They had been welcoming to a member of an outside force when they might have been suspicious or resentful. They were focused and energetic, and Serrailler had been impressed, but at the same time he recognised the incipient signs of frustration and discouragement he had known in the Lafferton team working under him on the David Angus case. He understood it absolutely but he could not let his sympathy create any sense of impotence, let alone defeatism.
A child had gone missing from the town of Herwick. He was eight and a half. At three oclock on the first Monday after schools had broken up for the summer holiday, Scott Merriman had been walking from his own house to that of his cousin, Lewis Tyler, half a mile away. He had carried a sports bag containing swimming thingsLewiss father was taking them to a new Water Dome half an hours drive away.
Scott had never arrived at the Tyler house. After waiting twenty minutes, Ian Tyler had telephoned the Merrimans number and Scotts own mobile. Scotts eleven-year-old sister Lauren had told him Scott had left ages ago. His mobile was switched off.
The road down which he had walked was mainly a residential one, but it also took traffic on one of the busiest routes out of the town.
No one had come forward to report that they had seen the boy. No body had been found, nor any sports bag.
There was a school photograph of Scott Merriman on the conference-room wall, a foot away from that of David Angus. They were not alike but there was a similar freshness about them, an eagerness of expression which struck Simon Serrailler to the heart. Scott was grinning, showing a gap between his teeth.
A DC came into the room with a tray of tea. Serrailler started to make a calculation of how many plastic cups of beverage he had drunk since joining the police force. Then Chapman was on his feet again. There was something about his expression, something new. He was a measured, steady man but now he seemed to be sharpened up, shot through with a fresh energy. In response to it, Simon sat up and was aware that the others had done the same, straightened their backs, drawn themselves from a slump.
There is one thing I havent done in this inquiry. Im thinking its mebbe time I did. Simon, did Lafferton use forensic psychologists in the David Angus case?
As profilers? No. It was discussed but I vetoed it because I thought they simply wouldnt have enough to work on. All they would be able to give us was the general picture about child abductionand we know that.
I agree. Still, I think we ought to turn this thing on its head. Lets play profiling. Speculate about the sort of person who may have taken one, or both, of these childrenand others for all we know. Do any of you think it would be a useful exercise?
Sally Nelmes tapped her front teeth with her pen.
Yes? Chapman missed nothing.
Weve no more to go on ourselves than a profiler would have, is what I was thinking.
No, we havent.
I think we need to get out there, not sit weaving stories.
Uniform and CID are still out there. All of us have been out there, and we will be again. This session, with DCI Serraillers input, is about the core team taking time out to think c think round, think through, think. He paused. THINK, he said again, louder this time. Think what has happened. Two young boys have been taken from their homes, their families, their familiar surroundings, and have been terrified, probably subjected to abuse and then almost certainly murdered. Two families have been broken into pieces, have suffered, are suffering, anguish and dread, theyre distraught, their imaginations are working
stay there, eating a bad meal alone, but the invitation to the Chapmans home cheered him.
I want to take you over to Herwick. I dont know about you but I generally get a feel about a place by mooching about it. Weve no evidence, theres nothing c but I want to get your reaction.
Serrailler and Chapman went to Herwick with Lester Hicks in the back. Hicks was a taciturn Yorkshireman, small and chunkily built with a shaved head and the chauvinist attitude which Simon had encountered before in Northern men. Although apparently without imagination, he came across as sane and level-headed.
Herwick was a town on the fringes of the York plain and seemed to have spread haphazardly. The outskirts were a ribbon of industrial units, DIY warehouses and multiplexes, the town centre full of charity shops and cheap takeaways.
Whats the work here?
Not enough c chicken packing factory, several big call centres but theyre cutting backall that works going abroad, its cheaper. Big cement works c otherwise, unemployment. Right, here we go. This is the Painsley Road c theres a link road to the motorway a couple of miles further on. They continued slowly and then took a left turn. This is where the Tyler house is c number 202 c
It was a road without feature. Semis and a few run-down detached houses; a couple of shopping rowsnewsagent, fish-and-chip shop, bookmaker, launderette; an undertakers with lace-curtained windows and a flat-roofed building at the back.