Page 51

This guy is almost as dogged as Ev. But there’s a value in that, and if Quinn’s going to be a good DI, he needs to appreciate it.
‘That’s precisely why we need to interview all these people again,’ he says evenly. ‘To find out who we missed.’
‘What about someone she could have met online?’ says Sargent. ‘All my friends’ kids have iPads now.’
I turn to her. ‘They didn’t then. Eight years is a long time in tech. We did check out the family computer and there was nothing, not even buried in the hard drive. And Daisy didn’t have a phone of her own.’
‘Not, at least, as far as you know.’ It’s Asante again, giving me one of his cool, serious stares. But fair enough; like Quinn said, we know we missed something – maybe it was that.
‘Could have been a burner phone?’ offers Morris. ‘Wouldn’t have needed a contract –’
‘But someone else would still have had to get it,’ says Ev. ‘She couldn’t have just rocked up at Carphone Warehouse and bought one, could she? Not at eight.’
But Morris is right: if Daisy knew her abductor, they could have given her a phone. And she was good at keeping secrets, better than any child her age I’ve ever come across.
‘OK, point taken. DC Roberts – perhaps you could take the lead on that. Maybe there’s a way to track mobile phone calls made in the vicinity of the Mason home. See if there’s a number that can’t be accounted for.’
He looks a little startled. ‘But like you said, sir, it’s eight years ago and I’m not even sure –’
‘Well, let’s just ask, shall we?’
He’s about to say something but evidently thinks better of it. He looks down at his phone and his dark hair falls over his eyes and I have a sudden, impossibly vivid image of Leo Mason, here, in this station, when I sat and interviewed him, the social worker at his side, in that over-small, over-hot interview room, in shorts and the same oversized Chelsea shirt he always wore, even though it was too heavy for the weather and way too big for him. After we discovered that Daisy was the Masons’ biological child but Leo was adopted, and he didn’t even know, and Barry had another son by his first marriage and neither of the kids knew that either. The fissures in that supposedly happy family were opening like canyons before our eyes. I remember reaching forward and gently, very gently, pushing back those long concealing sleeves and seeing the silver lines across his flesh, the healed and the not so healed. I’d suspected it for a while by then, and I was pretty sure the doctor knew, and the school too. But the two people who were supposed to love and care for him the most hadn’t even noticed. Poor little Leo. Poor abandoned lonely boy.
***
Importance: High
Date:Thu 25/07/2024, 15.45
From:[email protected]
To:[email protected]
CC:[email protected]
Subject: Case no LBS734/14G
I got your message and tried calling you back but couldn’t get through.
You asked if the victim at Hescombe could have still been breathing when she was placed into the grave. The short answer is, possibly. The head trauma was definitely fatal, but in many such cases this kind of injury does not result in instantaneous death. She could have been alive but unconscious for a number of minutes after the blow was sustained, but given the state of decomposition it was not possible to examine the nasal passages for particles of soil, which would be the only conclusive proof that she was still alive when placed in the grave.
I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful. However, I should be able to get back to you in the next few days on whether the dental implant could help establish an ID.
SP
Suk Pannu MD FRCPath
Consultant Pathologist, Gloucester Hospitals NHS Trust
***
Adam Fawley
25 July 2024
16.00
‘Well done. Pairing them up like that was a good call.’