Driftnet by Lin Anderson

Author:Lin Anderson [Anderson, Lin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781458187765
Publisher: Lin Anderson
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Bill Wilson’s anger had left him drained. Somehow, this time he had internalised the anger, personalised it, and it wasn’t good for either his stomach or his heart, or so Margaret had informed him. He knew it himself. He also knew he could do nothing about it. The death of this particular boy in these particular circumstances was as near to home as it had ever been and he couldn’t explain why. As well as putting his own blood pressure up and his wife’s, he had also rubbed the kids up the wrong way.

‘We can’t live in a prison,’ his daughter had said after the last row. ‘You’ll have to let us go back out sometime.’

And she was right.

As soon as the exposé on paedophiles hit the newspapers, the cyber sleuth team, headed by Gavin MacLean, started reporting problems mapping relevant sites in the investigation. It was as if they had never existed. And they were no further forward on the murder investigation either. There had been plenty of leads about the curtains, all of them false. No one had reported seeing Jamie in the hours before his death, no one in the close had seen anything. Since most of the occupants were avoiding the law themselves, that wasn’t too surprising.

Bill pressed the buzzer for Janice and told her he was going down to the canteen. He had promised Margaret he would eat regularly if he was going to spend so much time at work.

‘I’ll come down with you. I could do with something myself,’ she said. Bill realised that the young constable had been putting as much time in on this case as he had and that was a hell of a lot.

‘Right. My treat tonight,’ he said and Janice groaned.

‘Some treat.’

They carried the canteen’s attempt at vegetable lasagne over to a table and sat down.

‘Sir.’

Bill looked up from his gloomy study of the contents of his plate to his Junior Officer. When he was her age, most people had never heard of paedophiles. Now every second week there was a story of abuse. It had been going on all the time. In the old days the kids just didn’t tell anyone, because they didn’t think anyone would believe them. And they were right.

‘Sir?’

‘Sorry. What were you saying?’

‘We had a phone call from Childline. It came in about five minutes ago.’

‘Is this going to put me off my lasagne Janice?’

‘Probably.’

Bill pushed the plate away.

‘Okay. Let’s have it.’

‘They’ve had a call from a boy, Sir. Says he’s mixed up in this paedophile ring.’

‘Was it genuine?’

Janice nodded. Childline had been sure of it, she said. The boy said he had been recruited by email and he couldn’t get out. He had been threatened that pictures of him would be sent to his family if he told anyone.

‘The boy sounded pretty desperate, Sir.’

‘Have we any idea where he was calling from?’

Janice shook her head.

‘Did he give any clues to the identity of any of the men?’

‘No. He said they would kill him like the last one, if he gave them away.

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