Endangering Innocents by Priscilla Masters Page B

knowing she could have made a different decision and prevented the crime. Balance that against infringement of human rights. Arresting a man for loitering in the wrong place at the wrong time with questionable intent? What could she have charged Baldwin with?
    However, this was all moot argument. The child was not at Haig Road. Whatever the explanation for her disappearance she was not there.
    “Any sign of her? Anything?”
    “They’re doing a thorough search right now,” Korpanski said. “They’ll be in touch again.”
    He paused. There was more.
    “And?”
    “Not so good.” Korpanski looked uncomfortable. He hated it when things went wrong. “We’re having a bloody awful job gaining access to the surrounding countryside. The farmers won’t let police cross the fields. And you know that Horton’s surrounded by fields. All of them with herds of cows waiting to be let out of the cowsheds. DS Beardmore’s been threatened with a pitchfork. The farmers aren’t joking. They don’t want us on.”
    “Colcough suggests we ask the farmers to search their own land and outbuildings,” she said. “They’ve got kids of their own, most of them. They’ll do it. But we’ll have to fall in with them or if Foot and Mouth makes the jump from Uttoxeter to the Staffordshire Moorlands we’ll be held responsible.” She clapped his shoulder. “You know the old rule, Korpanski, heads the police are incompetent, tails the police are fascist bullies infringing human rights. Britain is a police state in which we do nothing right.”
    Korpanski took a long hard look at her. “I didn’t think you’d turn into a cynic so quickly, Jo.”
    “Well this, Korpanski, has to be any copper’s nightmare.” She peered out of the window. “We question a man on the Monday with suspicion that he’s paying too much attention to the children at a Primary School. And on the Friday a child goes missing.” The light was fading fast. A little girl was out there - somewhere.
    Korpanski jerked his head.
    “And I’d better ring Matthew and let him know I’ll be home sometime.”
     
    In an ideal world simply filling Matthew in with the details would bring understanding, some sympathy and absolution from cooking the tea. In the days before they had lived together there would have been no need for any explanation to anyone. But now was different. And Joanna caught the petulance in his voice. “So when
will
you be home?”
    “Matt - I don’t know.” This was the relationship destroyer - the reason police scored high on the divorce stakes - this unpredictability of the job which led to difficulty in planning. “Darling, there’s stuff in the freezer. Or you could pick up a takeaway.”
    “Fine.” She could hear the tight note in his voice and wanted to speak out.
    For goodness sake. A child is out there. She’s five years old. At best she’s lost, stuck in some darkening cowshed, terrified out of her wits. She might still be alive, with who knows, while he is committing God knows what indecency. She might already be dead. And our search may go on for hours. Days. Weeks. We may question ten suspects or a hundred or a thousand. We may find Madeline. We may not. We may find a pile of bones sometime in the future. So don’t be so selfish.
    And at the same time she knew this was unfair. Relationships brought commitment. She could not have one without the other.
     
    Baldwin was still flicking through the cards, dropping them from one hand to the other, shooting up one card then losing it in the pack again. His hands were amazingly supple. Joanna watched the fingers bend, as pliable as willow twigs and again she felt the tug of some faroff memory. She brushed it aside for the memory brought in its wake a sudden, sharp pain.
    She and Mike entered. “Welcome back, Inspector,” he said, without even glancing her way.
    She wanted to grab the cards from him. The restless fingers were irritating her.
    Instead she sat down. “Why did you watch