The Cutting Crew by Steve Mosby Read Free Book Online

indifference could make it even worse. Fortunately, he wasn't paying attention.
    'Yeah,' he told me. 'Said there had been a possible sighting that he was looking into. But since then we haven't heard anything. He asked us to get in touch if we heard from her.'
    Okay, I thought. They don't know she's dead.
    'Did he ask about anything else?'
    'He asked about Alison,' Sheldon said. 'Wanted to know about her friends. Her work. Stuff like that.'
    'And what did your wife tell him?'
    'She told him she didn't know much about it. To be honest, Alison hardly ever contacts us. Wasn't much my wife could say.
    Anything he wanted to know would have been in the Missing Persons Report anyway.'
    Missing Persons Report?
    I almost said it out loud, but managed to stop myself just in time.
    We'd gone through every one of those reports for the months before and after we found the body, and Alison's name had never turned up. Right age, right physical characteristics - if she'd been there we would have seized on her file and run with it. When had it been made?
    I spoke to Alison's father for a few more minutes, trying to find out if he knew anything else, but there was nothing. He was obviously uninterested by my enquiries, and it became apparent that Alison had been distanced from her parents for quite a while before her disappearance. Her father's attitude was that this was the kind of thing she did - no doubt she'd turn up eventually, and she shouldn't expect much of a welcoming committee when she did. It was very sad, but he didn't know what had happened and I tried hard - but unsuccessfully - not to hold it against him.
    'Thanks for your time,' I said at the end of the conversation.
    'We'll be in touch if we hear anything.'
    The nearest Missing Persons Bureau is based a little out of town: around three hundred kilometres north, and then west a bit. It is notoriously efficient, mostly because it was founded twenty years ago by an everyday couple who had started off searching for their own missing son. It had expanded since then, of course, but it's still run on a voluntary basis by dedicated staff. The police force had trouble keeping track of things that happened ten minutes ago, but Missing Persons maintains files on every runaway and absentee reported to them since the operation began. Even better - the files are hard-copy and the staff know where to find them.
    Missing Persons isn't a public operation, in that if you rang up anonymously and asked for information you wouldn't get it, but they work closely with the police. They keep the files but they certainly don't want them, and if the police find someone then they can throw a case away. We all cooperate and maintain a useful two-way exchange.
    Of course, I was a normal member of the public now - I still had a badge, but the number was probably void. Fortunately, I'd worked with Missing Persons enough times to know a couple of the staff by name, and so I could call and ask for one of them personally. The sad fact is that missing people ended up in our city all the time, in various states of mental and physical cohesion, and I was one of the few cops who had conspicuously cared about putting names to some of them and maybe sending them home. As currency went in Missing Persons, I was a rich man until proven otherwise.
    An hour after speaking to Mr Sheldon, I was sitting in an internet cafe, drinking yet another coffee and running through the details that had been faxed through to me on the colour machine at the other side of the room.
    I'd lied on the phone, but only by omission. Yes, I might have some news for them soon - that was true. No, I wasn't in the office; I was out, so could they fax the details to this number, please? Also true. But they hadn't asked if I was still a cop and so I hadn't mentioned that I wasn't.
    I had six pages. The first had a picture of Alison Sheldon in the top right-hand corner. It was a relaxed shot: someone had snapped her from one side, just as she turned,