Matteus pouted and glared at him under sandy eyelashes, which Oliver ignored, turning his eyes back to the screen. He’d spent three days straight downloading, compiling, and itemising every shred of information regarding the children. Even down to their shoe sizes and school attendance. Nancy—using some kind of technical wizardry—had transposed the information onto a complex spreadsheet, so they could plot everyone onto a map based on their hometowns and where they had been placed in the care system.
Lucas had been back in London for seventy-three and a half hours. Not that Oliver was counting.Definitely not. And not that he was acting like a love-sick puppy, either.Preposterous idea.They’d spoken on the phone every morning and evening. Sometimes in the middle of the night, if the aching pull became particularly bothersome. The feeling ofneedingsomeone, and wanting to be with that someoneconstantly, was utterly exhausting.
“It’s natural,” Matteus had told him earlier in the day. “It’s ten times worse when you’re pregnant, believe me.”
He’d be meeting Lucas’ family in just over twenty four hours, the thought of which created a tight knot of nervous energy in his gut. Said ball of nervous energy sent rolling waves ofnausea crashing over him several times a day, so overall, he was anxious, exhausted, and very much in need of a day off.
“Well then, kids,” Nancy said, drumming her fingers over the desk. “Shall we run the numbers?”
Matteus squirmed with excitement, hovering behind her as she sat close to the screen. Oliver just took another long drink of coffee.
“Commander Reed?” She said, giving him an expectant look. “Come and press the button and stop being a sour puss.”
“You press it.”
She tutted, folding her arms. “Ollie bear, I know you’re missing Big Daddy, but I really must insist that you come—and—press—the—fucking—button.”
Letting out a long sigh, Oliver dragged himself to his feet. Nancy grinned as a map of Great Britain flashed up on the overhead projector, the program ready and waiting to accept the data from her spreadsheet.
“Ready?” she said, pushing the mouse towards him.
Exhaling, he reached out to tap it, but Nancy gasped and pulled it away again.
“Nance for the love of?—”
“What? It’s taken me two days to put this thing together. I deserve a countdown at least!”
“I agree,” Matteus said, shooting him a toothy smile.
“Fine,” he replied, rubbing his temples. “Three?—”
“Two!” Matteus shouted.
“One!” Followed Nancy.
And then he clicked the mouse, and the map lit up. Little pins for each of the children flashed across the screen, and Oliver had to admit that it was quite impressive.
“Well, would you look at that?” Nancy said, leaning back with a smug expression. Then she ran the data again, so it plottedwhich county the victims had originated from, versus where they had ended up in the care system.
“Hm.” Oliver frowned as he stared up at the map.
“That’s weird,” Nancy replied. “Let me run it again.”
So she did, with the same results. After rechecking the data, they confirmed that the plotting was correct, but the results were rather unusual.
Children from the northern and central parts of the UK were all being pulled south, creating little clusters of pins that looked like spiderwebs spread over the map.
“Why are the children being placed so far from their hometowns?” Matteus said, pulling a bottle of strawberry milkshake from his bag. “I thought the kids were always supposed to be placed inlocalcare homes. These kids are being placed miles away.”
Oliver stared up at the screen, tapping his chin as he came to realise—with no small amount of confusion—that whilst the childrenwerebeing placed far away from their hometowns, they were actually being housed extremely close together. He pointed to a cluster of four victims, all of whom were housed within a five-mile radius of each other.
“Matty, which local authority covers Brislington and Clifton?” he asked.
“Erm, Bristol I think.”
He pointed to another cluster. “What about Efford and Southway?”
“Plymouth.”
