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‘She just seemed so on the money,’ Stacey said.
‘Sylvia Browne told the mother of kidnapping victim Amanda Berry that she was dead. She was found alive in 2013. Incidentally, her mother had stopped looking and had died by the time her child was found.
‘In 2002 she told the family of Shawn Hornbeck that the eleven-year-old was dead. He was found alive four years later. She told a family that six-year-old Opal Jo Jennings had been forced into slavery in Japan. An autopsy showed she’d died within hours of abduction. To name but a few.’
‘Did no one call her out as a fraud?’ Stacey asked.
‘James Randi tried to. He was a Canadian-American stage magician and scientific sceptic who offered a one-million-dollar bounty to anyone able to prove to him that they were psychic. Sylvia Browne, amongst others, was invited by Randi to take up the challenge. The prize remains unclaimed.’
‘Okay, but there are some psychics or mediums that have helped on police cases, yes?’ Stacey asked.
‘Not according to a group named UK Sceptics that called every police force in the country. Every force but one said no and the Met offered no further details.’
‘Sorry,’ Stacey said as her phone started to ring. She could have listened to the man all day, but she did appreciate that they’d offered him a quiet workspace in exchange for his expertise.
‘Hey, boss,’ she said. ‘The answer is no. There are no threats on Azim’s phone. Our killer didn’t make contact with him from what I can see.’
‘Damn it,’ the boss growled. ‘If he was an opportunist victim based purely on his place of work, we’re stuffed.’
Silence for a minute.
‘Okay, double the efforts on the threats on Sandy’s computer. At least we have a connection there.’
‘Okay, boss.’
‘Before you go, can you grab a file from my desk? Top one with statements taken on the day of Bradley’s disappearance.’
‘One sec,’ she said, putting down the phone to go look. She hadn’t realised that the boss was going to spend so long on the Bradley Foster case. It had looked quite well run and thorough.
‘Got it, boss,’ she said, picking up the phone.
‘There was a note in there of a woman in her mid-sixties who gave a conflicting account. Got a name?’
‘Nancy Houseman. Lives at twenty-six Baker Street. One minute she said there was a van, then said there wasn’t.’
‘Okay, thanks, Stace,’ the boss said, ending the call as a bouquet of roses appeared at the door.
‘DC Wood?’ asked the constable carrying them.
‘Y…yes, that’s me,’ she said as he started walking towards her.
He laid them on her desk, and she thanked him as a spear of panic surged through her. What occasion had she forgotten? It wasn’t their anniversary.
‘Hmm…nice,’ Richard said, raising his glasses and then returning his attention to the screen.
Stacey plucked the card from the centre of the flowers and opened the envelope. Her blood froze in her veins.
Forever.
She threw the card on the desk and pushed the flowers away from her. There was no doubt in her mind that they were from Terence Birch. She stared in horror at the bouquet until she became aware of Richard watching her.
She grabbed them. ‘I’ll just go and put these in some water,’ she said, rushing from the room. She stormed into the small kitchen used by the control-room staff and threw the flowers into the sink, eager to get them out of her hands, as though they could contaminate her. That card. Just that one word had chilled her to the bone.
She took a good few breaths and realised that she couldn’t lie to herself any more. She needed to just get through the rest of the day so she could be alone to think. Make a plan. Work out how she was going to handle it.
She composed herself and strode back to the office. For now, she would focus on the tasks at hand. She had a job to do.
She grabbed Sandra’s computer and decided to have a closer look at the email threats sent to her.
