I set up a new email address, Saul1949@mailme.co.uk, and began to fill in the profile. I was asked to say something about myself and also to describe the type of woman and relationship I was looking for.
‘Divorced solvent man looking for life partner,’ I wrote. ‘I am a 33-year-old sales executive, divorced without children. I have a nice home in a pleasantly suburban UK location. I am looking for a woman to spend my life with. Someone who wants the same things as me — children and a traditional home life. My interests revolve around the home and I have the financial means to give a partner a good and easy life.’
I thought I made myself sound pretty plausible and presented myself in a way that would make what I was offering sound attractive. Particularly the financial side of things and the stable family life. I’d done some googling. The common consensus was that most Thai women were looking for those things.
I wrote that I wanted: ‘a family-minded, traditional woman, who wants to be a traditional wife to a traditional husband. She does not have to be beautiful, but she must be of childbearing age and want to have children.’
I thought that said it all and I started to move on to the rest of the registration process. It was when I reached the section, where I was supposed to post a photograph of myself, that I began to have second thoughts. I realised I had the same old problem. If I intended to follow this through and travel to Thailand in search of a bride, I would have to use my passport and expose my real face. I certainly didn’t want that plastered all over the internet.
I backed off at once, leaving the site without completing the registration process or entering any more details. I tried to concentrate on my everyday life. I told myself I should stop fantasising. I tried to kid myself that my life was OK the way it was.
After a few days, idly playing with my computer one evening, I went into my new email address. To my surprise, even though I hadn’t registered properly, I’d had an email from Thaibrides-introductions.com telling me my profile had been accepted. I logged in. My spot on their website contained photographs and profiles of dozens of young, Thai women. There was a section where you could express interest and send a message.
I did so, choosing a dozen women at random and writing the same message to all of them.
‘Hiya, I hope you will contact me. As you know I am a 33-year-old Englishman looking for someone to share my life with. I like your profile. I hope you like mine and I hope you get in touch with me soon.’
I pushed send and waited to see what would happen next.
The next thing to pop up was a payment page. The platinum option allegedly gave me unlimited online access to hundreds of Thai women. It cost seventy-five pounds for six months. I paid with a debit card for a bank account that was linked to an accommodation address. I had set it up with a cash deposit some years previously, when these things were much easier and called for little or no identity checking or proof of address. It had come in useful more than once before. Now I hoped it would assist me in transforming my sad and lonely life.
Within seconds I was in and my message would now be passed on to the young women I had already selected.
Eleven
The CCTV footage was waiting for Vogel, when he returned to Kenneth Steele House. He and Hemmings pored over it together. An unidentified man and a young girl had been captured the previous evening by a West Street CCTV camera. They could be seen weaving slightly as they walked along the pavement. The time was 10.17 p.m. Stone Lane was just ahead of them, to the left.
The footage lasted only a few seconds. The man appeared to be more or less holding the girl upright. He had an arm around her and her head was against his shoulder. At one point she looked up at him. There was a clear shot of her face. The girl was Melanie Cooke.
The man, however, who was wearing a hooded jacket, kept his head down and his face so deliberately turned away from the angle of the camera, that it seemed likely he knew it was there. There was not a single shot of him which offered any chance of identification. It was difficult even to tell his size or height. The jacket might have been padded, or else just large and shapeless. He was bending over the girl. All his clothes were dark and anonymous, although, of course, every effort would be made to further examine them for any detail which might be of use.
Hemmings and Vogel played the footage several times.
Vogel found it harrowing to watch. Minutes later, Melanie Cooke would be dead.
‘This is almost certainly the poor kid with her killer,’ he said aloud. ‘But it does bugger all to identify the bastard.’
‘Well, we’ll get the tech boys onto it.’
‘Of course,’ said Vogel. ‘I don’t hold out much hope though, do you? It could be her father, her stepfather or a complete stranger, from this.’
The footage was thoroughly disheartening.
Vogel was about to finally give up for the day and leave for home, when Saslow came into his office clutching a wad of computer printouts.
She slapped them on his desk.
‘I’ve been checking out weirdo behaviour, like you told me to, boss. Particularly any incidents of paedophilia that might fit,’ she said. ‘Seems there’ve been a number of reports of some pervert parking up outside schools, getting his rocks off more than likely.’
‘Is there a reason for believing it’s the same man every time? We’ve got more than one perverted bastard in Bristol, that’s for sure.’
‘Yes, boss, but it’s the same MO. He’s always in a nicked motor, for a start. Carefully chosen, of an age not to have a modern security system, usually a Ford Transit or some other kind of common van and, more often than not, it’s white, also very common, of course. He always parks carefully, somewhere he can get a good view of the school gates and playgrounds, but not too close and in such a way that if he’s spotted, he can make a quick get away. The vehicles are usually recovered later not far from the schools. He’s been caught on CCTV several times, though it’s never been much help.’
Vogel grunted. For the second time that day, and for the umpteenth time in his police career, he wondered if CCTV was ever much use, except for catching otherwise law-abiding, tax-paying motorists, who happened to be speeding.
‘So, not even a halfway decent shot of him?’ Vogel enquired.
‘No boss. Not so far anyway. There’s a lot to go through. I’ve got the team on it, but he’s clearly streetwise and I don’t hold out a lot of hope. Bastard hunkers down in his seat and always wears a hoody, with the hood up and pulled down as far as possible over his face. Has sunglasses on too.’
‘A hoody eh? Same as the character we have footage of with Melanie Cooke.’
‘Yeah, that narrows it down to a few thousand then, boss.’
Vogel responded with a wry smile.
‘OK, well, carry on trying to ID the bastard, Saslow, but he could just be a voyeur, of course. Plenty of those about.’
‘Yes, but there’s more, boss. Teacher at Moorcroft Primary school saw him trying to get an eight-year-old girl into his van.’
‘Ah. What happened?’
‘The teacher called out. The girl backed off and the weirdo gunned his stolen motor, a white Transit, and beat a quick retreat.’
‘When was that?’
‘Just under a month ago.’ Saslow checked her notebook. ‘Tuesday, April 18th, during the school’s dinner break. It was reported and looked into at the time, but there was bugger all to go on. No CCTV footage at all that day. The van was found not far away, where there aren’t any cameras. He’d probably checked that out in advance and had a camera-free, escape route. Seems probable he always does that, so whenever he’s been picked up, the camera has never been near enough or the angle good enough for there to be any chance of identifying him.’