At last, a clue

Just as the little Fenland town of Soham seemed to have become paralysed by despair, the hunt for Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman has been galvanised by the first hint of a clue about an abductor.

But while the urgent appeal for the driver of a metallic green car to come forward has given impetus to the investigation, the image of a man thrashing his arms and swerving his car has also conjured up a nightmare vision of the terrors which may have been inflicted on the two 10-year-olds.

And while locals have welcomed the first sign of progress, the reality today is detectives are still struggling for a genuine breakthrough.

Even if it is a positive lead, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Hebb's team are some distance away from identifying a suspect and must now contemplate a far larger search area. At the same time, while police cling to the belief of criminal psychologists that the girls are alive, the moment is coming closer when Kevin and Nicola Wells and Leslie and Sharon Chapman will be told to prepare for the worst.

There is a terrible sense of history repeating itself as the hunt for Holly and Jessica mirrors the search for Sarah Payne two summers ago: scores of volunteers joining fingertip searches; emotional family appeals; the police reconstruction; roadblocks to question motorists; an appeal from a favourite celebrity; and the apparent sightings which can raise and dash hopes.

This has become one of the biggest manhunts in British history, yet even with officers from 16 forces now engaged in the bid to get Holly and Jessica home, the task is proving unwieldy. Police admit that it wasn't until Sunday that they interviewed the taxi driver who contacted police in Wales with details of two children he had seen in the erraticallydriven green car. He had called them on Tuesday.

As Ian Webster said today: "The inference is I am at fault for not coming forward when this is not the case." Mr Webster's inference, then, is that the police took an unacceptable six days to release his possibly crucial information.

Police say it took Holmes - the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System that analyses data and spots patterns - two days to recognise the significance of what the witness had reported.

A spokesman for Cambridgeshire police said: "An outside force reported they had been contacted by a taxi driver who was holidaying in their area. An action was raised by the Holmes room for officers to go and see him."

However, the "action" was not allocated to officers until Saturday and it was not until Sunday that he was interviewed.

On the day the call was received the Holmes office at Cambridgeshire police HQ was being staffed by just 10 people. The number has since increased and yesterday there were 38 on duty.

Meanwhile, the fact that journalists, not police officers, were the first on the scene conducting house-to-house inquiries on the estate where the car was last seen has hardly helped change the perception that the investigation is not moving as quickly as it could.

Nor does the fact that the recently-appointed Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, Tom Lloyd, has been on holiday throughout the nine days that the girls have been missing. In his absence the inquiry is being headed by Assistant Chief Constable Keith Hoddy.

After a draining week when the people of Soham seemed to be blaming themselves for not being able to protect the girls, the first flickering of discontent at the police has surfaced, amid concerns that it has taken too long to sift through the details of more than 7,000 telephone calls.

Police efforts are now going in several distinct directions: the hunt for the driver of the green car; expanding the area of physical search to take in woodlands, unused country lanes and hides in the surrounding area; analysing the thousands of calls received in the past week; interviewing and eliminating all of the 266 registered sex offenders who live in Cambridgeshire and widening to high risk offenders in other areas; trawling through the memory of Holly's computer to see if there are any leads from people she had e-mailed in the past.

Five criminal psychologists have given detectives a profile of the type of offender likely to have been involved and it is on their advice that a key feature of the inquiry so far has been the use of repeated and carefully worded direct appeals to an abductor to try to think beyond the next few hours and contact a solicitor.

Unlike the Sarah Payne inquiry, where police quickly identified the predatory Roy Whiting as a key suspect, police say they have "no formal suspects declared at this stage".

That means there is no direct evidence to put a named individual in the frame. But it is certain detectives do have a list of high-risk sex offenders who will all have been asked for alibis by now.