Sam paused in her reading. ‘You must be pretty up to date. Donna Cook only told me last night that she was convinced one of the kids was a girl. I got my report done soon after that so it was on Vickers’s desk before I left last night, but, still, you’re on top of things.’ She was impressed–but still wary. ‘How sure can you be about all this; I mean, where’s the evidence? You can’t just be guessing?’ she asked.

‘Profiling may not yet be normal police procedure, but it soon will be,’ explained Gerry Cornwell. ‘I’m not making it up. I’m not guessing. I wouldn’t do that–there’s a little boy’s life at stake here. I’m a doctor, a scientist. I can’t identify every trait of the abductors, but I can give you something to go on. Think of it in the same way you would use a police artist’s sketch of a suspect. Maybe it’s not a hundred per cent accurate, but it’s all you’ve got.’

Sam read on, thinking that he was right–she’d take anything just now. ‘There is no male presence in this house and the mother will have a history of either mental illness or alcoholism. In all likelihood she will have both. I recommend a search of primary schools and social service records for boys who fit this profile.’

‘You’re right,’ she said to the profiler. ‘At least it’s a start. And I do have more questions for you. I guess Vickers was right as well.’

Gerry Cornwell smiled. ‘Good. I’m glad. But I’m starving,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘I’ve had nothing since breakfast. And you need to eat, so why don’t we grab a working dinner tonight?’

‘In Edmonton?’ she said, almost laughing for the first time since the Matthew Cook case had begun. ‘We’d need a crack team of detectives to find somewhere that won’t give us food poisoning.’ WPC Sam Jones smiled at Dr Cornwell. Somehow she felt he had just given her the first push up the Metropolitan Police ladder. More importantly, with a lead on who might be the killers, he had given her hope that Matthew Cook could actually be found alive.

Chapter Twenty-Four