Free Baby Love by Maureen Carter Page A

one call, one follow-up, could give them the breakthrough. And she reckoned it was more
likely to come via the backroom players than anyone on the ground.
    Widening the hunt, though logical, was an almost certainly futile step. They all knew, even if no one would say, that without a steer locating the baby was virtually impossible. It made a needle in a haystack look like a piece of piss. If Zoë was
still alive, she and the abductor could be holed up anywhere. If it was a body they were looking for, the list of places it could be buried or dumped was endless.
    Point was, they had to be seen to be doing something; a big police presence was vital. They had to keep Zoë uppermost in the public’s mind. If they were out there in strength, the media would be out there in force. A powerful weapon, if a
two-edged sword.
    In an apparently motiveless crime, with no forensic evidence and a lack of quality witness reports, the police were almost entirely dependent on the community’s help. Tip-offs leading to arrest were the top end of the informants’ market.
More commonly people saw stuff but didn’t realise its significance, others forgot what they’d seen, still more were reluctant to come forward and needed a shove. Emotionally powerful footage could even prompt confessions. A kidnapper’s
not likely to pick up the phone but his wife/daughter/mother might cough on his behalf. It had happened before. Look at Michael Sams and Crimewatch . Although, Bev conceded, there was still any number of upstanding citizens who wouldn’t piss
on a copper in flames.
    She glanced at Mike Powell, reckoned she’d need to be desperate for a wee. Powell’s appraising gaze was directed downwards. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, clipboard in lap, hand tentatively waving in the air, was DC Sumitra Gosh.
She’d only been in CID a month and Bev still wasn’t used to seeing her out of uniform. Not that Goshie didn’t look equally stunning in mufti. Every inch of her was elegant, and at nearly six feet tall, that was a lot of elegance. She
had a river of blue-black hair and eyes like toasted almonds. There was nothing remotely plain about Ms Gosh. And neither was she just a pretty face.
    “What about the baby’s mother, sir?” Gosh asked. “Is she prepared to do an appeal?”
    “Good point,” Byford acknowledged. “Time’s not right yet. We’ll almost certainly get round to it.”
    “I could mention it to her,” Powell offered, gaze still fixed on the rookie. “I’m arranging for her to come in later to go through mug shots.”
    Bev knew the guv’s thinking, could see he was torn.
    “Hang fire, Mike,” he said. “Let’s give it twenty-four hours.”
    Bev tended to agree. Natalie Beck was a ladette who aspired to chavdom. In the punter-appeal stakes, she was running on empty. Anyway, in one more day, one way or the other, the waiting could be over. She closed her eyes, mouthed a silent prayer.
    “Do you want to say a few words, Bev?” the guv asked.
    As senior investigating officer, Bev knew she’d have to take the floor. Didn’t make the ordeal any easier. It wasn’t her first case as SIO but it was the biggest. And some of the Highgate hard men would shed few tears if she failed
to close it. She rose and took a deep breath, hoping her skirt wasn’t stuck up her bum and her voice would carry to the back.
    She assigned actions, answered queries, then: “I’ve not got a lot more to say.”
    “Thank Christ for that,” Powell muttered behind her back.
    “Crime involving a kid’s a shit job. You don’t need me telling you how to do it. I’ll be around the Wordsworth most of the day and I’m on the end of a phone 24/7. All I ask is keep me informed. I need to know every
development, however small, before it happens.” Heads nodded, ties were straightened, fingers combed hair. She sensed they were chomping at the bit. She knew she was. “And that shit job?” She tried to include everyone in her glance.
“You’re