Chapter 61

Stacey found herself not wanting to believe what they all suspected to be true.

The boss had taken just a minute to update them and rearrange Stacey's priorities before heading off at speed to talk to the first Katie Hawne.

Penn and Tiff had left shortly afterwards to prepare for their interview with Olivia Dench.

Stacey had contacted Sheryl's doctor, who had confirmed that she had registered with the practice just five months after leaving Huddersfield, and that she had registered six-and-a-half-month-old Katie at the same time.

If Katherine and her dates were correct, then there was no way Sheryl was Katie's mom. Begging the question, who the hell was?

Stacey did what she always did when faced with a challenge. She turned to Google. She entered a search for missing children within a twenty-five-mile radius of Huddersfield from the alleged date of Sheryl's disappearance to the date she registered with the doctor.

Having a clear idea of when would enable her to increase the radius with each new search.

Google presented her with seventy-nine results.

It took her a further minute or two to remove the boys.

52 results.

She removed the children that were older than a year.

21 results.

She removed the children who had been found safe and well.

13 results.

She removed the children who hadn't been found safe and well.

3 results.

Stacey made a note of the parents' names.

Lorna and Yin Wong.

Trisha and Danny Lewis.

Viv and Karl Anderson.

She searched for the first couple and ruled them out immediately. As the name suggested, the father was Chinese, and the photo of the baby they held definitely had some of her father's facial characteristics.

She searched the second couple. News articles informed her that the abductor was the child's father, who had taken his child to the Isle of Wight to start a new life.

That left one couple to check before Stacey increased the area radius of her search parameters.

Viv and Karl Anderson.

With the search refined, Stacey could note the details. Their daughter, Rebecca, had been abducted when she was three and a half months old. It had happened at a park in Ilkley where Viv had been with her two children, five-year-old Justin and baby Rebecca. Justin had fallen over, and Viv had instinctively run over to her son, leaving the pram unattended for a couple of minutes.

No one had seen a thing, and the baby, pink blanket and teddy bear had all vanished. The teddy had been found a quarter mile away. The distraught parents had issued heartfelt pleas to the public for the safe return of their daughter. They held a vigil on her birthday, 14 August, every year. Karl Anderson hadn't been present in the last five photos, but Viv had been there, supported by her son, at every one.

Stacey took a screenshot of the photo that had been held up to the television cameras when the child had first been abducted.

She sent it over to the boss. She knew it was unlikely that she'd hit gold on her first attempt, but oh my God, what if she had?