‘You gone through these yet?’ Davies asked.
Savage sighed and was aware of Collier looking at her with a little smirk on his face.
‘No, it’s on the to do list.’
‘That’s Trent’s direct line at the university.’ Davies pointed to a number in the middle of the sheet. ‘We will need to get a reverse look up on the other landlines.’
‘Do that. If you could get the results back to us that would save another job. And if you find any numbers on the list to do with nurseries then let me know as a matter of urgency.’
Davies looked puzzled, his head tilted on one side like a squirrel with a nut it couldn’t crack.
‘Nurseries? What, you mean geraniums and stuff?’
‘No, babies. Child minders, nannies, day-care staff. There’s a bit of a shortage of them around here at the moment.’
*
Thursday afternoon at Cotton Socks nursery and DS Darius Riley was bricking himself. A little girl had toddled over to him and introduced herself as, ‘Lisa and I’ve got a big poo in my nappy.’ Riley hadn’t had much experience with children; as an only child and thus with no nieces or nephews he didn’t have a clue what to say or do. A druggie rushing at him full of ketamine and armed with a knife he could deal with, but an infant in possession of a hazardous substance? Way too scary.
Thank goodness Enders was covering him and, being a family man with three of the little brats under seven, he knew how to handle the incident. He bent down, held the girl’s hand and took her across to one of the nursery staff. Simple when you had done the training.
‘Thanks mate,’ Riley said. ‘Thought I was a goner for a moment.’
The nursery in Ivybridge was the third they had visited so far that morning, but Riley still hadn’t got used to the stench of urine in the baby and toddler rooms.
‘Don’t know how you manage at home, the smell from the shit and piss makes me gag.’
‘Oh, once you’ve got past the thousand nappy milestone you get used to it. The first poo they do is the worst. Long, black, sticky and stinks like you wouldn’t believe.’
‘One would be bad enough, but a thousand! Never going to happen to me for sure.’
‘I can see Ms Meadows looking lovely with a couple of kids in her arms.’ Enders winked. ‘And I hear she was in town last night at that new tapas bar. With a handsome black guy. Now I wonder-’
‘How did you…?’
Enders dropped out of Riley’s line of sight onto his haunches to talk to a little boy hugging a big pink teddy bear. Riley smiled to himself. Enders was right, and not just about the fact he had been on a date last night. Julie Meadows would look beautiful holding a baby, his baby. Then he shook his head. Broody, him? Mr notch-em-up-on- the-bed-post-new-girl-each-month Riley? Yes, quite possibly. Still, he reckoned he could do without the smells.
Alice Nash worked at Cotton Socks so the nursery had been visited before, but not by members of the Zebo team. Savage had insisted the work places relating to the four dead and missing girls should be visited or revisited. This time by the same people.
‘I want the same pairs of eyes at all the locations to see if we can find something missing from the stuff we are putting on the system.’
‘What is this, ma’am, Kindergarten Cop?’ Riley had asked.
‘Without the muscles, yes,’ Savage said, smiling. ‘Now get along the both of you.’
The task had turned out to be a tedious one as there seemed to be nothing of much interest at any of the places they visited, but Riley was pleased Savage had picked on him. It showed she had the confidence in him to come up trumps when everything else appeared to be failing.
Riley looked around the nursery and shook his head. Maybe DI Savage had misplaced her faith in him. The place seemed pretty much the same as the others they had been to and nothing stuck out to him as an obvious clue. In the entrance hall the same pictures of the smiling staff and a group picture of all the babies and children, notices about the dates for the nativity, something about a case of hand, foot and mouth disease — which Riley thought sounded serious — a ‘thank you’ for the money raised for this year’s Children in Need appeal, a copy of a recent OfSTED report…
The layouts were similar too. Some elements might be transposed, an item or room added or missing, but the basic theme remained the same. Which was part of the problem. Usually he would look for something distinctive, something out of the ordinary, something out of place. That was what clues were after all: a footprint in a flowerbed, a car parked in an odd location, a fingerprint they couldn’t eliminate. Here they were searching for something or someone common to all the nurseries.
Enders sprung back to his feet again, reading Riley’s mind like he often seemed able to.
‘Play equipment suppliers?’
‘On the list and being checked.’
‘Then I reckon we are soon on to the parents.
‘That will be a hell of a job.’
‘A hell of a fuss too. Especially if the brass decide to go with a DNA sweep.’
Didn’t bear thinking about, Riley thought. The problem of coordinating that kind of action across the city, possibly farther afield too, would be huge. The DNA trawl would involve hundreds of parents, perhaps thousands, and the outcry about civil liberties would be deafening. Many people would refuse to be tested and those would have to be interviewed and eliminated in other ways. Then there was the issue of missing someone or eliminating the killer by mistake or through fraud.
At each nursery they had talked to the owners and workers, but so far there had been nothing much of note. One thing Riley had picked up on was the high turnover of staff. Five of the girls Rosina had worked with at Tina’s Teds had left, along with a couple from Little Angels, Kelly Donal’s place. Even Robins, the establishment where Simone Ashton had worked had lost a member of staff in the six weeks since she had gone missing. Riley didn’t know if the high turnover was relevant or not, but it meant there would always be fresh faces around. He mentioned the fact to Enders.
‘If you returned to a nursery after a few months you would be sure to find some new girls.’
‘You mean staff turnover in these places is a factor?’
‘Yes, but I still can’t fathom why a nursery? Last time I took a gander out of the window at the station I spotted some new girls. Every hour hundreds of them pass by that I have never seen before.’
‘Yeah, I play the same game. Especially in the summer when you can see down their tops. Don’t make a habit of it mind.’
‘Better not, Patrick. You know the boss. If she catches you she’ll cut your bollocks off and feed them to the tourists in a pasty.’
‘Ouch.’ Enders squirmed, as if he possessed rather too vivid an imagination. ‘Anyway I don’t buy that, Darius. It is something to do with this fetish business. Polaroid infants or whatever you called it.’
Riley started to correct Enders’s terminology when he realised it was a wind up.
‘Very funny. But you might just be onto something with your little joke. Polaroid infant. What about the picture found inside the Donal girl? The photograph turned out to be ancient, didn’t it?’
‘Thirty years old.’
‘Looked like Rosina Olivarez?’
‘You are saying the girl in the picture was a nanny?’
‘Not saying, speculating. The girl in the picture meant something to the killer because she looked like Rosina. Rosina was a child care worker so maybe the girl in the picture was too.’
‘Darius my boy,’ Enders shook his head. ‘I have finally worked out why my career is stuck on some dead-end branch line while you are fast-tracked to stardom. It’s because you’re on L S bloody D.’
Chapter 28
He watched the rockets climb skyward and burst in crimson blooms, the bangs coming seconds later. For a moment or two he continued to stare up at where they had exploded, looking at the empty patch of sky now filled
