I noticed a number of new faces in the incident room; it appeared that our DCI was as good as his word and was drafting in all the help he could summon. One of them was actually sitting at my desk.
“Excuse me.”
“What? Oh, sorry,” the newcomer said. “You must be Sergeant Crossley.”
“That’s correct. And you are?”
He rose and held out a hand. “Peter Conway; Sergeant Peter Conway, Wolverhampton CID.” He wasn’t very much older than I was. Tall, slim – quite an athletic build. In fact, he wasn’t at all bad looking, with his dark wavy hair and hazel eyes. I shook his hand, noticing that he held onto mine longer than was normal. He had a distinct twinkle in his eye. It told me a lot about him – especially to watch myself with him. “My DI instructed me to report to you for allocation of duties.”
“To me?” I said surprised. “He doesn’t know me.”
“No, but it was arranged between him and your DCI, Jim Robbins. Evidently you have been appointed as liaison officer between the various forces helping out.”
I scowled fiercely. “I wish someone had bothered to tell me.” God! That Jim could be really infuriating at times. “Anyway, welcome aboard. I’m sure you realise by now we need all the help we can get.”
“What would you like me to do, Sarge?”
“Angie; my name is Angie. Alright if I call you Peter?”
“Fine…Angie. I hear your current serious crime cases have been handed across to other West Midland forces. So, how can I help?”
“Let me introduce you first to Peter Corkhill –Sergeant Peter Corkhill. We’ve been working together on this case.”
“Glad to meet you,” Peter said warmly. “We really could do with all the help we can get on this case.”
I filled him in on the current state of the investigation, emphasising the need to follow up on the dealers’ lists, which were fast approaching completion.
“Any good with computers, Peter?”
“Not bad, actually. They’re a bit of a hobby of mine. Would you like me to merge the list when it’s finished?”
“Thanks. That would be a big help. After that you can help me to organise the house calls.”
“How many are we talking about?”
I hesitated. When I gave it some thought it sounded quite ridiculous. But it still had to be done. “It could be as high as 4,000. Hopefully fewer. Do you think we’re taking on too much?”
He shrugged philosophically. “You’re trying to catch a vicious killer. If that’s what it takes, then that’s what we’ll do.”
I think I was going to like Peter Conway. We set to work assimilating all of the responses after the incident room team had inputted the information into the computer. I left Peter to handle it whilst I got on to PR for Jim’s media problem. Next I dealt with the question of extra security for Connie, and then I telephoned her to put her in the picture. She wasn’t at all fazed by the news.
“Have there been any developments?” she wanted to know.
“No. Not yet, Connie. We’re still chasing up the leads on the vehicles. After that it’s going to be a lot of legwork, I’m afraid. Will you be okay for the next couple of days if I can’t get across to see you?”
“I’ll be fine, Angie; honest. You just do what you have to. Maybe Steve and I could meet up with you in town for a sandwich or something.”
‘Steve and I’, indeed – as if they had always been an item. Or, was I becoming possessive? Also, I was forgetting that Connie would be 18 in a few weeks; then she was free to do whatever she wanted. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a little put out at the news.
“Good idea,” I said, managing to inject some enthusiasm in my voice. “I’ll ring you tomorrow. Bye, Connie.”
By the evening all the information from the car dealers was complete, the staff had fed it into the computers, and Peter Durning began the mail merge. The number of vehicles wasn’t as high as I first estimated; of the 4,000 or so on the original list more than 2,500 had been eliminated because of the various constraints we had introduced. Even so, 1,500 were still a hell of a lot and would more than stretch our resources. I had asked Peter Conway to begin the merge in alphabetical order; the other Peter was assisting him and they seemed to be getting along well together. This gave me the chance to scan the list quickly for my Arnold Brownlaw – not that I really expected to find him. I was right: my suspect did not appear. Next, we sorted in areas closest to the abduction site, as Jim had suggested. There were 35 in this category. I fed them out to the other officers in the room with instructions to check each purchaser’s name for any criminal background, following which we would broaden the scope to include the remaining names on the list. In doing this, however, I was mindful of Paul’s earlier comments when he claimed it was unlikely our paedophile would have a criminal record. I also recalled it was something Connie was adamant about. Nevertheless, it had to be done as part of normal police procedure, and you never knew what it might throw up.
It was getting quite late by now, so I decided to call it a night. More and more these days I seemed to be affected by an intense weariness. I shrugged it off by putting it down to the pressure of the case.
“Fancy a bite to eat?” Peter Conway asked, a smile on his face.
“No. Thanks anyway, but I’m whacked. I’m off home; see you tomorrow.”
“Sure. I’ll be here bright and early. I’ll make a start on the rest of the list, shall I?”
“If you would. Thanks.”