‘Why is Fox-Carnell relevant?’ Copeland asked as she turned and faced Stanford.
‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ Stanford said sarcastically. ‘I’m thinking that Tabitha and Graham Ashcroft could be at risk. Where are they now?’
‘Graham Ashcroft is still at King’s,’ answered Henley. ‘But I need to check when Tabitha—’
‘Tabitha discharged herself from King’s yesterday afternoon,’ Copeland interrupted. ‘I told her to stay but she was adamant that she wanted to leave. Her parents picked her up and she’s staying with them in Margate.’
Henley folded her arms and turned to face Copeland. ‘You spoke to the Ashcrofts even though until five minutes ago you weren’t on this case?’ The iron in her voice was impossible to ignore.
‘It wasn’t like that. Tabitha already has a relationship with me, and she—’
‘Stop,’ Henley said, holding up her hand and inwardly counting to ten to quell her frustration with Copeland stepping out of bounds. She turned her back and faced Pellacia. ‘What can we do about getting Tabitha Ashcroft some form of protection?’ she asked.
‘I’ll speak to Kent police and also the NCA if she’s moved to Margate, but you know how it works, they won’t provide as much as a panic alarm unless Tabitha Ashcroft agrees to co-operate,’ Pellacia pointed out.
‘I think that we may have some difficulty with that,’ said Ramouter. ‘The Ashcrofts are refusing to sign their witness statements.’
‘Even though they told us what happened to them?’ asked Pellacia.
Ramouter nodded. ‘We had to really push for them to do that.’
‘I can talk to Tabitha,’ said Copeland. ‘Convince her that we can—’
‘Ramouter will speak to the Ashcrofts,’ Henley cut in. ‘Make sure that you pass on the Margate details to him. Let’s move on. The vigilante angle?’
‘I think that it may be more than one person. This is the problem with these people – these vigilante groups. They do more harm than good,’ said Eastwood.
‘That’s not strictly true,’ DC Copeland jumped in. ‘Some of these vigilante groups have been successful in stopping men grooming young people and attempting to commit sexual offences. Their actions have resulted in successful criminal prosecution.’
‘Pretending to be a fourteen-year-old kid and arranging to meet a disgusting pervert is a lot different to dragging people off the street, pumping them full of fentanyl and hanging them over the river,’ said Eastwood coldly.
‘DC Eastwood, I wasn’t sa—’
‘It’s DS,’ said Eastwood.
‘I’m sorry, DS Eastwood,’ Copeland said warmly. ‘I don’t agree with the idea of vigilantism, but we can’t ignore that their actions have been helpful. Of course, that’s not the case here.’
‘That’s an understatement,’ Eastwood bit back.
‘Let’s get back to the case,’ Henley said, joining Eastwood at the front in a show of solidarity. ‘Unless Eastwood has discovered any other cases preceding Mantell or anything between Hyoo’s murder and the Ashcrofts’ attack?’
‘None with the distinctive MO of the scalping,’ Eastwood confirmed.
‘But that’s not to say there may not have been any attempts,’ Ramouter added. ‘Tabitha Ashcroft got away but only because her husband was home. What if she wasn’t the only one?’
Eastwood sighed as she reached for her notebook. ‘You’re right. I’ll take a look.’
‘I’ll take London, and you take Manchester,’ offered Stanford supportively.
‘That’s great,’ said Henley. ‘We also can’t dismiss the family and friends of Fox-Carnell’s victims and the men who accused Nathan Hall of rape. Where are we with Laurence Durant?’
‘His car was seized last night but I don’t think CSI have got round to examining it yet. I’d rather not drag him into an interview until I’ve got something solid to put to him,’ answered Stanford.
‘I agree.’ Henley took her phone out. ‘I’ll text Anthony and ask him if he can pull some strings to get us higher up the priority list. Right, let’s go back to the location of these attacks. There has to be a good reason why the attacks started in Manchester and then migrated to London.’
‘The London cases start with Tabitha Ashcroft but why her? It wasn’t as though the case made national news,’ said Ramouter.
‘Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds. All three are big cities and at least forty miles from Manchester. Depending on the traffic it would take you no more than ninety minutes to get there,’ said Copeland. ‘But to come to London, that’s a ten-hour round trip. I think maybe our vigilantes had a specific reason to be here that had nothing to do with the Ashcrofts or even Nathan Hall.’
