Neil White 3 Book Bundle by Neil White

Author:Neil White [Neil White]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-nine

Laura was sitting at her desk when Egan walked back into the Incident Room, her attention drawn by a murmur. He looked nervous, his eyes darting around the room as he saw all eyes turn to him. Laura saw the press officer behind him, her face flushed and angry. It was obvious that they’d had words.

Laura looked over at Pete, who had been thumbing his way through incident reports and logs of crank calls. Pete smiled, just a twinkle.

They both turned to the front of the room as they heard Egan clapping.

‘Can I have everyone’s attention?’

No need to ask, thought Laura. You had it as soon as you walked in.

Egan let the murmurs die down and then cleared his throat.

‘Some of you may have seen the press conference,’ he said, ignoring the smirks around the room. ‘And some of you might have wondered why I said what I did.’

No one said anything. It was like watching a public suicide.

‘Although I told the press conference that it looked as if the person who had been abducting children was now identified, you will remember that I didn’t confirm any link between the abductions and the murder of Jess Goldie. There are two reasons. Firstly, there is no real proof of a link. We can speculate and guess, but there is nothing but coincidence so far. And secondly, and more importantly, by not publicly linking them, we might draw the real killer out. He will want to take his bow.’

There was a murmur again, but louder this time. Then Pete shouted out, ‘Is drawing the killer out another way of saying that we let someone else die just so that we can get some fresh forensic?’

Laura watched Egan take a deep breath. He was angry with Pete, but she guessed that he was angry because he knew that Pete was right, that Pete had guessed the truth: Egan had messed up, and he was covering up to protect himself.

‘If you have any queries about the publicity decisions,’ Egan said, the words coming out slowly, ‘speak to the press officer here, but I have come here to explain the strategy. Privately, we consider a link. Publicly, there is no such thing.’

Are we keeping the two teams separate then?’ someone asked.

Egan’s lips twitched. ‘Yes, for the moment, but that is being kept under review.’

Pete sat back, irritated now. Laura guessed that he was angry because Egan had landed on the best solution by chance.

Egan smiled and thanked everyone, and then left the room.

‘Did you ever hear such crap?’ spluttered Pete.

Laura shrugged. ‘It didn’t sound like a bad plan.’

Pete threw down his pen. ‘He always comes up smelling of fucking flowerbeds.’ He looked at Laura, and then held up a pile of incident logs—the crank calls and witnesses were growing by the hour. ‘And we have to wade through this shit, without any help,’ he barked.

Laura toyed with her pen for a few seconds as she thought. ‘I’m going to look at Jess’s dream diaries.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she had dreams of the future as well.

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