Bad Blood by Mark Sennen Page A

a pony in the snow, the dark rocks of Haytor brooding in the background.
    â€˜The girl in the box,’ Hardin said, following her gaze. ‘Where are we at?’
    Savage filled Hardin in on the details, noting his eyes narrowing with anger when she told him about the pink training shoe, as if somehow the physical object made the horror more real.
    â€˜Any ideas who she is?’ Hardin gritted his teeth and reached for his mouse. ‘And more importantly, who put her there?’
    â€˜We’ve got a hunch she could be a girl who was thought missing after supposedly falling from a cliff down in Cornwall. As for a suspect, a previous tenant at the property turns out to be on the register. Committed a serious sexual offence a few years back. Layton and his team are all over the man’s place now, but there is no sign of him as of yet.’
    Savage continued talking as there was a knock and DCI Garrett entered. Garrett, despite having spent the day tramping around a muddy patio and attending the post-mortem, looked immaculate as ever. Savage went on to outline the steps the inquiry was taking, Garrett nodding every now and then but seeing no need to interject. At the end of Savage’s summation Hardin looked at Garrett for his opinion.
    â€˜A tragedy,’ Garrett said, ‘but no accident. Preliminary findings from the PM suggest the girl was strangled. Nesbit couldn’t say if she was sexually assaulted or not, but if we assume she was I don’t think we’d be going out on a limb. Could well be this Franklin Owers is our man, but first we’ve got to find him.’
    â€˜To which end,’ Hardin said, ‘the media is not bloody helping.’
    Hardin reached to one side of his desk where a folded newspaper stuck out of his wastepaper bin. He pulled the paper out and laid it on the desk. Dan Phillips’ headline had done the
Herald
proud. ‘Get Him!’ Below the headline was a picture of Franklin Owers’ grafittied front door, with an inset thumbnail of Owers himself. Hardin thumped the desk and then pointed to a subheading beneath the pictures: ‘Police Clueless in Hunt for Paedophile Killer.’
    â€˜That,’ Hardin said, looking at Savage and Garrett in turn, his face beginning to redden, ‘is nonsense, isn’t it?’
    Savage said nothing.
    The
Sternway
meeting went ahead at six-thirty in Briefing Room A, the acronym for which never failed to raise a smile from the more infantile of the Crownhill officers. Darius Riley liked to think he was above such things.
    He’d spent the afternoon summarising Kemp’s final report and dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s on a longer document which pulled together a whole mass of intelligence from numerous sources. Now he slid copies of the document across the table to DSupt Hardin, DCI Garrett, DI Phil Davies and DI Savage. Savage smiled at him and Riley thought she looked happier than she had for a while. Her husband had returned from a long stint away so maybe that was the reason. It could certainly explain the sheen of her red hair and the smartness of her attire; Riley couldn’t remember seeing her appearing quite so attractive before.
    He leant back in his seat and wondered if he might be considered infantile himself for thinking his boss was looking sexy. Davies sat opposite and he glanced at Savage and then looked across at Riley and winked. There was no chance of anyone thinking Davies was sexy, Riley thought. He slumped down in his chair in a crumpled brown number which Riley wouldn’t have been surprised to learn had come from a charity shop running a discount promotion for items they couldn’t clear. Even from across the table Riley could smell several nights’ worth of beer and fags in the clothing.
    Mike Garrett’s clothing had, literally, been cut from a different cloth. Riley didn’t think much of the older detective’s abilities – the man was