Paper Girls by Alex Smith

Author:Alex Smith [Smith, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zertex Crime
Published: 2019-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, thank you. And if she thinks of anything else make sure she gets in touch immediately.”

Kett muttered a goodbye and replaced the handset on its cradle, rubbing his eyes.

“I can’t believe you got me out of bed for this,” he said.

It was only just gone half nine, but he felt like he’d been awake for days. The buzzing strip lights in the windowless room had kickstarted his headache again, the pain not helped by the fact he’d just had exactly the same conversation with twelve different mums and dads.

“Why aren’t you doing anything?”

“Why haven’t you found them?”

“It could have been my girl, do you realise that? She’s extremely upset.”

“Are they going to be compensated for the hours they miss?”

People really were dicks.

Savage held up a hand to silence him, the other holding her own phone to her ear.

“We will keep you posted, Miss Swain. Thank you.”

She ended the call and looked at him.

“Huh?”

“I said I can’t believe you got me out of bed for this,” he repeated, checking on Moira. Savage had given the baby her mobile phone, and as much as Kett hated the idea of beating his child into silence with an endless run of Peppa Pigs he was grateful for the break. She hadn’t moved or spoken for about forty minutes. It was a miracle. Figg had made a few calls too but had left after a while, heading for the cafeteria, his stomach rumbling.

“Who’s left in your pile?” Savage asked. “Mine’s done.”

Kett leafed through the four remaining files.

“Do you want Delia or Abi?” He laughed. “Delia. Only in Norfolk, right?”

“I couldn’t get through to either of those two yesterday,” Savage said, taking Abi’s file. “Better luck today, eh?”

Kett dialled the number on Delia’s file, staring at her information as he waited for somebody to pick up. Cordelia Patrice Crossan, eleven, 14 Drayton Close Road, Date of Employment: 23.03.18, routes: Drayton North, Fakenham Road, Friday / Saturday / Sunday.

On the other side of the table, Savage was speaking to Abi’s family, but his line kept on ringing, eventually clicking into silence. He put the handset down.

“Thank you,” said Savage, ending her own call. “Anything?”

Kett shook his head.

“No answer. You say you couldn’t reach her yesterday?”

“No, although I don’t know if somebody else did.”

“You brought in Walker’s files from the shop, didn’t you?” Kett asked. Savage pointed over her shoulder to a mountain of evidence boxes in the corner of the room.

“He was about as good at keeping records as Porter is at making tea,” she said as she scooped the last two files from Kett’s side of the table and started to call. “We haven’t had time to go through it yet, but it’s all— Oh, hi, this is Police Constable Kate Savage calling from the Norfolk Constabulary.”

Kett left her to it, crossing the room to the boxes and opening the lid of the top one. Savage hadn’t been lying, they were stuffed with seemingly random pieces of paper, receipts, payslips and notebooks full of route logs.

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