Like This, for Ever

several dozen vehicles that travelled along more than one of the routes being watched on the evenings the bodies were left,’ she began. ‘We’re following them up to see if any of the registered keepers have a record of any kind. If they do, we want to know what they were doing on the nights the boys went missing.’
    ‘Anything yet?’
    ‘Nothing, but we’re not quite through the list. After that, we’ll go back to those who don’t have form.’
    ‘This doesn’t feel like first-offence territory to me,’ said Weaver.
    ‘No. But it could just be someone who didn’t get caught. Dave Cook’s team have finished their search of the main Thames bridges. Apart from the one they found on Tower Bridge, there was nothing.’
    The day Oliver Kennedy had been found safe and well in a London church, the line-access team had searched Tower Bridge and found a parcel similar to the one retrieved from Southwark Bridge by Constable Finn Turner. A heavy-duty black bin-liner, stuffed with two taped-together pillows and the decomposed carcass of a pigeon. Peter Sweep, it seemed, had been planning his own particular take on the practical joke for some time.
    ‘Any idea how he got them up there?’ asked Weaver.
    ‘The line-access team think “down there”,’ said Dana. ‘They tried swinging a similar package from above on a line and letting it go. They think Sweep must have dropped his over the side and possibly lost quite a few in the process.’
    Weaver nodded.
    ‘As you know, the search of the area around Deptford Creek Marina found nothing,’ said Dana.
    That hadn’t been strictly true. The search of the Deptford Creek Marina had unearthed a couple of thousand pounds’ worth of stolen goods, stashed away in old vans and Portakabins. All small-scale stuff that Dana had been happy to hand over to local CID.
    ‘And I understand it is quite possible for Tyler’s and indeed Ryan’s bodies to have been washed up the Creek from the Thames?’ Weaver asked.
    Dana nodded. ‘Since DI Joesbury spent his childhood on the river, there’s been a big development at the mouth of Deptford Creek,’ she said. ‘It’s altered the way the river flows. Now it’s quite common for debris to get carried up the Creek when the tide’s coming in, and then get trapped there. Once we heard that, we scaled down our search of the marina.’
    Weaver glanced down at the screen on his mobile phone.
    ‘The fibres we found on Oliver Kennedy’s clothes have been identified as coming from a fleece jacket made by a company called J. Crew,’ said Dana. ‘They’re a popular supplier of casual, outdoor-style clothing. We’ve traced it to a particular batch and should be able to match it to the garment itself, if we ever find it.’
    For a second she thought she’d lost her boss’s attention. He was staring across the river towards Wapping.
    ‘One of those Whistler sketches features the police station,’ he said. ‘The distinctive shape of the roof, the bay windows on the front. Over a hundred years ago, a senior police officer sat in Dave Cook’s office and looked across to where we are now. I mention it because I’ve just had a bill for the search of the storm drains he had his dive team do. Is it too much to hope it gave us anything?’
    A joint operation of the Marine Unit, Lewisham MIT and the Environment Agency had conducted a search of the two-milestretch of the south bank between Tower Bridge and Bermondsey. They’d been looking for traces of blood around the storm drain and sewerage outlets. In summer – even in dry autumns, the team from the Environment Agency had told them – there would be no question of it being a search for a needle in a haystack. All polluting substances entering the Thames would leave a trace of some sort. But in March, given the above-average rainfall they’d had in the past few weeks, it had been a long shot. One that hadn’t paid off.
    ‘We still haven’t found out who sent Lacey Flint that text,’ said Dana, mentally making her way down her checklist. ‘Nor are we likely to, unless Flint herself comes clean with us.’
    ‘Sent from a pay-as-you-go phone, is that right?’ said Weaver.
    Dana nodded. ‘Bought with cash, topped up with cash. If we find the phone itself, we’ve a chance, but other than that, forget it. The phone company tell us it’s a model that parents typically buy for their kids, and that fits with the sightings we had of kids at Deptford Creek that night, but