Laura carefully withdrew a rolled-up sleeping bag from the evidence bag.
‘Is that the sleeping bag Amanda was using?’ Jack asked, moving closer.
‘Yes, and it’s pretty disgusting. Anyway, when I was checking it over I pulled up the flap at the end of the bag. It’s probably used to cover the sleeper’s face if you’re outdoors. It’s very faint, and easily missed as it’s in the folds.’
‘What?’ Jack leaned forwards.
‘It’s a name, faded but written in felt tip pen. Heather 4B.’
‘No surname?’
‘No, maybe the 4B could be a class when she went camping with her school.’
‘Shit, she could also be another victim,’ Jack said.
Laura nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what I thought. So we need to find out from Amanda how long she’d been using this sleeping bag and obviously ask her about a girl called Heather. I’ll start running her name through mispers, but with so little to go on, we might not get a result.’
Jack smiled. ‘Good work, Laura, even if it does mean more legwork for everyone.’
Jack returned to the incident room. The evidence board was filling up, with new information coming in minute by minute. After being shown photographs, Trudie Hudson’s mother had identified the jewellery as belonging to her daughter and this new development was being written up on the notice board. Trudie had gone missing four years earlier and there had been no sighting of her since she left Liverpool. Jack made a note, underlining the timing. It tied in with the date of the first assault case carried out by Rodney Middleton.
At 10.30 p.m. another piece of information came through, this time regarding Nadine O’Reilly. Her stepfather had identified the photograph of the silver crucifix as belonging to his fifteen-year-old stepdaughter. Nadine had last been seen eighteen months ago before she ran away from Leeds. She was reported missing a week later as her parents had initially believed she had gone to see family in Dublin. The officers visiting both families had taken DNA swabs to compare to the crime scene blood, and also brought back photographs, which would be added to the board as soon as they returned to the station.
All of this new information served to validate Jack’s suspicions. They were still waiting on the information from Jamail Brown’s family, but if Jack was correct, she was Middleton’s first victim, although they now had to add another name to the board, the one from the sleeping bag. And it would take forensics a while to match the blood samples they had acquired from the basement to the new DNA evidence that had just been brought in.
The team that had been working on collecting the evidence from the basement flat were now ready to finish up. They had taken further blood and hair samples from the drains, and various items of clothing belonging to Middleton, including a pair of underpants found under the sink, that had been used for cleaning. They had also bagged up shoes and stained garments and bedding, including the sleeping bag Amanda had used. Her small collection of clothing and personal items had also been bagged and taken for evidence.
The night was dragging on. The team on duty prepared the files ready for interviewing Middleton. Laura was back in the incident room to detail the items of jewellery that had been identified, and was feeling despondent: although it had been confirmed that some of the jewellery belonged to two of the missing girls, there were four more boxes to go through. Sara had put forward a list of several missing girls who might turn up to be the additional victims. They were all young runaway teenagers who had not been sighted for years.
‘There could be more girls, Jack,’ she said, looking over at him.
He nodded grimly. ‘I know that. I expect the forensic team will eventually confirm just how many blood groups we’re dealing with.’
He swung back in his chair. ‘You know Amanda said she remembered a girl called Nadine or Naomi, and we know we have some items from Nadine, so see if there’s a missing girl called Naomi, and the latest one, Heather.’
‘It’s heartbreaking that these kids could just go missing for all these years,’ Laura said sadly.
‘He had five years in that basement flat, so Christ knows how many girls became his victims.’
DCI Clarke’s office door opened. He looked exhausted.
‘We’ve just had verification from Ishmail Brown that his daughter, Jamail, owned the pearl and bead necklace; he brought it back from Jamaica for her eleventh birthday. He also identified a silver bangle and a fake pearl and amber earring.’
‘How old was she when she went missing?’ Laura asked.
‘She was thirteen. Mr Brown is currently serving time in Strangeways for domestic violence and sexual harassment of Jamail’s mother. She continued contacting mispers to try and get information about Jamail, but it’s been such a long time, and with her husband in prison she returned to the Bahamas six months ago. We’re trying to contact her.’
‘So, we’ve done Liverpool, Manchester and Huddersfield to date. Do you think the girls knew each other?’ Laura asked as the DCI stood in front of the board.
‘Predators are able to spot the runaways at the train stations, especially the young ones, then they pick them up like lost puppies,’ he said quietly.
‘And if you have another young runaway in tow with you, like Amanda Dunn, that will give any new girls the confidence to go with him. She admitted to me that’s what she did,’ Jack added.
Clarke walked over to Jack’s desk. ‘We know that, but we need her on the prosecution side. So I want her wrapped in fucking cotton wool until I’m ready to question her. In the meantime, we keep working round the clock.’
He turned and walked back to his office, closing the door behind him. Laura waited a moment before speaking.
‘He’s run ragged. I think this is the biggest case he’s ever had. If you ask me, he needs to take a break. He’s been here 24/7 and did an all-nighter as well. You know, I really miss old Ridley... He was much calmer. We have so many officers assigned to this case now; Ridley would be in his element.’ She sighed and stepped closer, lowering her voice.
‘I did hear a whisper that he was in some kind of legal trouble, and not actually ill as we assumed. Have you heard anything?’
Jack shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Well, if you ask me, something is very wrong. What do you think’s going on, Jack?’
He shrugged. ‘I really don’t know. With so much going down right now, I’ve not really given him much thought.’
Laura went back to her desk, as Jack yawned loudly. He was already feeling tired. He revisited the notes he had taken after the meeting with Joyce Miller, as well as the later interaction at the basement flat when Mr Miller had brought Middleton back from Brixton. Jack then re-read the letter from Rodney’s father, saying that he wanted nothing to do with him, and that he was financing Joyce and paying her husband to care for her. Jack speculated that he was more likely to be feeding her to death and wondered if there might be a reason for that.
The long shift continued, and Jack spent it cross-referencing and putting the accumulated evidence into chronological order, ready for Rodney Middleton’s interview.
At 2 a.m. refreshments were brought in for the team, including pizza, hot dogs and flasks of tea and coffee. It was a ‘down tools’ break for everyone, and Jack didn’t recognise some of the officers who trooped in to partake of the food and drink.
Two overweight male officers circled the refreshments, with an equally rotund short woman who had a wonderful head of snow-white hair. She was loudly complaining about cold hot dogs and no mustard. ‘Considering we’ve been here since 7 p.m., I’d have thought a decent hot meal could have been provided. When I worked in Wimbledon, we used to get Krispy Kreme donuts. It’s a bloody liberty. I wouldn’t feed my poodle this rubbish.’