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for the morning.’
‘It would be a bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t it, sir?’
‘How so. Cooper?
‘The mean, Dickinson beincr in the area at the time Laura Vernon
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was killed and maybe seeing the murderer. And two days later being in the same area and finding the trainer which led us to her body. That’s what we’re saying here, isn’t it? A bit of a coincidence, surely.’
‘What would be your interpretation, Cooper?’ ‘I think we ought to press Harry Dickinson harder.’ Tailby frowned. ‘At the moment we are not considering him as a suspect, merely a potentially useful witness.’ ‘But if-‘ ‘Now,’ said Tailbv, turning awav, ‘we have to look at the
‘ j O J ‘
immediate family. Obviously, we need to bear in mind the possibility of a family row of some kind. The parents have to be under suspicion.’ Tailby waited for somebody to ask him why. No one did. But he told them anyway. ‘Murders occur mostly within families. The statistics tell us this.’
All the faces in the room continued to look at him expectantly.
‘For that reason, we will be looking more closely at the
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Vernons. Particularly the relationship between Laura Vernon and her father. I have spoken to Graham Vernon myself, and I have to tell you I’m not happy in that respect.’
‘Haven’t we got a TV appeal lined up with him, sir?’ ‘Yes, with both parents, in fact. That’s scheduled for the morning. We will, of course, be watching them closely during the appeal.’
Cooper saw Fry nodding calmly, as if it was perfectly normal to suspect parents of murdering their own daughter. He wondered what cases she had worked on in the past to feel like that, or whether it was as a result of experiences in her own family. The thought made him feel very sad. His own family had been a totally happy one, and he thought the destruction of a family was the worst thing that could happen to anyone.
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‘And then there’s the brother,’ Tailby was saying. ‘Daniel Vcrnon. Nineteen years old and a studeni al L-xeler University. We’re led to believe that he was away in Exeter at the time that Laura went missing, and has only now arrived back in Moorhay. But we checked, and his term doesn’t start for another two weeks. So what has he been doing? I need his movements tracing — when did he leave and how did he get back? From a brief look at him earlier this afternoon, I’d say he was a pretty angry young man. On the other hand, you don’t need me to tell you that the victim’s family must be treated with care. I don’t want any complaints about officers being heavy-handed or insensitive.’
The DCI paused to allow this to sink in, then turned to gesture at an impressive aerial photograph of Moorhay, taken by the helicopter crew and blown up to enable the probable route of Laura Vernon’s last journey to be superimposed on to it.
‘Meanwhile, I intend to begin a full search of the Vernons’ garden,’ he said. ‘This is in view of the possibility that Laura may have met someone there shortly before she was killed. Remember the sighting of her talking to a young man earlier in the evening. We need to find evidence to establish the identity of that young man. It is, however, a very large garden.’
The officers in the incident room could see that there were extensive lawns and flower beds in the Vernons’ garden, along with two greenhouses and a small summerhouse, as well as plenty of odd corners near the back, where a gate led out on to the hillside path.
The area of pale scrub where Laura had last been seen was clearly visible between the back wall of the garden and the vast expanse of dark woodland. The long shadows of a line of conifers fell across the patchy gorse of the scrubland like the bars of a cage.
‘We are also following up Laura’s other contacts. DI Hitchens’s team is gradually piecing together her background. We believe she had at least one regular boyfriend, according to what her classmates tell us. The parents deny this, but we all know parents, don’t we? They’re the last people to find out. The youth’s name is Simeon. That’s with an “e”. We don’t have a surname yet, and apparently he doesn’t attend the same school
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as Laura Vernon did. DS Morgan is confident of tracing him, though. Yes, Luke.”
‘Absolutely.’
‘As you know, DI Armstrong is working on the known
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offenders list and possible links to the Susan Edson case in B Division. There arc some similarities on the surface. The age and sex of the victim, obviously. But note the fact that an item of clothing is missing in both instances — in Laura Vernon’s case,
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a Reebok trainer. In the Edson case, a pair of tights. It is likely these are now in the possession of the attacker or attackers. Please be aware of this. But we follow up all possible lines of enquiry. We are not assuming a definite link at this stage. But I confess to a certain concern in that respect.’
The murmurs of agreement sounded like the low rumble of a lorry outside, or the muttering of a disappointed crowd in
the stand across the road when Edendale FC had lost again.
&
Ben Cooper felt something equally distant and unidentifiable grumbling deep in his mind — a dark, hovering anxiety that growled and whined and threatened to emerge from where it was lurking and rip the certainties out from under him. But it was something that was impossible to pin down among the other worries that swirled about in there, all the other things
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