Free Baby Love by Maureen Carter

plonker.” She snatched her hand back.
    “...a good officer,” Oz persisted. “Have you told him? About finding the earring?”
    She sighed, shook her head. “That’s something else I’m really looking forward to.”
    Oz opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind. He knew when to leave it. Bev hoped the guv’d leave her and Oz as a team as well. They knew each other’s ways, didn’t always see eye to eye but in a tight corner... Oz had covered
her back more times than a duvet. He was the only man in the entire universe who knew it sported a tiny rose tattoo. Though they hadn’t shared the bottom sheet much recently. Not since she’d beaten the shit out of the psycho-killer
who’d attacked Sadie. It hadn’t been a pretty sight – and Oz had seen it. Now, apart from on shift, he saw a lot less of Bev.
    “There’s a limit to what the guv can do.” Oz was back on safer ground. “He can switch people round, but it’s all a bit Peter and Paul.”
    Bev nodded. Oz was spot on. Whatever Byford said to the media in the public domain, privately he’d told Bev that West Mercia police were already on standby, should he have to call in more bodies. It went against the grain, implying an
inadequacy, an inability to cope. But two high-profile on-going operations, constant high-alert security status and normal run-of-the-nick crime were enough to stretch any force to its limit. Maybe beyond.
    Sunday, 8am, day two of the search and it was standing room only. Huge blow-up photographs of the missing baby dominated the briefing room where more than eighty men and women gathered, many – like Oz – turning up on a
day off. About a third had been temporarily re-assigned from Street Watch, which explained Mike Powell’s presence – a sort of two-briefings-with-one-stone scenario.
    Bev was seated next to the DI behind a metal desk up at the front. She’d attended hundreds of similar meetings, couldn’t recall an atmosphere remotely like this. It could power the national grid, no problem. Every officer was focused; many
were grim-faced. There was no slouching posture, no irreverent asides, no black humour. Most of these people had kids. All were acutely aware that the first twenty-four hours following a crime were important; in the case of a missing child they were
crucial. Baby Zoë hadn’t been seen for twenty-nine.
    “We’re extending the search parameters.” Byford was on his feet, centre stage, an impatient hand jiggling keys in a trouser pocket. An enlarged street plan of Balsall Heath and surrounding suburbs had been pinned to one of the
incident boards. The map was dotted with coloured markers showing the places teams had already covered. The guv waved a pointer over the areas to be added, plus special-interest sites such as wasteland, derelict buildings, allotments and a recreation
ground. Sniffer dogs and handlers were already out there; divers would shortly be dragging further stretches of the canal.
    “Back here,” Byford said, “we’ll continue phone-bashing and putting in the checks. As of now, Jack’s control room co-ordinator.”
    Inspector Jack Hainsworth lifted an arm like a leg of pork. Early forties, thinning ginger hair, he was admired and respected by everyone in the building, not necessarily liked. He was chunky, bull-necked and had the look of a nightclub bouncer
wearing uniform for a bet. A Yorkshireman who loathed cricket, he’d read classics at Cambridge and was into campanology. He suffered neither fools nor fuck-ups gladly; in fact, not at all. Hainsworth’s sharp beady eyes would scan every sheet
of paper, assess every piece of data; he’d then prioritise and point the inquiry in the right direction. He had a brain like a computer and a mouth like an open sewer. It was currently running through state of play and future activity.
    Notes were taken, questions posed. It was donkeys-at-desks stuff, methodical and tedious. Bev wasn’t big on routine plod-work but appreciated that just