The Auction by John Reid

Author:John Reid [Reid, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vanguard Press
Published: 2021-06-23T16:00:00+00:00

***

Steve had just exited the main hospital entrance when his phone rang. It was The Cap. “Sorry, Steve, but the guy from the adverts isn’t our man. Turns out it’s legit. They only reply to the advert by phone to his house, but he interviews the girls at an employment exchange. It depends how many he gets from one area. The interviews from the advert our victim answered were held out in Putney.”

“And you’re sure he’s clean?”

“Yeah. He’s a bit of a con artist. It seems he gets girls with ambition and arranges loans for them to attend his training courses. He pockets the money, and the girls are left with the debt. He says he gets them jobs with the big airlines, but I doubt it. Anyway, I’ll check his alibi, but he says he was teaching his classes on the dates of the murders. Oh, and he doesn’t have a van!”

“Fair enough, Cap, check him out, but it seems it’s a dead end. Can you get back to the office? I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”

As Steve walked to the Yard, he called Alison Mills. Her phone went to answer phone so she must have been busy. He left a brief message reminding her that he was still remembering their dinner date, and that he’d do everything he could to make it.

When Steve walked into his office, he found everyone seated and eating sandwiches. “It’s lunch, boss. We thought we would have a quick snack before we crack on.” Andy had his mouth full.

“Very sensible, Andy, but let’s have a review of Hackney. Barry, did they find the wheelchair?”

“Sure did, just like you said. Forensics have it. I’ve told them it’s top priority. They said they’d get anything they find to us later today.”

“Good. Have you had a chance to go through the adverts?” Realising his boss was back, Andy accepted that his lunch break was now up. It was back to business.

Andy stood and went to the map that was still stuck to the wall with brown tape. “We started going through the ads as you said. We took the first victim’s address in Peckham and sorted out the local and free press papers that covered the area. We then looked at the two weeks before the killing, so from mid-October. There are a lot of adverts and it took most of the morning.” Andy looked in the direction of Samantha Burns. “Sam’s been a great help. Anyway, we finished looking at all the ads, but nothing jumped out. So we went back to the beginning of October, and again nothing. Sorry, Steve. That’s as far as we got when we thought we’d have a break.”

“There was nothing?”

“No, but we’ve got the main London papers to look through. That’s our next job.”

Steve was disappointed but knew his team had done their best. Somehow, he was convinced that the solution was in the adverts in these papers. “OK, carry on with that. Concentrate on the first murder. Everything started there.

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