’ asked Dave Connor.
‘That’s correct.’
‘How many of these people were submitted to CPS for possible prosecution?’ Oliver asked.
Chrissy checked her notes. ‘Good question. Seven people, of which only four were actually put on trial.’ She produced a short list of names and job titles, which Oliver stuck to a new board.
Harold Davidson – Social Worker
Eliot Sandberg – Social Worker
David Wallace – Care Assistant
Joseph Rowlands – Head Gardener
‘All of them were charged with a variety of sexual offences against children, receiving between two and six years, and all were placed on the Sexual Offenders Register.’
‘The kids, of course, received life sentences.’
This was spoken with bitterness by Emily. Ridpath glanced across at her, surprised at the reaction.
Chrissy carried on. ‘Davidson committed suicide shortly after the verdict. Sandberg was shanked in the showers in prison. He died three days later, but his attacker was never caught.’
‘Exactly what he deserved.’ Emily spoke again without looking up from her notes.
‘Nobody deserves to die, Emily, particularly not when they are in prison.’
‘Listen, Ridpath, these men committed offences against children, some as young as six years old, whilst they were supposed to be caring for them. We give them a little pat on the head and stick them inside for a few years. The whole case disgusts me.’
Ridpath didn’t answer. ‘Carry on, Chrissy.’
‘David Wallace died in 2016, apparently from a heart attack.’
‘That leaves Rowlands, who vanished in 2018 and whose hand has now turned up in our backpack. What about the other three who weren’t charged by CPS?’
‘Here’s the list of names.’ She passed out a sheet for everyone.
Robert Dunphy – Care Assistant
Patricia Patterson – Social Worker
Peter Clarke – Odd Job Man
‘I haven’t checked on their whereabouts yet. My next job.’
‘Have you looked at the Sexual Offenders Register?’ asked Emily.
‘Not yet. You’re wondering if any of them went on to offend again?’
Emily nodded.
‘I’ll do it as soon as this meeting ends.’
‘And one of them is a woman. What offence did she commit?’ The surprise registered in Emily’s voice.
‘I’ll dig out the files sent to CPS.’
Before Emily could ask another question, Ridpath began to sum up. ‘Right, we have a new lead, Gerald Duffy. Dave, we need to find out who he is as quickly as possible.’
‘Right, Ridpath.’
‘Last night I asked myself a few questions. The first: what links Joseph Rowlands, Jane Ryder and now Gerald Duffy? Is it Daisy House? Or is it something else, something we missed?’
‘Like what, Ridpath?’ asked Chrissy.
‘Like, were they all at the festival in 2009? Or were they all the members of some gang? Find the connection and I think we’ll finally be able to understand what the hell is going on.’
He paused for a moment, looking out at the small team assembled in front of him. Could they do this? Usually MIT would have a pool of twenty detectives to chase down leads on any case. Here he had only four people. Five, if he included himself. Was it enough?
It had to be enough.
He carried on. ‘Second: how did their hands end up in a backpack owned by Jane Ryder in Daisy House? Third: what happened to the bodies? Why haven’t the bodies been discovered?’ He stopped, remembering Chrissy was supposed to be checking with HOLMES. ‘Still nothing, Chrissy?’
She shook her head. ‘Not a sausage. It’s like the bodies vanished into thin air. I cross-checked with discovered bodies on the NCA Missing Persons website. And still nothing.’
Ridpath made a clicking noise with his tongue. ‘Fourth: why collect and amputate the hands? Is this person collecting trophies? Or do the hands have some other meaning, some hidden meaning?’
‘Or is it something more personal?’ Emily whispered as if speaking to herself. ‘Is this a form of revenge, removing the object that hurt them?’
The room went quiet before Dave Connor gave a short laugh. ‘Bit too deep for me, Emily. Perhaps he’s just handy with a hacksaw?’
Nobody laughed at Dave’s joke.
Ridpath continued to sum up. ‘Last question. Who placed the hands in the backpack? In other words, who is our killer?’
‘That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, Ridpath.’
‘The problem is, Chrissy, at the moment, I don’t have a bloody clue what the answer is. Is everybody clear what they have to do?’
Emily put her hand up. ‘What about me?’
‘You’re coming with me to see the missing person’s manager in the Jane Ryder case, Em, and afterwards we’re meeting Jayne Ryder’s best friend, Rose Anstey, in Salford Quays.’
‘Ridpath, why are we looking for the coroner’s missing person? Surely we should be trying to find out more about the hands in the backpack?’ asked Dave Connor.
Ridpath stared at him. ‘Because I’m becoming more and more convinced the answers to our questions are connected to the disappearance of Jane Ryder. I don’t know how yet. Or why. But they are connected, I feel it in my bones.’