A Hook Crime

Chief Inspector Anthony Carlton had been brought in to the police department of Canary Wharf in London as a matter of deep urgency. Carlton had been in the business for 13 years and much experience of missing people and cold cases. He was the man that people called when they were really in trouble and had no other leads. The Sergeant welcomed him at the station and informed him that the other members of the police team were out in the field looking for clues.

Children were mysteriously vanishing from their parent’s homes at around midnight. According the findings there was no noise made when the children were abducted and no sign of break in or damage to the property. Disturbingly all the children that were being taken were male and between the ages of 5 and 12. The children all attended the same school Mayflower Primary. The connections seemed pretty simple to Carlton and he wondered how the team of police officers had not made a list of suspects. It must be someone who was involved with crimes of a paedophilic nature and lived near to the area of the school. There must be a few of the sex offenders register that were known to be in the area, he would gather the findings from the list as soon as possible.
Carlton opened the up the case files to look at the children’s profiles to see it there were any connections to the children. There were twins Aidan and Ethan Sharp who were the first to go missing aged 9 brown hair and grey eyes, there had been in and out of foster care since the age of 5 after their parents couldn’t cope with their ADHD. Then Douglas Smith aged 7 had gone missing from his aunt’s house they had also been involved with social services it was reported last month by a teacher at the school that Douglas has bruises and lacerations on his back which was still being investigated. After that Ivan Brookes aged 5 an orphan who had an identifying birthmark on this neck was stolen from his adoptive parent’s home. Last night William Clarke aged 12 was stolen from his older sister’s home. The kidnapper was not taking children that shared the same physical attributes but was stealing children who had bad upbringings or had no parents but how would the person know that? Carlton felt for sure that this person must be involved in the school or stalk their home lives.

The police department were receiving countless complaints from parents at the school who were too terrified to send their children to school. Carlton could sympathise with the parents as he too had a child a 5-year-old girl, Amber who was his pride and joy that he would do anything for. He knew that if something was going on like this where he lived he would not let her out of his sight, let alone let her go to school. It was of the up most importance for the police department to find the children and the kidnapper as soon as possible.
“I want to speak to the inspector right now!” A man demanded from the reception area.
Carlton went to investigate the noise as he hurried into the reception area he found the receptionist trying her best to calm down the man he was trying to use his size to barge into the office area behind the reception of the police station. Carlton calmly outstretched his hand, “Hello I’m Chief Inspector Carlson. How can I help?”
The man stopped his frantic behaviour but did not shake Carlton’s hand. “You can start by telling me what the hell is going on in this place.”
This was ridiculous, Carlton thought, it’s an investigation I can’t just tell anybody. Then his mind assumed this man could be a suspect. “If you’d like to come with me sir”-
“No. My daughter is in danger,” he proceeded to point at a little girl who sat in a blue summer dress on one of the reception seats. She reminded Carlton his own daughter Amber and he sympathised with the man in front of him.
“How is she in danger?”
“A man followed her today. He had a hook and kept asking her if she was called Wendy.”

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