When the Music's Over Read Free Page B

that happened almost fifty years ago in the same manner as you can investigate one that happened yesterday. All you have to go on is the accuser’s statement. I understand all about cold cases solved by new DNA evidence. They’re the ones that make the news, and I’ve seen New Tricks , but those are the exceptions. Do we even have any DNA in this case, for example?”
    â€œI have no idea,” said Margaret Bingham, clearly irritated by Banks’s objections. “That’s for you to determine. And I may be a civilian, as you say, but I am the police and crime commissioner, and I have every right to ask my officers for their best efforts. That’s what I’m asking. You put as much time, effort, intelligence and investigative skills into this as you would into a sexual assault that happened yesterday. Believe me, you’ll have all the resources you need at your disposal.”
    That was a good opening move on his part, Banks thought. Piss off the bosses and the crime commissioner at the first big meeting of the new job. But he’d never had much time for Margaret Bingham and her agendas. She and Adrian Moss would make a fine team. “Yes, ma’am,” he muttered.
    McLaughlin cleared his throat again. “Though the Met is technically in charge of Operation Yewtree, Mr. Burgess here from the NCA will be bringing his expertise of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection command to bear on the case.”
    Burgess tipped his hand in a mock salute. “At your service,” he said.
    â€œWhat will your role be?” Banks asked.
    â€œCo-coordinating between you and the Met, mostly,” said Burgess. “I’ll be trying to make sure that the left hand knows what the righthand is doing. The case is unwieldy enough already. Linda Palmer was living with her parents in Leeds in 1967, but the assault took place in Blackpool. She now lives near Eastvale, a village called Minton-on-Swain, and Danny Caxton lives out on the coast, as you probably know already, though he lived in West Yorkshire for some years. In Otley. If we involved all the local forces—not to mention the rest that will soon come into play as the complaints add up—you can imagine what a mess we’d have on our hands. That’s why we decided on one SIO for Linda Palmer, one team manager, and that’s you. It’s your job to keep a firm hand on the rudder. I’m available to provide updates and background intelligence from other sources wherever possible. Believe me, in this investigation, the different county forces involved will be talking to one another, and complete records will be kept of every interview, every allegation, every scrap of evidence. We have several complaints about Caxton from around the country already. The one thing you can be certain of is that there will be more complainants coming forward once the news gets out, and there’s strength in numbers as far as we’re concerned. How many depends very much on the access and opportunity Caxton had to satisfy his needs. It’s my feeling, given his long and wide-ranging career, that he had plenty. They’ll all have to be traced and investigated. Possible witnesses tracked down. Locations probed. I’ll be searching for similarities in the complainant accounts.”
    â€œJust how wide is this investigation?” asked Gervaise.
    Burgess looked at Chief Constable Sampson, who put on a suitably grim expression and said, “So far, according to the NCA, we have seven independent complaints about Danny Caxton spanning the years between 1961 and 1989. All from females between the ages of fourteen and sixteen at the time. The county forces involved have done as much background checking and taken as many preliminary statements as necessary so far, but we, and the CPS, feel it’s time to move quickly now. The CPS also happen to feel that ours is one of the crucial cases, that it has a better than