Cold Justice Read Online Free

phone. Willis was checking the screens to see what information had been fed into HOLMES, the central program designed to coordinate major investigations. She gave Carter a sign that she was heading out. He nodded he understood.
    ‘One sighting of a kid with a snowflake on his jacket, sir,’ the operator answered. ‘But turned out to be a picture the child was holding on his lap. Several new sightings of Toby Forbes-Wright – all confirm the first half of his route.’ The officer from the desk on the left looked through the pages of notes beside him and said, ‘A woman in a café saw him. A man walking his dog on the park. All of them confirm seeing Toby pushing a buggy but no one looked inside it or noticed Samuel after four fifteen.’
    ‘No one saw him on the walk back from the Observatory to his home?’
    ‘Not so far.’
    Carter followed Willis down to the Enquiry Team office. Long desks housed detectives working diagonally across from one another, their monitors back-to-back. He negotiated his way across the busy office. The commotion of a full team working flat out made the room squawk and yell like a stock market on a ‘boom or bust’ day. All officers who had been working on other cases were now focused on Samuel Forbes-Wright’s disappearance. Everything else could wait. Carter stopped at the second of six desks from the left and looked over Willis’s shoulder at her screen. She was looking at CCTV footage from the camera outside the
Cutty Sark.
    ‘Anything?’
    ‘It was very busy, that’s one thing.’ She tapped her pen on the list of names next to her: ‘Looking at the sex offenders’ register.’ Each name was accompanied by a duo of mug shots and a brief resumé. ‘All the addresses were around the Greenwich area. Number four on the list looks interesting – Malcolm Camber. He’s only just come out of prison and he went inside for child abduction – he kidnapped and assaulted a four-year-old boy, released him after four hours.’
    ‘Where did he let him go?’
    ‘Parkland near his home.’
    ‘Does he work alone?’ asked Carter.
    ‘He did then. We have no idea what friends he might have made in prison.’
    ‘Have you been in touch with his parole office?’
    ‘Yes, his parole officer said he called in sick the last few days.’
    ‘Did she go round to see him?’
    ‘She went round this afternoon but he wasn’t there.’
    ‘Put a warrant out – pick him up urgently. Anyone else?’
    Ebony pulled out three files.
    ‘There are seven more living in the same area who are high priority.’
    ‘Get someone round to their houses with a search warrant now. I’ll head down to talk to Robbo.’
    ‘Yes, guv.’
    Across from Willis was an empty chair, that of Jeanie Vincent, the Family Liaison Officer.
    ‘Jeanie been in touch yet?’
    ‘Not with me, maybe with Robbo?’ answered Willis.
    Robbo looked up from his desk as Carter walked in. Robbo had worked in the force for over twenty years and sat next to his ‘work-wife’ Pam. He’d had a lifelong affair with Haribo sweets and great coffee but he was really addicted to work and had to be reminded that the purpose of work was to enjoy a better life and not the other way round.
    ‘How’s the father’s background looking?’ Carter asked Pam.
    Pam looked over her leopard-print reading glasses as she answered: ‘Private education, the best. He went on to study Physics and Astronomy at Oxford. He’s been working in the Observatory, full time, sourcing and making the interactive exhibits for the last seven years. He’s extremely bright. The Observatory job is almost a volunteer post. He gets paid less than twenty thousand a year.’
    ‘It’s a hobby then,’ said Carter.
    ‘He’s capable of a lot, on paper.’ Pam scrolled down her screen and made notes as she went. ‘I mean, I’m not being funny, but if my kid had gone to Eton I would have wanted him to aim a bit higher, at least earn a good salary. That’s a hell of a lot of