Remains are moved to hospital as detailed forensic work continues

A desolate patch of woodland finally yielded its grisly secret last night as the remains of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells were transported to a hospital in Cambridge.

All day, police vans and cars had driven up and down the track beside the wood, stony-faced officers revealing nothing of the painstaking task that was occupying them behind the screen of trees.

They worked throughout the day; through early morning when thunder and rain swept across the ancient landscape dotted with reeds and ripened cornfields, and through a muggy afternoon. Shortly before 7pm, an ambulance drove slowly through the police cordons to remove the dead girls to Addenbrooke's Hospital.

There, despite more than 24 hours of scientific and medical examinations, further tests were to be done. The work could be vital to the police investigation.

The condition of the bodies will indicate how long the girls have been dead. Closer examination for evidence such as soil samples might show if they had been moved from another site, and pollen from the crime scene can be used to give an accurate fix on how long the victims had been there.

Police will be looking for anything from clothing, which could be matched to the killer, to genetic material such as hair, a spot of blood or semen, which could provide a DNA profile of the abductor. Sonic devices, which show if earth has been disturbed recently, are also being used to search for evidence that might have been buried.

A Home Office pathologist, Nat Cary, who will oversee the work, was taken to the woodland site after the morning of storms.

All day, cars slowed as they passed the rows of cones and barriers that marked the entrance to the track from the A1065 from Mildenhall.

Some slowed to a crawl and many stopped to place flowers and add their tributes to a steadily growing pile propped against a white post that proclaimed the spot to be a "Protected roadside nature reserve". One man rolled down his window as he passed and shouted "hang him'' before continuing on his way.

Other police cars turned down a track running parallel to the main road towards the high gates of RAF Lakenheath where a sign pointed to an aircraft fuelling area. But aircraft were not what people were stopping for.

Officers on duty by the road collected the flowers and tributes to add to the pile, as motorists continued to pull in.

"To the two Soham angels, may your wings take you to another world,'' said one of the cards. Another said: "God bless you both, lovely little girls, Holly and Jessica. All our thoughts are with you.''

Others were more stark in their sentiments and hinted at the anger that accompanies the pain felt by those in Soham. "Touched by evil, kissed by angels,'' one said.

Meanwhile, six miles away more searches were continuing at the on- mile-square area of Soham Village College, the secondary school were Mr Huntley worked, the adjoining St Andrew's Primary School attended by the girls, and the detached house on the same site where the two suspects live. A team of about 20 officers was scouring their two-storey home.

No details have yet emerged about what officers described as "items of major interest" found at the secondary school.

Officers are also searching another site, the home of Ian Huntley's parents, Kevin and Lynda, in the nearby village of Littleport. Mr Huntley Snr used to work in a local pub and live in a cottage near where the girls were found.

From the time of arrest, the police have up to 96 hours to charge Mr Huntley and his girlfriend, Maxine Carr, or release them. This would take them to 4am Wednesday. Last night, a magistrate granted permission to extend the warrant to the full time allowed.

Why police switched their attention to the caretaker and his girlfriend after more than 10 days of fruitless inquiries is still unclear. The police say the move was prompted by information given to them by Soham residents after a public meeting last Thursday night and by intelligence from their inquiries. The shift in tactics appeared to begin last Wednesday when the police began to emphasise that the answer to the mystery lay somewhere in Soham.

Until then, police had concentrated on a false sighting of the girls looking happy and walking along the road on the morning after they disappeared, and the likelihood that a known paedophile from the area had seized them.

The police seemed to conclude that those responsible were in Soham because of the news that the girls' mobile telephone was activated in the town or near by. Monitoring by telecommunications experts gave the police an imprecise, but crucial lead. Townspeople are thought to have voiced suspicions about Mr Huntley and Ms Carr, who moved to Soham nine months ago.