ONE BY ONE, THE TEAM STRAGGLED INTO THE boardroom on Thursday morning. It had been a long night for all concerned, and Annie had managed only about two hours’ sleep between leaving Wytherton with Banks and Sunny and coming in to Eastvale HQ for the meeting. Gerry was still in the infirmary, resting. The police doctor had been right: a nasty crack but not an outright break. They’d probably let her out later today, the doctor had told Annie when she phoned earlier, but she would have to remain on light duties for a while until her clavicle healed.

The Wytherton police had done their job and swooped in on all the other suspects while Banks and Annie were bringing in Sunny. Now Sunny, Faisal, Ismail and Hassan were in custody, waiting to be interviewed. DNA samples had been taken and Jazz Singh had promised as quick a result as possible. The scientific process of extracting DNA didn’t take long, and any wait was usually due to long queues at the labs. With Jazz on the job already they wouldn’t have to worry in this case. Samples had also been taken from the cousins in Dewsbury to match against those removed from Mimosa’s body. Annie was raring to have a go at Sunny, who was already in an interview room under guard, stewing until the team meeting was over. Things had been moving very fast that morning. Two of the other girls groomed by Sunny and his gang—Kirsty McVie and Rebecca Bramley—had already been identified by the school secretary, whom the locals had roused from her bed, and briefly questioned. They were scared, but they knew what had happened to Mimsy, and when they were told that Jade had told her story to the police and disappeared, it didn’t take them long to talk. They all named the same crew and said Sunny had told them to lie low until things calmed down.

Today, search teams would go through all the flats and houses concerned, and plainclothes officers from both Wytherton and Eastvale would try to find the other girls and persuade them to talk. They were dealing with victims, Banks had reminded the assembled officers, and the girls may have been convinced to see themselves as society’s rejects, but they were to be treated with the utmost respect and sensitivity. If at all possible, he had added, each should be assigned a personal female liaison officer.

Superintendent Carver had grudgingly looked into Reg’s and Bill’s alibis for the Tuesday of Mimsy’s murder and found that Reg was at home with his family and Bill was moonlighting on a film set in Stockton, along with plenty of witnesses. It seemed to let them off the hook, though Annie had let it be known that she thought they were involved in some way, if only for willful ignorance.