‘It could be a rape, too – we don’t know. He used a knife.’
‘Vaughan – did he stab her?’
Rachel shook her head.
‘That it?’
Rachel wished she’d never raised it now.
‘There’s thin and then there’s non-existent,’ Janet said.
‘But two attacks within eighteen months, both girls from-’
‘They’re not the same,’ Janet insisted. ‘Besides, you run an analysis of crime stats and feed in that demographic and you know what you’ll get. The very fact that they were in care increases the likelihood of becoming a victim of crime, including a victim of serious sexual assault, several times over. Dig enough and you could find more rapes, domestic violence, assaults – it doesn’t mean we’re looking for a serial offender.’ Janet looked at her, face screwed up in disapproval. Snotty cow. ‘Did you have anyone in the frame?’
‘The neighbour, for a while. He’d done a stretch for previous and he’d been hassling her, but we had nothing. She refused to press charges, wouldn’t tell us who’d done it. She knew him, I’m convinced of that. Sean Broughton picked Lisa up when she was still in Ryelands. Maybe he’d done the same with Rosie. You’re going there anyway, to Ryelands, aren’t you? It wouldn’t do any harm to ask if Sean was known to them back then.’
‘DNA?’
‘The rapist used a condom. We had traces in the flat from the neighbour, but that could have been from a previous visit. He used to call round for a cup of tea, he said, watch porn together. We’d unidentified DNA too – hair and skin cells, no hits. Case is still on file. She was a fruitloop, anyway. The whole thing was a mess.’
Janet was shaking her head. ‘Sean’s in the system. If he was your rapist, there’d have been a match.’ Rachel could see it in her eyes, on a hiding to nothing, mind made up. Maybe someone made a mistake, Rachel thought, it has been known. She gave it one last try. ‘Look, I could at least find out if Rosie knew him.’
‘You could,’ Janet said flatly, ‘or you could actually do what you’re supposed to be doing.’
When Rachel got back to her desk, she’d an email through from Lisa’s phone company, a document attached, with the cell-site locations. She pulled up the mapping software and entered the coordinates. The first call, to Speedy Cabs, was made close to the end of Cross Street, near the Arndale Centre and the big wheel. The other calls, the ones Lisa received from Sean and Denise, were both taken at points along Oldham Road on the way to Fairland Avenue. It dovetailed with their information so far. Rachel felt a glow of satisfaction.
