* * *
Cook had not been idle. He did not need Anthony Rathe to tell him that the probability was that a link existed somewhere between Kirsty Villiers and Lyndsey Crane. The murders of Alice Villiers and Roger Gilchrist made that idea too vivid to be a coincidence. Similarly, Cook had formed the notion without Rathe’s help that the age difference between the two girls made it unlikely that any such connection was between them personally. Cook had formed his own conclusions on that point and, like Rathe, he had determined that what linked the girls’ disappearances would be transitory as opposed to direct.
As a result, Cook had undertaken a search of the databases of the files of all missing-person cases for the last six years involving girls of similar respective ages to Kirsty Villiers a
