“But there are things you haven’t told us, aren’t there, Inspector?”
He was right, of course he was. It would be foolish to release all the details. Once that happened, every weirdo in the area would be on the phone, confessing. So the mouth thing had to stay out of bounds. For the present at least.
“Irrelevant details that don’t concern the public.” Calladine didn’t fancy the lurid headlines, and there’d be plenty of those once the truth came out.
“DCI Jones, does this have anything to do with the gangland killing earlier this week?”
Jones was taken aback and looked at Calladine, momentarily lost for words.
“No. Nothing at all. That was a quite different matter and is not the concern of this team. It would not be helpful to link the two in your paper.”
The reporter who had asked this was from the Manchester press
—a burly individual who worked for the daily. Poor sod must be following that case. Interesting that it had led him here this morning though. Calladine wondered if he knew that Fallon was his cousin. It was not common knowledge but it would be easy enough to find out.
The DCI stood up. He’d had enough. “A word when you’ve done,” he muttered tersely before leaving.
What now? Was it the case, or was it the mention of the shooting that had ruffled his feathers?
After a few more questions, Calladine called a halt and whispered to Ruth, “We’ve given out all we need to for now. We can’t waste any more time here. Let’s crack on.”
“What next? We’ve seen everyone we need to from the university. There’s nothing much else to be had from the laptop for now, so it seems. So perhaps we should bother Julian and Doc Hoyle—see what forensics has uncovered for us.”
Not a bad idea, except that they would have contacted him if they had anything.
“Someone here to see you, sir!” Rocco was smirking as he approached Calladine.
Sitting at the empty desk formerly inhabited by Dodgy, was Alice Bolshaw.
“I hope you don’t mind, Inspector, but I contacted your DCI and he asked me to come in.”
Yes, he damn well did mind. Going above his head like that wasn’t on. If she wanted to work with him then she’d have to learn about teamwork.
“And?” He glowered down at the girl.
“Well…he said to come along. He didn’t think my helping could do any harm. And he rushed through all the paperwork.” She shuffled nervously in the chair.
That remained to be seen. Had the man no sense?
“Excuse me, Alice. Wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
* * *
“I don’t like these continual references to your cousin, Tom. It leaves a bad taste and causes too much curiosity.” The DCI stood looking out of the window, a glass of water in his hand.
“My view exactly, sir. But I don’t see what I can do about it. The girl—Alice Bolshaw—did you give her permission to join us?”
“You see, the problem is Fallon is giving Central the run around and they’re not happy. Now—because of your entanglement with him they’re starting to lay the blame at my feet.”
“They’re looking for a scapegoat, sir. They’ll get bored and it’ll pass and, as I’ve explained before, I’m not ‘entangled’ with him, as you put it. Now back to Alice—”
“Just make use of the girl for God’s sake. You’re always banging on about not having enough manpower, so stop causing me problems and get on with it.”
He was almost shouting, and his cheeks had turned an unhealthy shade of red. DCI Jones was overwrought and not engaging his brain properly. Alice Bolshaw was barely out of her teens, for God’s sake. What use did he imagine she’d be?
Jones reached for a bottle of pills and emptied two into his palm.
“Got me on bloody tranquilizers, this damn job has. Look at me!
Just look at me, man. I’m a mess.”
He wasn’t joking. He did look a mess, but then whose fault was that? Jones was a fool. He’d been foolish to take the job in the first place; he was well out of his depth. And it was beginning to tell.
“Alice Bolshaw was close to one of the murdered girls, sir. It’s not right for her to join the team. She’ll be privy to every detail, and I don’t think that can be helpful in any way at all.”
“I don’t give a toss what you think, DI Calladine. Just do as I say. And don’t answer back. Do you understand?” Jones slammed the glass down on the window sill, shaking with rage. He looked as if he was about to lose it completely, and he reached unsteadily for the edge of his desk. “Get out of here! Go on, piss off and leave me alone.”
Calladine shook his head in disgust and left the office.
* * *
“Right, Alice. It seems you are with us for a while. Now, I’m going to say this once only. If I see you struggling emotionally with any of this, then I’ll make you leave. Understand?”
The girl nodded her head vigorously and gave him a half smile.
“Familiarise yourself with that.” He pointed to the incident board.
“Imogen will give you the background stuff to look through, and then you can help her interrogate the two laptops—the one that belonged to Madison and one that Patsy used. Perhaps you can help identify who’s who among Madison’s photos. You were close; you’ll know who her friends were, and perhaps you’ll recognise some family members.”
“Details went out on the last local radio news, sir.” Rocco looked up from his computer screen. “They’re going to put it out on the hour for the rest of the day.”
“Ruth. You and I will go have a chat with Julian—see if he’s got anything from those soil samples yet. The rest of you—we need to break this—man the phones, anyone volunteers information, then get their address and ring me. Look through everything we’ve got so far—make sure we’ve not missed something.”
* * *
Calladine and Ruth drove out towards Julian’s lab at the hospital.
“Jones is a fool. He’s losing it—he’s not coping with the job at all.
He offers bugger all, and hardly leaves that office of his, unless it’s to skulk off home early. I tell you, Ruth, if he doesn’t get his finger out soon I’ll go above his head.”
She looked disapproving. “You wouldn’t do that—it’s not your style, sir.”
“No, I suppose I probably wouldn’t. This case is getting to me, and the last bloody straw is having to amuse Alice Bolshaw while we’re up to our eyes in it. You’d think he’d have more sense. I mean, what is she? Nineteen? Twenty?”
“Yes, but you’re forgetting what she’s like. She’s an odd sort, sir.
She doesn’t strike me as the sort of young woman who’ll be at all bothered by what she sees or learns about the case.”
“I hope you’re right. I hope she doesn’t turn out to be the squeamish sort.”
“When are you contacting your American friend?”
“Jo will ring me, and then I’ll nip home and Skype him from my laptop. I don’t know what he can offer though, apart from contacting the families of the girls Alice identified.”
“I wonder why he likes American women, sir. There has to be something in that—something more than there being no family close by to come looking for them.”
“Perhaps we should ask Alice. After all, she does want to be a profiler.”
“Seriously, sir. It is a lead—of sorts. Given that he’s a nutter, then the American connection is important. It obviously means something to him.”
“American women, teeth, lips, hanging onto the bodies…it makes no sense to me. His behaviour is so atypical.”
“That’s why it’s important. We should look at it all again, analyse what it means. Hanging on to them, for example. That means he’s had somewhere to keep them, even if it’s only the back garden.”
“But not anymore, it would seem, given the way Serena was dumped.”
“So we should be asking ourselves what’s changed. Because something has.”