The journey back was equally as silent as the morning trip; and it had begun to rain. Reg was busy sketching, whilst I tried to avoid thinking about what Connie had said about his health. Perhaps that would explain his moods. It must be a terrible thing to have to confront – but then I remembered Connie saying he didn’t yet know just how serious his condition was. I found myself sighing. In spite of his problem I still couldn’t bring myself to warm to Reg; there was something decidedly depressing about the man.
I tried to concentrate on the more pressing issue of tracing the missing child during the journey back to Birmingham. And, of course, there was the question: where do we go from here? I doubted if the photofit would be all that helpful. What it might have done was frighten the abductor sufficiently to return Josephine to her parents. It would be naive to expect he would turn himself in.
The incident room was as frantic as ever that afternoon. Telephones were still buzzing unceasingly, although the printers from the computers had gone strangely silent, as if they had exhausted their information bank. The atmosphere in the room also seemed, somehow, to have changed. It was subtle rather than pronounced – rather like walking through dense smog – but in this case the haze was an essence of despair. As I said, people were still busy and the noise levels hadn’t gone down at all, but there was an air of pointlessness about the proceedings. The room all but screamed at me: “We’re wasting our time!”
At the time I was the only sergeant in the room: virtually everyone with any seniority was out, either helping in the search or organising the standard house-to-house enquires. The search for Josephine had been going on for two full days now, and we knew from experience that every day that passed almost exponentially reduced the prospects of finding the child alive. But we mustn’t give in, I urged myself.
“Listen up, people!” I shouted across the room. When only one or two of the detective constables stopped what they were doing I repeated the demand, this time even more loudly and more firmly. When I finally had all their attentions I said (hopefully with authority), “What’s the problem here? You all look like you won the lottery and lost your ticket! Can I remind you, in case it’s slipped your minds, a child’s missing and it’s down to all of us to find her. Alright, I admit the chances of finding her alive aren’t looking good - but that doesn’t mean we give up. Got it? If we can’t help the victim we do everything in our power to get the bastard who abducted her. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” I shouted across the room. I insisted that all of the 30 or so people in the incident room nod their assent before I continued: “Then let’s get to it, and for Christ’s sake give it all you’ve got - people are relying on you. And so’s that little girl… I hope.”
“Good speech,” Jim commented from the door of his office - he had vacated his desk in the incident room for a meeting with the Superintendent.
“Should have thought of it myself. Come in, Ange. I’ve been waiting for you to get back. The Super and I have been talking about that photofit. Is the original any better than this fax copy?”
“Afraid not. Think we’ve gone as far as we can with this – unless, of course, Connie remembers some more detail.” I joined him and Superintendent Connors at the table and handed over the original of the drawing. The superintendent was an imposing figure: tall and slim, with dark brown hair and a serious, almost permanent, worried look on his heavily lined face. I would guess he was late forties or, perhaps, early fifties. He was self-evidently a man who found it difficult to smile, although to be fair, the present circumstances made it difficult for anyone to feel like smiling.
As they studied the photofit I said: “I really don’t want to push this. I’m aware Connie knows more than she’s telling me, but – I have to tell you – she’s frightened to death of this man. Literally.”
The superintendent frowned and glared at me.
“Sergeant, please, don’t insult my intelligence with this psychic crap.”
“Sir?” I questioned, returning his glare.
Jin held out a hand, as if he were separating us from a brawl.
“Please, both of you, we can do without this. What the Super means, Angie, is that anything we say about young Connie and these so-called powers of hers remains strictly between the two of us – and, it goes without saying, strictly off the record. Is that clear?”
The superintendent coughed as I nodded.
“Point taken,” I said. “So, what do we do with the photofit?”
“We circulate it,” the superintendent said, a little more softly. “But internally only; West Midland area police stations. The last thing we need now is a national publicity campaign on the say-so of a child psychic. We’re looking pretty incompetent as it is; that would make us a laughing stock.”
“Do you mind if I ask where we go from here, Sir?” I said. “I mean, I thought we were doing everything possible. I don’t see how our PR profile’s suffered so far.”
The superintendent forced a smile – a condescending one, it seemed to me.
“My dear young woman,” (“Oh, Christ; not another sexist!” I thought) “this is one of those cases where the police cannot win; no matter what we do it will never be enough. I’d have thought by now you’d have sufficient experience to realise that.”
‘What an arsehole,’ I thought. I mean, I realised he was under tremendous pressure because of the publicity surrounding the case, but you’d have thought he would have learned not to take it out on his more junior colleagues.
“Shall we move on?” Jim asked, deliberately changing the subject. He handed back the photofit. “Arrange for this to be circulated, will you, Ange. Also, we need to organise another house-to-house: places close to the school. Show people the picture. If anyone remembers this man, or anyone who bears even the slightest resemblance, we want to know. Then talk to the headmistress again. Ask her if you can speak to any of the kids who were either outside the school that afternoon or who might have seen this character hanging around a few days before the incident.”
“Will do. Anything else, inspector?”
“What about intelligence?” the superintendent wanted to know.
“Nothing yet, sir. We’ll go back to our informers again, now we have the picture - see if that pushes any buttons. Other than that – well, as Angela said, we’re doing everything that can be done. If nothing breaks by tomorrow morning I’m going to ask the army to help with the search - if you agree, that is.”
The superintendent nodded.
“What about the parents? Do you want television coverage?”
“Let’s wait till tomorrow, shall we? If we’ve got nothing by then, yes - we use whatever we’ve got. I’ll speak to them myself; see if they’re agreeable. Shall we get together again later for an update?”
“Yes. Let’s say seven o’clock, shall we? The press will be hounding us to cough up something before their deadlines. I’ll handle that, Inspector; it’ll show them how seriously we’re taking this case.” He stood up from the table. “That’s all for now. Let’s just hope something breaks quickly. And Sergeant, I’m sorry I was snappy – it’s a bad time for all of us …”
Christ! An apology from the Master.