of the Russells’ house some weeks before Louise’s disappearance. DS Dave Donnelly’s considerable bulk filled the entrance.
‘Morning, guv’nor,’ he began. ‘How’s everything in the garden today? Bright and rosy, I assume.’
‘It’ll be a lot brighter when you get the door-to-door organized properly,’ Sean reprimanded him.
‘I’m only trying to save resources,’ retorted Donnelly. ‘I don’t want to waste any more time and people on this than necessary. String it out for a couple of days and then she’ll be home and we can get on with what we’re supposed to be doing.’
Sean needed Donnelly on side, he couldn’t allow him to keep believing the case was a waste of their time. Donnelly was the mirror image of Sean – he dealt only with what was in front of him. He processed evidence, pressed witnesses hard, interviewed suspects skilfully, but he did it all on the basis of tangible evidence, not theories and hypothetical conclusions. And he got results doing things his way. Sean, on the other hand, was instinctive, imaginative, using the evidence as a guide not a rigid map, unnerving suspects in interview by telling them what they had been thinking as they were committing their crimes rather than relying on things he could prove. They complemented each other – and if the team was to be effective, they needed each other; a fact Sean grasped better than Donnelly.
‘Listen to me.’ Sean looked him in the eye, his voice full of conviction. ‘You’re wrong about this one. Something bad’s happened to Louise Russell. Is she still alive? I don’t know, but I think so, which means there’s a chance we could find her before she turns up floating in a river somewhere. I need you with me on this, Dave.’ He sat back in his chair, ran a hand through his hair. ‘God knows Sally isn’t exactly her old self. I can’t afford to lose both my DSs.’
Donnelly stood silently for a moment, weighing up his response. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘Sure she’s not just run off with a rush-hour-Romeo? One last time around the block before settling down to a life of kids and coffee mornings?’
‘I’m sure,’ Sean told him. ‘Unfortunately.’
‘Fine,’ Donnelly agreed reluctantly. ‘So what do you want me to do?’
‘See to it that door-to-door’s finished for a start,’ Sean answered, ‘and keep everyone on their toes. I want this handled as if we already had a body. No taking it easy because it’s only a MISPER.’
‘Your wish is my command,’ Donnelly assured him.
‘Really?’ Sean questioned before lowering his voice. ‘And keep an eye on Sally. She’s a bit up and down, know what I mean?’
‘No problem,’ said Donnelly.
They were interrupted by Sean’s phone ringing. He held a hand up to prompt silence and ask Donnelly to stay while he took the call.
It was DS Roddis from the dedicated Murder Investigation Forensic Team. He greeted Sean in his usual manner, avoiding any reference to rank.
‘Mr Corrigan, good morning.’
‘Sergeant Roddis. You have something for me?’
‘I’m at the Russell home now,’ he said. ‘We’re concentrating our examination on the hallway and front door, as you requested.’
‘Good,’ Sean answered. ‘Anything?’
‘It would appear so …’ Sean’s heart rate began to accelerate with anticipation. ‘Unfortunately, the scene hasn’t been preserved as I would have liked, but at least whoever took her didn’t make any attempt to clean up after him. There’s no indication that he wiped any surfaces, nothing’s been polished or scrubbed. And when we got down low to the wooden floor we found a full palm print with fingers attached. We’ve compared it to John Russell’s. It’s not his and it’s too big to be Mrs Russell’s.’
‘Can you lift it off the floor without damaging it?’ Sean asked, a picture forming in his mind of the man who took Louise Russell kneeling next to her prostrate body, his hand on the floor to balance himself, fingers spread to take his weight … while he did what to her?
‘We’ve already lifted it,’ Roddis said gleefully.
‘Is it good enough to get a match from?’
‘If he’s in the system, we’ll be able to get a match. I’m having it sent straight to Fingerprints.’
Sean was certain whoever took Louise Russell was a previous offender. It wouldn’t be anything as big as this, but there’d be something in his past. The question was, had he been convicted? If not, his prints wouldn’t be on file.
‘There’s another thing,’ Roddis continued. ‘The traces are very faint, but on the floor, close to where we found the print, there seems to be evidence of a non-typical chemical. We’ve swabbed it for the lab, but my first guess would be chloroform.’
Another piece of the film playing in Sean’s head became clearer: the man kneeling next to her, pouring chloroform on to material, placing it over her mouth. Sean saw bindings too, being wrapped around her hands, but not her feet – he would have needed her to walk. He blinked the images away and spoke into the receiver. ‘OK, thanks. Let me know as soon as you have more.’
Beckoning for Donnelly to follow him, he got up and went through into the main incident room where his team of detectives were busying themselves at their desks.
‘Listen up, everyone,’ Sean shouted across the room. ‘Forensics have just confirmed there are indications that Louise Russell was abducted from her home by an unknown male. If this isn’t already a murder case it soon will be unless we can find her. I know this is different from our usual, but we are now her only hope, so I want you to give it everything. Chase down every lead, every piece of information and intelligence we have, no matter how irrelevant it looks. Let’s find her before it’s too late.’ Sean looked around the room at the faces of his team. The message seemed to have got through.
‘Just for once,’ Donnelly said, ‘I hope you’re wrong.’
‘I’m not,’ Sean told him. ‘But what I can’t be sure of is how long we’ve got. How long before he tires of his new plaything? And after he throws her out with the rubbish, what then for our man? Somebody else? Will he take another?’
‘You tell me,’ Donnelly answered.
‘I don’t know,’ Sean replied. ‘Not yet anyway.’
Mid-morning Thursday and Thomas Keller should have been at work, but his supervisor had agreed to let him have a few hours off so long as he made the time up in the afternoon. As he walked across the cluttered courtyard from his cottage towards the metal door that led to the cellar his excitement and nervousness grew in equal measure. He picked his way through the old tyres and oil drums that littered his land, land that was dotted with old, disused outhouses and corrugated-iron barns that once housed battery chickens and God knows what else. Even the cottage he lived in was hideous, made of large grey breezeblocks sometime in the sixties and never painted.
He wore his usual loose-fitting tracksuit, the stun-gun pushed into one pocket bouncing awkwardly off his hip as he walked, the keys in his other pocket prone to becoming entangled in stray threads from the fraying seams. This morning he also carried a breakfast tray and a holdall thrown over
