Читать книгу Cold Blooded Evil - Neil Root - Страница 9

The appeals to locate Tania Nicol were now stepped up by the Suffolk Police. Posters and leaflets showing Tania’s photograph were distributed. Having left her home in Woolverstone Close in the Pinebrook area of Ipswich, south-west of the town centre on 30 October 2006, it was learnt that Tania had planned to take a bus from nearby Belmont Road into Ipswich. She intended to work the streets that night.

The CCTV footage from all relevant buses was checked, but the police were unable to trace her movements. It could not be proved whether Tania ever did get on to a bus.

In the first week of November 2006, almost a month before the body of Gemma Adams was found, Detective Chief Inspector John Quinton had said: ‘There have been some unconfirmed sightings in the Ipswich area around the time Tania went missing last week. Also, a number of her associates have come forward. This has all provided information for the inquiry team to follow up.’

However, there were no strong leads to her whereabouts until after Gemma Adams was found in Belstead Brook. The police then changed the direction of the Tania Nicol inquiry, which was still officially a missing person investigation. The links between Gemma and Tania now heightened police fears and a new focus was employed in the hunt for Tania.

By trawling through hours and hours of CCTV footage from Ipswich’s red light district, the police were able to identify Tania Nicol on captures taken at 11.02pm on 30 October, walking past the exit of the Sainsburys garage on London Road, and then around five minutes later at the junction of nearby Handford Road and Burlington Road.

The police description issued by Suffolk Police was as follows: ‘Tania is described as olive-skinned, 5ft 2in tall (1.57m), slim build, with shoulder-length, light brown hair, brown eyes and a spotty complexion. The clothes which Tania wore on the last night she was seen were a black jacket, mid-blue cut-off jeans, a light-coloured top and pink sparkly high-heeled shoes.’

On Thursday, 7 December, the police released a photograph of a pair of shoes similar to the ones she was wearing. As DCI John Quinton said: ‘As part of our enquiries we have been working with a company to get a photo of the same shoes Tania was known to be wearing the night she went missing. We know New Look manufactured the shoes and they are very distinctive, having a pink sparkly appearance, a small buckle and high stiletto heels. It is imperative that we try to work out Tania’s movements on the night she went missing – we hope that by issuing the picture of the shoes, someone’s memory will be jogged and they will remember seeing her that evening or since.’

The last word of this statement shows that the police did believe that she could still be alive. But it was now five weeks since she was last seen and five days since the body of Gemma Adams had been discovered. No confirmed sightings, no word from Tania herself (this was out of character for her), and the murder of a woman who had known Tania and had plied the same trade in the same area. And Gemma had been missing for a shorter length of time than Tania. It was little wonder that optimism was dwindling.

This was driven home further when the police began searching intensely in the back streets and alleyways of the red light district where Tania was last recorded being, as well as in gardens and outbuildings of both residential and business sites across Ipswich. It would not be long before a development occurred, but tragically it was to be the worst one possible.

The long weeks since Tania had gone missing were of course extremely emotionally draining for her loved ones. At times of great apprehension such as that, it is hard enough getting through the day, let alone the night. At such times the true value of family and friends is shown, as a strong, mutually supportive phalanx is formed.

For Tania’s father, Jim Duell, religion was a huge comfort. A born-again Christian, Mr Duell found solace in faith. In an interview with BBC Suffolk, he said: ‘When she went missing I had to go down to Wiltshire. As I drove down there they had the posters going up – that she’d gone missing – and that really sunk in what had happened. The reality of it hit me.’

Mr Duell then went on to describe a religious vision he had had regarding his daughter: ‘That night, about five in the morning, I got up and I actually was praying. What I got from that was God saying to me, “I’m going to give you a foundation to walk on”.’

Mr Duell would go on to have a vision which gave him hope that Tania was at peace, despite hinting that she was dead: ‘I had a vision of a really thick piece of rope being broken, and I could see the frayed ends of this rope. All I could see behind that was gold. And I had the same vision the next night.’

Jim Duell interpreted this vision as ‘Tania’s lifeline being snapped’, which of course meant the end of her life. When he went to church the following Sunday he told everyone about the vision he had had and the meaning he took from it, but then he had a further personal revelation: ‘When I sat down, I thought “Just a minute, it means something else”. It means that all the sin, all the horribleness [sic] that she got herself involved in, the Lord removed all that away from her and took her into his heart. That was a huge relief to me. I was worried about her soul.’

This vision gave Mr Duell great strength in the upcoming weeks, strength that would be greatly needed.