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Sargent frowns. ‘It didn’t have to be a predator, though, did it? Like Dr Gow said. Just someone who cared about her.’
Ev’s shaking her head. ‘I don’t buy that – any decent person who’s told about abuse would go to the police. You can save kids from that without absconding with them and leaving their parents accused of murder.’
Sargent looks a little awkward. ‘True. To be honest, I was just thinking out loud.’
Quinn turns to the board again and writesDS GISLINGHAMnext to Barry’s name. ThenDC STILLWELL.
‘Got the short straw there, eh, Sarge?’ someone quips to Gis. ‘That Mason bloke sounds like a real tosser.’
‘Certainly used to be,’ says Gis. ‘And I can’t imagine a stint in chokey will have improved him much.’
‘Next up,’ says Quinn, ‘Daisy’s brothers. First, Leo Mason, who the last we heard had reverted to the name he was originally given by his birth mother, i.e. Gary. There was a time, back in 2016, when we actually thought he could be our perp – every scrap of attention in that house went on Daisy, especially where Barry was concerned, so the kid had a lot of pent-up anger ready to blow. There’d also been some pretty violent altercations between him and some of his schoolmates – poor little bastard was being bullied, so at one level it was understandable, but trying to ram a pencil in another kid’s eye counts as extreme in my book, whatever the provocation.’
The photo Gis puts up on the board is a still from the TV appeal. Leo wedged between his parents, barely looking up, Sharon’s hand tight on his wrist.
‘But you were able to rule him out?’ asks Stillwell.
Quinn turns to her. ‘It was more a case of ruling Sharon in –’
‘Could Leo have been the one who helped Daisy get away?’ asks Morris. ‘I mean, if he wanted to get shot of her, that would’ve been a much less messy way of doing it.’
Quinn nods. ‘Right. And yes, obviously he’s a person of interest now, for that very reason. Though back then, he deffo wouldn’t have been anyone’s obvious choice to organize a quick getaway. He was only ten himself for a start, and he was a pretty challenged kid. As before, more on that in the file.’
‘Do we know where he ended up?’ asks Stillwell.
‘He was put in foster care when Sharon was arrested.’
‘Poor little sod,’ says Ev, under her breath. If anyone cared about Leo back then, it was her.
Which Quinn must be remembering too, because he turns and writesDS EVERETTon the board and thenDC SARGENT. Someone behind me murmurs ‘Cagney and Lacey’ and somebody else stifles a laugh.
‘And at least we should be able to track him down,’ continues Quinn, ‘Social Services must know where he is. Next up, the half-brother, Jamie, Barry’s son by his first marriage. Brought up by his mother and long-suffering stepfather in a five-million-pound pad by the river in Henley. Not that you’d have known it, from the way he acted out.’
Another picture goes up. A third arrest shot, and this is a lot more recent than the others.
I haven’t thought about Jamie Northam in years, but the image brings it all back. The attitude, the swagger. Barry’s mini-me, even though Barry had walked out when Jamie was still a toddler. Nature sure beat nurture on that one.
‘We looked at him pretty hard at the time,’ continues Quinn, ‘and though he was a pretty nasty piece of work for a thirteen-year-old he had a cast-iron alibi for the day Daisy went missing. But given what we know now, we need to look more closely at his associates, on the basis that she could have met someone elsethroughhim. Someone who subsequently abducted her. Either way, he needs checking out. And for the record, he’s been in and out of juve three times in the last eight years. Shoplifting, vandalism, some low-level drug dealing. All depressingly predictable if you ask me, but there you are.’
He nods to Gis. ‘You get the short straw on this one too.’
Gis grins drily. ‘Gee, thanks.’
Quinn turns back to the room. ‘And finally, we need to reinterview Daisy’s friends, teachers and fellow pupils at Bishop Christopher’s, AKA – for the out-of-towners in the room – Kit’s. There’ll be a lot of legwork in this one – they all need tracking down, for starters. Hence –’
He turns and writesDC BAXTERon the board. There are a couple of muted cheers and someone slaps Baxter on the back.
Quinn allows himself a grin. ‘Yup, the one and only Andrew Baxter, who keeps on digging, whether he’s in a hole or not.’
That’s pretty rich, if you ask me, coming from Quinn, given how enthusiastically he’s excavated his own shit in the past, but no one else seems to have noticed.
‘He’ll be supported by DC Roberts on the tech side, who’s been seconded in from Digital Forensics.’
A lad at the back looks up and pushes his glasses up his nose. I say ‘lad’ because he looks all of seventeen. I must be getting old.
Quinn looks round the room. ‘Questions?’
‘What about witnesses and potential suspects not on that list?’ asks Morris, gesturing at the board.