Read The Blooding for Free Online Page B

up in Huncote on the 599 bus at 6:38 P . M . Nevertheless, he was hunted for days.
    At 7:10 P . M . on the night of the murder, a young woman had boarded a bus from the bus shelter on Forest Road. The driver wasn't certain, but thought she'd got off at Foxhunter Roundabout near Enderby. She was sought for weeks as a possible witness to verify the report on the young couple allegedly seen at the bus stop. Then there were two women, one in her early twenties, who'd boarded the 600 bus to Leicester. They too were hunted in vain.
    After buses the murder squad started on scooters. A teenager had been seen pushing a motor scooter past the psychiatric hospital just after 8:30 P . M . on November 21st. He'd worn a long green parka, but he didn't seem to have a crash helmet so he might have been pushing it to a garage. They sought out all youths with motor scooters, whether or not the scooters functioned.
    The Leicester Mercury was of great help, printing virtually whatever the police wished. And of course, each printing brought hundreds more calls, all assigned a priority, all given to various teams.
    Nearly every day either Baker or Coutts was interviewed by reporters, and made public pleas: "I urge people to cast their minds back to the evening of November twenty-first. . . ."
    Before the second week was finished, the murder squad had checked out hundreds of reports. One of them concerned two teenage boys who'd bought a copy of the Mercury from a newsagent's shop in Narborough on the afternoon the body was discovered.
    "The lads studied the paper very intently," police were told. "They should be investigated."
    They were.
    Still another young man was sighted twice on the evening of the murder, once on Forest Road and another time walking toward the hospital. His priority was raised.
    And at 7:30 P . M ., just after Lynda was last seen alive, a man carrying a guitar case had been seen sitting across from the chemist's shop in Jubilee Crescent. He was added to the list.
    By the third week, the police were making even more appeals to the public through the newspapers and television. They particularly wanted the running youth.
    "Perhaps some young man arrived home out of bzeath after ten o'clock that night," Supt. Baker suggested to reporters, "and ran straight upstairs to avoid his parents."
    There was a "crying youth." He'd been spotted near the murder scene five days after the crime, sitting at curbside opposite The Black Pad. A couple driving by had seen him and immediately telephoned the incident room. He was a fair-haired lad, about seventeen years of age, wearing a bomber jacket. A motorcycle was propped up by him. The crying youth was not found. Boys his age wouldn't come in to admit to such an unmanly display.
    The newspaper pleas started paying off. A guitar player called the incident room to see if he was the one they were trying to trace. More running youths were reported, including a new one who'd run under the M 1 motorway bridge. And soon the murder squad began hearing about runners and punks from as far away as Birmingham. They were inundated with punks and runners. Given tips on punks who sounded like Johnny Rotten, they'd more often than not track down a youngster with dyed sideburns and an ear loop, who was just going through a phase.
    On December 15th it was announced that lights would be installed on The Black Pad at a cost of PS5,500, and on the same day an unnamed relative of Lynda Mann made a personal appeal to readers of the Leicester Mercury. The headline read: PLEASE HELP TRACE THIS MANIAC.
    During that third week in December the police were offered a "Tedd y b oy." A new witness had spotted a couple standing on a corner of Leicester Road in Narborough at about 8:20 P . M . on the night of the murder. When the driver slowed to allow them to cross, the youth said something to the driver, no doubt something cheeky, because the driver described the youth as being similar in appearance to the youthful rebels of an