Missing Believed Dead Read Online Free PDF

super said, striding along the corridor.
    ‘Yes, sir.’ She lengthened her stride to keep up with him. She had heard about this bunch of jokers – a bolshie lot by all reports – and she was not looking forward to meeting them.
    He stopped with his hand on the door handle. ‘They’re a hard-working, experienced team used to working on their own initiative. You’ll have to exert your authority from day one.’ He turned the handle and opened the door.
    Kate seethed. It was obvious from his tone he expected her to have a problem. Well, she would show him a woman could run a team of bolshie cops as efficiently as any man.
    The office was large and open plan. A cork board and whiteboard covered the wall at one end. Desks filled the rest of the space, but not all of them were occupied. Two men sitting furthest away from the door looked up from their work, while another one, she wasn’t sure if it was a man or woman, continued to tinker with a computer. The woman at the desk in front of her appeared engrossed in files. But the thing that caught her eye was the man standing next to her with his shirt tail hanging out.
    The auburn-haired woman raised her head, and Kate heard her hiss, ‘Bill!’
    He looked up with a start, threw something in the bin and quickly stuffed his shirt into his trousers.
    Kate narrowed her eyes. That was the one she would have to sort out first. He was a mess of a man, untidy, sloppy and no self control by the look of it. If he was an example of the rest of the team she was going to have her work cut out licking them into shape.
    * * * *
     
    Bill waited until the super and the DI closed the door of Andy’s office behind them before pulling his shirt tail back out of his trousers. ‘Damned thing’s still damp,’ he grumbled.
    ‘You certainly made an impression,’ Sue said. ‘At least put your jacket on in case they come back.’
    ‘Is that what you call it, an impression? Did you see the way she looked at me? It was as if I was something that had crawled out from under a stone.’
    ‘Can’t say I blame her, you look like shit.’ She turned her attention back to the files.
    After a few moments she looked up. ‘You know that girl you thought had gone walkabout? How old did you say she was?’
    ‘Fourteen!’
    Sue closed the file she’d been studying and laid it beside two others she had set aside. ‘Have a look at these. You might find them interesting.’
    Bill wandered over to her desk. ‘Why’s that?’
    ‘Well, over the last six years three other girls, all aged between twelve to fourteen, vanished into thin air.’
    ‘You thinking there might be a connection?’
    ‘Similar circumstances from what I can see. All of the girls had been playing around in the internet chat rooms before they disappeared. This recent girl who’s missing, didn’t you say her mother complained she was always on the computer?’
    ‘That’s why I brought it in and asked Jenny to have a look.’ Bill nodded his head in the direction of the young woman working on a computer.
    ‘Bit unorthodox, shouldn’t it be sent to forensics?’
    ‘Not if we want a quick result. Jenny’s better than any of those geeks in the lab and it can always be sent to them after she’s had a good poke around inside. Anyway, I still think this girl’s gone walkabout.’
    ‘What makes you so sure?’
    ‘Gut feeling – besides she’s done it before, and I’ve met the family. Seems to me it’s similar to that other one three months ago. She turned up at her pal’s house in Arbroath.’
    ‘I’m sure that kind of reasoning will go down well with our new DI.’
    Bill snorted. ‘Yeah, she looks a real tight-arse.’
    ‘It might be better if we cover our backs and not give her anything to complain about.’ Sue tossed the files over to Bill’s desk. ‘I reckon we should have another look at these old cases, don’t you? One of them refers to a girl called Jade.’
    Bill frowned as he studied the last file – the one