Chapter 8

Jim looked through the mountain of evidence, trying to spot the patterns that Detective Inspector Paul Hammond assured him were there.

"This may well be the tip of the iceberg," Hammond informed him. "Each girl effectively disappeared without a trace. All come from prosperous homes, have no history of bad behaviour and reside within the top ten percent educationally. They range in age from between fifteen and eighteen, and all have been abducted mainly from Greater London and the Home Counties, although we have one or two isolated incidents located along the south coast."

"What makes you think that my case is related?"

"It fits the profile almost perfectly. Stable family, only child, young and attractive."

"It could be just co-incidence. Lots of children matching this criterion go missing every week up and down the country."

"That's true but if you plot it statistically, there's a demonstrable trend starting three years ago that is not mirrored in other areas of the country."

"Surely that could just be reflecting the demography of the area. The wealth distribution is concentrated in London and the surrounding counties so you'd expect..."

"That's been adjusted for. We've always had a slightly higher level of abduction but our area has shown a disproportionate increase compared to others."

"I'm sure your team must be right," Jim conceded.

"There is no team," Hammond confessed. "It's just me."

"Just you?" Jim queried.

"Three years ago, my daughter disappeared and I spend every spare second trying to get to the bottom of this case."

Jim spotted a framed photograph on the desk and picked it up. "This is her?"

"Susan would have been eighteen last month. I'm determined to find her, no matter how long it takes."

Penrose grimaced, fearing the worst case scenario.

Hammond paused. "I know exactly what you're thinking but somehow I feel you're wrong. She's out there somewhere, waiting for me to come and rescue her."

"What does everybody else think?"

"They tolerate me, provided I still work my normal case load. This is beyond personal for me now. My wife and I split up last year. She felt I should just let Susan go and move on. I can't though, not if there's the slightest chance I can still find her alive."

Penrose felt sympathy for the man, but believed his journey would lead nowhere.

"What do you think has happened to them?"

"My guess is that there's some sort of trafficking going on."

"Wouldn't it be easier to abduct targets that are less likely to draw attention, children in care or ones from poorer families with fewer resources to call upon?"

"My theory is that the clients must be extremely selective and therefore probably quite wealthy themselves. We're talking about over fifty girls in three years. That's not worth running the risk of discovery unless they're making a considerable amount of money on each transaction."

"So they kidnap them to order and send them where?"

"Abroad maybe. Somewhere where they wouldn't draw too much attention."

"That means getting them through immigration," Jim countered.

"We both know exactly how effective our border controls really are. Besides, most of the effort is expended in stopping people coming in, not leaving. The controls on the continent are a total joke now the EU has mandated more open migration between member states."

"I agree but that doesn't explain why they don't kidnap girls from their own country."

"Maybe whoever is doing this is based here but caters to an international clientele."

"I still find it hard to believe. How would they prevent any of their captives escaping and revealing what had happened to them? It would only need one."

"I have a theory but you're going to think I'm mad."

While mad was perhaps too strong a word, compulsive obsessive was a phrase that hovered on Penrose's lips.

"My theory," Hammond continued, "is that they have found some way of compelling the girls' acquiescence, maybe even going so far as to inhibit memories of their kidnapping and past lives."

"You're talking about brainwashing or something like that?"

"Last year, I talked to Doctor Gunther Herzog of the Heidelberg Institute. He specialises in psychological conditioning and recently published a paper about it in Nature. I spent a few evenings in his company when he came over here for a conference. He seemed to think that it would be theoretically possible to alter the subjects thought processes sufficiently for them to accept what was going on."

"Would the changes be permanent?"

"He thought that follow-up treatments would be required at regular intervals or the mind would eventually revert back to their prior state."

"They'd wake up."

"Essentially yes, unless some means could be devised to make the changes self-reinforcing."

"How likely would that be?"

"Gunther had no idea how that could be achieved. I did say it was just a theory."

"I'm struggling to see the connection with Amanda."

"Let me show you the latest case I've been working on. Because of my active interest in it, the Commissioner automatically sends me copies of all cases involving the unexplained abduction of young girls."

Hammond flipped open a manila folder and produced a photograph of two teenage girls standing side by side. Other than the length of their hair, they looked almost identical.

"This is Samantha and Helen Trevanion, twin daughters of Charles and Rebecca Trevanion. Charles is head paediatric surgeon over at the Hammersmith while his wife is a prominent child psychologist and published author. Both are extremely busy people and chose to enrol the girls in Ambrose College, near Amersham."

"Right."

"Three weeks ago, two men posing as police officers turned up at the school and informed staff that both their parents had been killed in an RTA, and that they had instructions to take them to stay with a relative until the funeral."

"Their parents are still alive, I take it."

"The story of the road traffic accident was nothing more than an elaborate pretence to persuade the school staff to release the girls into their custody."

"Didn't they check their credentials?"

"Apparently their ID looked genuine and they looked the part."

"Do we have any camera footage of them?"

"Unfortunately not. The school has a long sheltered history and is not the most progressive of institutions. There was no CCTV installed anywhere on the premises at all."

"That's absolutely ridiculous."

"I think they're regretting it in the light of this incident and I dare say that several parents will take their children away once it all becomes public."

"You mean that it's not already?"

"Both the governors and the girls' parents requested us to play this one low-key. Even a senior politician has taken an interest in the case."

"Who?"

"David Hunnicutt. His daughter attends the college."

"So we've not got much to go on?"

"The girls have disappeared without trace but we have put together a likeness of the two police officers based on a description from the school secretary."

He handed Penrose two hand drawn composites that were generic enough to cover a large proportion of the adult male population.

"One had a distinctive scar on his left cheek and I think it may be this man," Hammond suggested.

"Sergeant Henry Wright."

"Formerly of the Royal Paratroop Regiment. He left the service four years ago after his tour of Afghanistan."

"Can't say I blame him for that," Penrose sympathised.

"His whereabouts are currently unknown, but I've exchanged a few faxes with his former CO and get the picture of a fairly well-disciplined soldier with an exemplary record."

"Not exactly the typical type that would start abducting young girls."

"There's a typical type?" Hammond asked cynically. "There was one blot on his record from ten years ago when he was serving in Bosnia."