BRITAIN: As the midnight deadline for the possible abductor of missing girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman to call police approached, their home town of Soham was told to turn detective to help find them.
Det Chief Insp Andy Hebb told a packed public meeting that past cases of abduction showed the solution to the disappearance was most likely to be found in the town of Soham itself.
"Look at the behaviour of your friends, relatives, neighbours, anything," he said.
"Think about how they are behaving. Are they doing anything differently? That's the important thing." The meeting was then addressed by a former chief superintendent of the area, Mr Maurice Audley, who called on residents to take a more vigilant approach to their neighbours. He said: "Soham people and Fenlanders generally aren't at all inquisitive about their neighbours, but we do like to know what's going on."
Mr Audley, who said he worked as a policeman for 36 years, said: "It has never been police policy to set neighbour against neighbour or to ask someone in the community to spy on their neighbours."
By late last night, no one had responded to a dramatic "call me" plea by Det Supt David Beck. As the clock ticked towards the deadline, police did not say what would happen if the abductor had not called.
Det Chief Insp Hebb said "many, many positive lines of inquiry" were still being actively pursued and the personal appeal to any abductor was only one of them. He refused to elaborate for "operational reasons" but emphasised that the investigation - one of the biggest of its kind ever mounted in the UK - was "most certainly not back to square one".
Police still believe the girls are alive, he said.
As the parents of the Cambridgeshire 10-year-olds waited anxiously for news, they made another emotional appeal through police for the safe return of their daughters.
Mr Hebb said: "Holly and Jessica, your parents still love you. They want you back safe and well." In his personal video-taped plea to an abductor, Mr Beck had urged: "Work with me to stop this getting any worse than it is. You do have a way out." With no sign of any breakthrough, Cambridgeshire police disclosed details of a shake-up at the top of the inquiry team.
The force's acting deputy chief constable, Mr Keith Hoddy, has taken overall personal control of the investigation, while Det Chief Supt Chris Stevenson has been brought in to work alongside Mr Beck. Police denied the change was in response to criticism over their handling of the inquiry, and insisted it was for practical reasons given the mushrooming size of the operation.
Mr Hebb said: "This is a massive inquiry for one person to manage. Police are putting in the days, putting in the hours, without time off." A team from the Metropolitan Police has also arrived to conduct a review of the Cambridgeshire inquiry to inject fresh ideas and spot mistakes.
Twenty-eight serving and former Metropolitan police detectives have been assigned to check that the 13-day hunt, which now boasts 420 officers, is pursuing the right strategy to find the missing girls and highlight any errors.
The review will also assess Wednesday's highly unusual TV plea, made to the abductor.
Search teams yesterday widened their operations around the town of Soham, while officers extended house-to-house inquiries. The inquiry team - now 426 strong - is sifting through 14,000 items of information received since Holly and Jessica went missing.
Meanwhile, police confirmed they had received a report from a Soham builder, David Kitching, who saw a man and woman in a green car staring "intently" at children in a restaurant on the night the girls went missing. But detectives said the information was not being viewed as particularly significant. - (PA)