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seemingly bottomless shoulder bag. The number displayed didn’t ring a bell. She adopted her
I’m-a-busy-woman-don’t-bother-me voice.
    “Nick Lockwood here.”
    “Nick?” Beeb bloke. Boyish fringe. Brown eyes. Beer gut. Not exactly a pleasure but it could be worse. “What can I do for you?”
    He laughed. “Don’t sound so suspicious.”
    “It’s in the job description, mate.” She listened to the newsman’s take on events at the crime scene in Moseley that morning, realised that the baby snatch had pushed Street Watch on to one of her many mental back burners.
Powell’s pratfall was a laugh but she had the nous to know Lockwood was after something in return.
    “I’m after a new line, Bev.”
    At least he was up front. “I’m not up to speed, mate. I’m on the missing baby. I’ll have a sniff round, get back to you if I come up with anything.” Hacks weren’t her favourite people but she knew the old saying
about tents and urine.
    “Appreciate it.” She sensed there was more. “Don’t fancy a drink tonight, do you?”
    It would be a miracle if she was off before midnight. “Prince of Wales ’bout eight?”
    No harm in keeping him sweet. She felt a hand on her shoulder as she stuffed the phone back into her bag.
    “Sergeant?” Byford, fresh from the media mauling, wanted the top lines from the Beck interviews. He’d listen carefully to every word, keep his thoughts to himself until she’d finished. That was his way. Like lowering his voice
when he was about to erupt. Like making his face a blank screen. Bev often tried copying the technique. Hers was an open book with pop-up illustrations.
    After digesting the gist, his neutral knack appeared to have deserted him. The big man’s screen was showing a double feature: frustration and fury. Not surprising. He had two grown-up sons, third grandkid on the way.
    When he heard there were no photographs of Zoë, Byford shook his head and sighed. The image of a missing child had immense impact on the emotions of a telly-viewing, newspaper-reading public. Some may already have seen something significant;
others might, over the next few hours and days. With thousands of potential witnesses out there, the importance of a visual was impossible to over-estimate. “For Christ’s sake, Bev. A baby’s only got to break wind and its parents shoot
a roll of film.”
    In Perfect Land maybe, where mummy and daddy live happily ever after. “That’s another thing, guv. We haven’t got a steer on the kid’s dad yet. Natalie won’t say who he is.”
    “We’ll see about that.” He stroked an eyebrow. Ominous.
    She didn’t fancy Natalie Beck’s chances in a run-in with the big man. Not in his current frame of mind. Given how long the guv had been around, it was odds-on he’d been one of the officers on the Baby Fay abduction in the late
eighties. The tiny body – burned and abused – wasn’t discovered for three weeks. The kidnapper never found. As a schoolgirl, Bev had followed the news coverage with equal degrees of horror and fascination. Details were hazy but going by
the guv’s grim face, now would not be a good time to ask him to share.
    “You the cop been talking to Maxine Beck?”
    She swung round, eyes flashing, as a hand tapped her bum. It was attached to one of the best-looking blokes she’d seen in a long time. But it wasn’t aesthetic appeal that saved him from a verbal hammering. It was what he clutched in his
other mitt.
    Bev took it from him without speaking. The photograph was probably a good likeness; shame the baby’s eyes were closed. Little Zoë was asleep on her back, tiny perfect fingers loosely splayed, wisps of pale blonde hair only just discernible
on a head fragile as eggshell. Bev bit her lip. The line about newborns all looking like Winston Churchill was dead wrong.
    “Where’s the rest?” she snapped. The pic was lovely but not brilliant for publicity posters and handouts.
    The guy shrugged. “Can’t help with that.