Shifting Skin

Chapter 33

‘Can I remind you this is a murder investigation?’ Rick shook his head disbelievingly at Jon. ‘That’s right, the investigation is ongoing…Yes, you go and check with someone more senior.’

He cupped a hand over the phone mouthpiece. ‘Incredible. The General Medical Council. Protecting patients and guiding doctors, according to their web site. More interested in looking after their own, if you ask me.’ Abruptly he took his hand off the mouthpiece. ‘Yes, it’s extremely urgent. Call it a matter of life and death if you like — the Hippocratic oath has something to say about that, doesn’t it?…Thank you. Email is perfect.’

A message pinged on Rick’s computer ten minutes later. He printed the documents out and sat down.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he whispered. ‘He’s a bit more than the plain old Dr O’Connor written on that brass plate outside the Beauty Centre.’

‘Go on,’ said Jon, leaning forward, elbows on the table.

‘Try Dr Eamon O’Connor BDS, MB Bchir, FDSRC (Eng), FRCS (Eng), Phd. He’s an oral and maxillofacial surgeon.’

Jon stared at him blankly. ‘What’s that?’

‘Fucked if I know,’ Rick replied, scanning down the top sheet. ‘Born 5 August 1948, Dublin. Spent five years at dental school there, then two years training as a surgical dentist at Bart’s in London. Then he took a postgraduate qualification at the Royal College. Passed it to become a Fellow in Dental Surgery.’

‘So he’s really a dentist?’ Jon asked, thinking about Tyler

Young’s missing teeth.

‘I haven’t even started yet. Then he went back to medical school as an undergraduate. Four years at Cambridge, emerging as Dr O’Connor. One year as a junior houseman at Guy’s, where he spent six months training in general surgery and six months training in general medicine.’

‘General surgery?’

‘Wait,’ said Rick. ‘There’s plenty more. Next he spent two years doing a Basic Surgical Training Rotation. Six months at the Accident and Emergency at St Thomas’s, six months in their cardio-thoracic unit, and finally one year learning plastic surgery at University College London hospital. Then he took another exam to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. After that he spent five years as a registrar at Guy’s. He got a consultant’s post there, and he started specialising in cranio-facial surgery.’

Rick read the next paragraph in silence, shaking his head all the while.

‘What?’ Jon demanded.

‘Get this. It says that while he was a consultant at Guy’s he reconstructed a lot of faces that had undergone major traumas. Even worked on a couple of casualties from the Falklands conflict. But his particular area of expertise, and one that he pioneered new techniques in, was removing sections of patient’s faces to allow neurosurgeons access to tumours located at the base of the brain.’

Jon got up. ‘You’re serious?’

Before he could walk round and look at the documents himself, Rick tossed the top one across the desk.

Jon sat back down and flicked through it, stopping at the last page. ‘It says here that, in 1989, he attended a hearing of the Professional Conduct Committee. Something called an FTP.’

‘Fit to Practise,’ said Rick, consulting another sheet. ‘The committee judged that his FTP was impaired due to mental ill health resulting from a drug dependency. He botched an operation and left a patient with brain damage.’

‘What was he taking?’

‘Diamorphine.’ Rick whistled. ‘He got addicted to smack. Mitigating circumstances according to this. He smashed his knee in a road traffic accident and that led to his dependency.’

Jon snapped his fingers. ‘The strange footprint! He’s never emerged from behind that bloody great desk of his. We’ve never seen him walk.’

Rick traced a finger down his sheet. ‘So they suspended him from the medical register. Then, three years later, they allowed him to practise again, but with conditions on his registration.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ Jon said, dropping the print out on the desk.

‘He’s not allowed to perform surgery.’

‘Exactly,’ said Rick. ‘He moved to Manchester and set up the

Beauty Centre in 1994.’

They parked in the side street by the Beauty Centre.

Jon looked into the rear yard of the building. ‘The Range Rover’s there. He must be in.’ Then he glanced up at the heavy sky. ‘This is coming in off the Irish sea. It won’t stop for a while yet.’

They hurried round to the front entrance of the blackened building and rang the buzzer. After waiting a couple of minutes, Jon stepped back out into the rain and looked up. Doctor O’Connor tried to shrink back from the window, but their eyes had met.

Jon held a finger to his chest, then pointed upwards. Seconds later, the lock on the door clicked open.

They moved quickly up the stairs, Jon anxious to close down his time to think. When they entered his room, O’Connor was sitting behind his desk removing the skin from another tangerine. ‘Gentlemen? You caught me just as I was about to lock up.’

They shook hands again and sat down. Jon glanced at Rick, a cue for him to begin.

‘We don’t want to keep you,’ said Rick.

‘Go ahead.’ The doctor smiled and sat back, the leather of his chair creaking slightly. ‘News about Gordon Dean?’

‘No.’ Rick slid the photo of Tyler Young from his jacket and laid it on the desk between them.

Jon studied O’Connor’s reaction. He looked down, put the half-peeled piece of fruit aside, then extended a forefinger and rotated the photo so it was in perfect alignment with the edge of his desk. As usual he kept a poker face, not a hint of emotion on it. He looked up and raised his eyebrows questioningly, the skin on his forehead barely wrinkling.

‘Have you ever seen this woman?’ Rick asked. The doctor didn’t look at the photo. ‘No.’

‘You’ve never spoken to her?’

‘How could I say? I get a lot of telephone enquiries. I could have spoken to her, but I wouldn’t know what on earth she looked like. To what is this in relation?’

‘According to her diary, she was discussing lip implants with you. Then you mentioned breast implants, too. Your prices were extremely competitive.’

O’Connor interlinked his fingers over the photograph, concealing the smiling face below. ‘That’s impossible for two reasons. One, I only perform non-surgical procedures. Two, she’s clearly under twenty-five and I’ve made it a condition of the Beauty Centre not to offer treatment to anyone below that age.’ He slid a brochure across the desk. ‘Here, you’ll find it in my introduction on page two.’

Jon got up and walked over to the shelves of books behind the doctor. O’Connor clearly found his presence there unsettling and partly turned in his seat.

Rick ignored the glossy booklet and nodded at the photograph.

‘The body of Tyler Young was recently found with her breasts, face and large amounts of her flesh removed. Have you ever spoken to Carol Miller or Angela Rowlands? Their bodies were also discovered not long ago with most of their skin missing.’

O’Connor turned his attention back to Rick. Still his expression was neutral. ‘Of course I haven’t.’

Jon spoke. ‘Interesting collection of books you have here. Tell me, Doctor O’Connor, you only perform cosmetic procedures?’

‘Aesthetic medicine, I prefer to call it.’

‘So why have you got a copy of this?’ He didn’t identify Gray’s Anatomy or take it off the shelf, trying to oblige the doctor to get out of his seat.

But O’Connor leaned forward and peered round Jon. Before answering, he looked at Rick, then back at Jon, his eyes calculating. ‘Would you mind sitting down? I can’t speak to you and your colleague if you’re hovering behind me.’

Jon shrugged and took a seat, pleased to have rattled the doctor’s apparent calm.

‘I used to perform surgical procedures. Facial reconstructions for people who’d developed brain tumours or for the victims of car crashes and suchlike. Then, rather ironically, I was involved in a crash myself. My left knee was badly damaged and I developed an addiction to painkillers.’

‘What sort of painkillers?’ asked Rick.

O’Connor’s eyes filled with shame. ‘Diamorphine. I had free and easy access to it through my surgical work. Eventually it had a detrimental effect on my ability to perform. I was investigated by the General Medical Council and my licence was suspended. After attending a rehabilitation course, I was allowed to practise again — but with the condition I didn’t perform surgery. That book is a leftover from my earlier career.’

The room was silent for a moment. Then Jon looked around and said, ‘For a business, this place is always very quiet. When do you actually treat people?’

‘Normally I use Thursdays and Fridays as my treatment days. It gives customers the weekend to recover. The rest of the week is given over to fielding enquiries, conducting consultations and, if I think it’s appropriate, booking in customers for treatment.’

‘So if those days are for, essentially, drumming up business, why did you ignore the door buzzer on our previous visit?’ Jon stood up again and went to the window.

The doctor shifted in his seat. ‘Probably because I was talking with you.’

‘On our last visit I looked out of this window, like I’m doing now, and saw that your caller was a woman I recognised. She works in a motel on the A57. When she saw me looking down she couldn’t walk away quickly enough. Why do you think that was?’

The doctor raised one shoulder a fraction. ‘Perhaps she was coy about the fact she was considering aesthetic medicine. There’s still a surprising amount of stigma attached, though it’s lessening all the time, thanks to the exemplary lead provided by our celebrities.’

Jon thought he heard a cynical note in the doctor’s voice. He walked over to the doorway and pointed across the corridor to the treatment room. ‘Would you mind if I look around? Is this where you carry out your procedures?’

The doctor kept his seat but leaned forward, agitation finally showing. ‘I’m afraid that room is locked.’

‘Surely you have the key?’

‘I’ve left it at home. My nurse has the other, but she’s only here if we’re treating customers.’ He licked his lips.

Jon stared at him, sensing the man was telling lies. The blank expression was still clamped on the doctor’s face, but a faint sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. Jon’s hand was outstretched to try the door handle. Instead, he crossed the room and, like a predator closing in for the kill, leaned in towards the doctor’s face. Small beads of sweat oozed out of the shiny skin and began to run down his forehead.

‘You’re sweating, Doctor. Or can’t you feel that? Perhaps you’ve been using Botox a bit too much. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve self-administered, after all.’

The doctor angrily wiped a hand across his forehead. ‘I resent that insinuation and I don’t like the direction this discussion is taking. I’m not prepared to say anything more without my solicitor present.’

‘That’s probably a good idea,’ Jon replied.

O’Connor stood up and walked to the door: they saw that he had a pronounced limp. ‘Good day, officers. You can show yourselves out.’

As they passed him, Jon smiled. ‘I’m sure we’ll be speaking to you again very soon, Doctor.’

When they emerged on to the street, the drizzle was still falling.

‘Why didn’t we just arrest him?’ asked Rick.

Jon kept walking. ‘After what happened with Pete Gray? The top of McCloughlin’s head would blow clean off.’

‘The man’s bullshitting us! It’s as clear as day.’

‘I know.’ Jon unlocked the car. ‘Let’s wait here and see what he does next. He’s rattled. My bet is he’ll be off like a shot.’

They moved further down the street and swung the car round. While they waited Jon watched the giant cranes looming out of the haze shrouding Ancoats. One was silently turning, a load of girders suspended from its end. Jon was reminded of a gentle animal, quietly grazing. But it was a harsh clanging that carried from behind the buildings in front. The noise seemed more akin to destruction, as if that part of the city was being demolished, not rebuilt.

O’Connor’s Range Rover appeared ten minutes later. He drove up to the junction with the main road and turned right. With their windscreen wipers on their fastest setting, Jon and Rick followed him as he headed along Great Ancoats Street, passing the black glass of the old Daily Express offices and as- sorted derelict industrial buildings. Soon he got to the junction with the A57, just up from the Hurlington Health Club. He turned left, away from the city centre and towards the Platinum Inn. The streetlights flickered to life as the sky darkened above them.

‘We’re right in the Butcher’s dumping ground. It’s him. It has to be him!’ Rick whispered excitedly.

Jon kept a couple of cars behind. They passed the motel and the greyhound stadium, then crawled through Gorton, failed shops and the occasional massage parlour lining the road. When they reached the roundabout for the M60, the Range Rover took the final exit, heading south, keeping in the slow lane, speed never creeping above seventy miles per hour.

‘The turn off for Didsbury is in two junctions’ time,’ Jon said, remembering Dr Heath’s report.

But O’Connor took the next exit. They dropped back and shadowed him along the A560, passing a Safeway and then a boarded-up building with the name Quaffers just visible above the entrance.

Five minutes later they were driving through the centre of Romiley, one car behind him. The high street petered out, shops replaced by terraces of housing. Soon they changed to semi-detached, then finally detached as countryside opened up on the left of the road. Farm lights dotted the dark hills in the distance. After a couple of hundred metres the Range Rover’s brake lights lit up and it swung into a driveway closed in by large fir trees.

Jon and Rick pulled up on the verge. A privet hedge shielded the house from the road and they squeezed through the soaking branches into O’Connor’s garden.

Crouching behind a rhododendron bush, they saw him hobble up the steps to a large Victorian house with wooden gables and a band of decorative brickwork running above the ground-floor mullioned windows. The exterior light came on and he set his briefcase down at his feet in order to unlock the front door.

The hallway lights went on. He came back outside and walked over to the rear of the Range Rover. After glancing down the drive, he opened the boot. He leaned in and, with some effort, straightened up. In his arms was a large object wrapped in a sheet.

‘Christ almighty!’ Rick whispered as the material slipped and a pair of feet wearing women’s shoes were revealed.

‘Oh, my fucking God,’ Jon said, straightening up.

He felt Rick pulling him down as the doctor plodded up the steps into his house and shut the door behind him. ‘Wait, Jon. We’ve got to call for back-up.’

Jon shook his head. ‘They’ll take half an hour, easily. She could be dead by then.’

Squinting at the placard beside the front door, Rick scrabbled for his phone. ‘DS Saville here. We need back-up. We have a potential hostage situation at The Briars, Compstall Lane…Yes, Armed Response Vehicle, everything. You’ll see our car parked on the side of the road. It’s a dark-blue Volvo, registration mike, alpha, zero, two, hotel, tango, foxtrot.’

He lowered the phone. ‘They’re on the way.’

A light showed in a tiny window at the base of the house, just above ground level.

‘He’s got a cellar,’ Jon whispered. ‘He’s taken her down into the cellar. He’s skinning them down there and then driving back into Belle Vue to dump their bodies.’

Keeping low, he splashed through the shallow puddles dotting the lawn, slowing when he reached the driveway. Carefully, he crossed the tarmac and crouched against the wall.

Rick emerged from the gloom and squatted down beside him.

Jon lay on his stomach and tried to look through the filthy pane of glass. A shadow moved across the room below and he was just able to hear a door open. ‘He’s down there. Taken her into a side room, I think.’

A car passed on the road. As the noise of its engine died away he heard a metallic clink. It was exactly the same sound as when the consultant at Stepping Hill hospital had dropped the long-bladed scalpel in the kidney tray. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus. Rick, we can’t wait. He’s going to start skinning her.’

‘You can’t go in! We’ve got to wait.’

Jon got to his feet and went to the front door. It was made of solid-looking wood with two panels of stained glass running down it. He pressed the bell and heard it ring deep inside the house.

He counted to thirty, then pressed the bell again and kept his finger on it. Eventually he saw movement behind the glass. There was a rattling of a chain and the door opened a few inches. The instant O’Connor saw Jon outside he tried to slam the door shut.

Jon crashed his shoulder against it, just managing to prevent it clicking back on to the latch. The doctor pushed from the other side and for a few moments they were cheek to cheek, just the layer of wood separating them. Jon felt his strength begin to show and the door started inching inwards.

Abruptly the resistance disappeared and the doctor fled down the corridor, surgical gown flapping behind him.

Jon took a step back and kicked the door open, part of the security chain spinning across the hallway tiles.

He raced down the long corridor and into the kitchen. The doctor’s briefcase lay partly open on the floor, files spilling out of it. Jon looked around. The door leading down to the cellar was in the opposite corner and it was slightly ajar.

He heard a voice behind him. ‘Where is he?’

‘Down there.’ Jon pointed to the door and then whirled round. Against one wall stood a Welsh dresser and next to it was a wicker basket containing walking sticks and umbrellas. Jon grabbed a thick walking stick with a V-shaped split at the top and approached the cellar door.

He pushed it fully open with the end of the stick and looked down. A flight of bare wooden stairs led to a concrete floor. He started downwards, holding the stick before him. A shudder caught his shoulders and then snaked down his back as the air grew noticeably cooler. The cellar’s central area was lit by a single bulb and three plywood doors led off from it, light shining from beneath two of them.

Jon stood listening.

To his side, an ancient-looking boiler came to life, a line of blue flames flaring behind a soot-speckled panel of glass. The row of pipes fastened to the bare brick wall above it started to creak and tick.

‘Doctor O’Connor, there’s no means of escape down here. Come out now.’

No reply.

Jon stepped up to the door for the unlit room and kicked it open. A dark and narrow space was beyond, the floor knee deep in coal.

He kicked open the next door. A larger room, lit by another single bulb which revealed stacks of medical journals, a pristine mountain bike, some folded-up deckchairs. At the back was a pile of clothes and women’s shoes.

He turned to Rick and pointed at the last door. Rick shook his head furiously and mouthed, ‘Wait.’

The flames of the boiler went out and, as the cellar became silent again, they could hear a faint, wet hissing sound as if someone was blowing a thin stream of air through their teeth. They looked questioningly at each other, then Jon bowed his head and listened.

As he did so, a trickle of blood began to creep out from under the door. He jumped backwards, lowered his shoulder and charged. The door splintered off its hinges and he nearly fell into the room beyond. A cluster of halogen lights shone down, adding a glare to bright white walls that were spattered with dry blood. In the centre of the room was a concrete block, topped with a layer of what appeared to be marble. Stretched out on it was the woman, still partly wrapped in the sheet. Jon could see that she was still fully clothed.

The hissing was coming from the side of the room and Jon turned his head.

O’Connor was sitting with his back against the wall. His hands were slick and red and he was clumsily trying to pick up a scalpel caught in the blood-filled folds of his surgical gown. Blood spurted from his neck, each little jet hissing like a snake as it erupted into the air.

Rick came in. ‘Oh my God, we need…we need cloth. Something to stem the bleeding.’ He grabbed the corner of the sheet wrapping the woman and tried to tear it.

O’Connor at last got a grip on the scalpel with his right hand. He turned his left wrist upwards and moved the tip of the blade towards it. Jon lifted the walking stick and brought the V of it down on to the doctor’s right hand, pinning it in the puddle spreading out beneath his legs.

He told Rick, ‘Leave it. The woman’s our priority. Has she got a pulse?’

With shaking hands, Rick felt her neck. ‘She’s alive.’

‘Then get upstairs and find out where the paramedics are. Now!’

Rick’s mouth opened and shut. He pulled his mobile phone out and hurried back up the stairs. Jon looked around. Next to the woman was a small trolley. In a stainless steel tray on top of it were two syringes and a pair of latex gloves. Medical instruments lined the back wall. More scalpels, blades becoming ever more thin and cruel. Next to them were saws, clamps, retractors, hammers, chisels. A drill with a shiny silver bit. His eyes were caught by a test tube filled with what appeared to be human teeth.

He felt the walking stick shift and he looked down. The doctor was feebly trying to lift his scalpel hand.

Jon leaned on the stick. ‘You’re not taking the easy way out. Not before you tell me why.’

The doctor slumped back against the wall and raised his eyes. Even under the harsh lights their shine was fading, and Jon knew he hadn’t long left. The little jets coming from his throat were getting smaller, weaker.

‘Why?’ Jon repeated. ‘Why did you do it?’

O’Connor’s eyes swivelled to Jon’s hands and his voice sounded like wind in a cave. ‘Enjoyable, isn’t it?’

‘What?’ Jon demanded.

‘Playing God, controlling whether I live or die.’

Jon looked at his knuckles, saw they were white with the pressure he was exerting on the end of the stick. He took his weight off. ‘I’m not like you, Doctor.’

O’Connor’s lips stretched in a faint smile as his head sagged forward and his eyes slowly shut. The blood now just trickled from his throat.

Jon knocked the scalpel from O’Connor’s hand and rammed the V of the stick against the man’s forehead, cracking his head against the white plaster. ‘Why? Tell me why!’

The tiniest slit opened between the doctor’s eyelids and a faint whisper emerged from his bloodless lips. ‘We’re just the same underneath.’

Violently Jon shook his head. ‘No. No, we’re not. Tell me. .’ His words faded to a whisper. The doctor had gone.

Jon stepped away from the pool of blood which was moving slowly across the floor like a living thing, easing itself into the gutter that ran around the table, dripping through the slats of the rusty drain.

He lifted the woman clear of the cold stone and carried her out of that terrible room with its cloying aroma of blood, both fresh and old.

Up in the kitchen he laid her on the table, lowering her head gently to the oak surface, tilting it back to make sure her airways were clear. He could hear Rick talking on the phone out on the front step. He sat down at the table, as if starting a vigil at the woman’s side.

The doctor’s briefcase and files still lay on the floor. Jon’s eyes settled on the uppermost folder and the name written on its front: ‘Alex/Alexia Donley’.

Alexia. The name of the prostitute Fiona Wilson was so desperate to find. He picked the file up and opened it.

A patient profile, Polaroid photo of a man in the upper right-hand corner. He was staring at the camera, self-conscious in its uncompromising gaze.

Alex Donley

Age

: 34

Initial assessment

:

3 /3 /01

Patient background

:

Alex came to me in a state of considerable agitation. In the last few years he has come to believe that he is a transsexual and has been seeking a gender reassignment through the NHS. His GP ‘reluctantly’ (to use Alex’s word) referred him to the gender identity clinic at Charing Cross hospital. After fully assessing him, a consultant psychiatrist there judged that Alex wasn’t a genuine transsexual. Alex scathingly told me that the consultant thought Alex is interested in becoming a woman because he believes it will resolve the violent outbursts to which he is susceptible. I questioned Alex more closely on this and he expressed his opinion that, once his testes have been removed and oestrogen prescribed, his masculine traits (which he sees purely in the form of aggression) will be replaced by feminine traits (which he sees purely in terms of compassion). Despite this obviously simplistic belief, Alex presents a rare and challenging case.

Jon heard footsteps in the hallway. He looked up to see Rick and a couple of armed officers trooping towards him.

‘Where is he?’ the one in front asked.

Jon nodded towards the cellar door. ‘Down there, but you needn’t worry, he’s dead. It’s a crime scene now, so best keep out.’ He turned back to the file on his lap, the voices around him fading away.

I explained to Alex that I do not have the expertise or facilities to perform a vaginoplasty — recommending that he pay privately for the operation in Holland. Despite this, he was keen for me to perform facial surgery in order to feminise his features. We agreed that he should start a course of hormone therapy in order to develop breasts, redistribute fat around his hips and thighs, soften his body and facial hair and lift the pitch of his voice.

In terms of facial reconstruction we agreed on the following areas:

Octoplasty (to reduce the protrusion of his ears) Rhinoplasty (to create a thinner nose)

Thyroid chondroplasty (to reduce the prominence of his Adam’s apple)

Mandibular osteotomy (to reduce the squareness of his jawbone) Dermal implants to cheeks, chin and lips (to round out his face) Laser hair removal (back of neck, chest, nipples, underarms, forearms and hands)

Breast augmentation (C cup)

Alex appreciates that the treatment is on an unofficial basis and that the prices I charge reflect that. He has stated that he will pay for the procedures on a stage-by-stage basis as the necessary funds become available to him

.

A hand shook Jon’s shoulder and he looked up at the officer who’d spoken earlier.

‘I said, how is she? What’s he done to her?’

‘Sedated her somehow.’ Jon held a finger to her neck. ‘Her pulse and breathing are regular. Where are the bloody paramedics?’

‘On their way.’

Cursing, Jon returned to the file and flipped the page. A photo of Alex with bandaging around his ears, cheeks swollen and red.

16.7.01 Octoplasty and cheek implants. Paid cash.

On the next page Alex was pouting at the camera, make-up and mascara on. 23.3.02. Breast augmentation, lip enlargement and laser hair removal. Paid cash.

On the next he was wearing a wavy red wig. 5.12.02 Chin implant. Jon realised he was looking at the woman from the garage forecourt CCTV footage.

His mind started ticking. The false eyelash in the boot of Gordon Dean’s car. The last withdrawal on his credit card from a cashpoint that wasn’t overlooked by CCTV cameras. Gordon Dean’s car turning right as it left the garage forecourt, heading towards the Platinum Inn.

The pieces were coming together.

Alex Donley had killed Gordon Dean in that hotel room and put his body in the boot of the car. Then he’d driven to the Manchester Ship Canal and rolled the corpse in. After that, he’d cleaned out Dean’s credit-card account and left the car at Piccadilly station to create a false trail.

Fiona Wilson had indeed heard a prostitute and a punter in the next room — but the person choked to death wasn’t Alexia, it was Gordon Dean.

Jon turned the page and felt his scalp contract. There it was.

3.3.03 — the day after Gordon Dean had disappeared. Rhinoplasty and mandibular osteotomy. Paid cash. Alex Donley had funded the procedure with the money he’d taken from Gordon Dean’s bank account the night before.

Rick sat down next to him. ‘Just spoke to McCloughlin. He’s on his way, though it nearly choked him to say it.’

Jon reached for his mobile, then realised he’d left it in the incident room. ‘Give us your phone a second.’

Rick flinched at his abrupt tone but handed it over.

‘Keep a check on her breathing,’ Jon said, whipping out the notebook from his jacket. He flicked through to Fiona’s mobile and rang it. Answerphone. He cut it off and thought for a second. It was evening opening at the salon. By the time Alice answered, he was standing on the front steps, noting with relief that the night was now clear. ‘Ali, it’s me. Your friend Fiona, where did you say she is?’

‘She moved into a bedsit near Manchester City’s old ground.’

‘She still trying to find Alexia?’

Alice sighed. ‘She thought she had the other day. But it was a mix-up of names. Yeah, she’s out most nights I think.’

‘I need her address, Ali. Have you got it there?’

‘Jon, I’m with a customer. Can’t it wait?’

‘Alice, she’s in real danger. I need it right now.’

Jon heard her making apologies to her client. Movement as she left the room.

An ambulance pulled into the driveway. The driver cut the engine and Jon heard the rear doors being opened. A moment later two paramedics appeared.

‘Straight down the corridor into the kitchen,’ Jon told them. At the other end of the line he heard Alice call out, ‘Has someone moved Fiona’s address? It was in the back of the appointments book.’

A female voice just audible. ‘Oh, sorry, it’s by the till. I had to give it to someone trying to deliver her some flowers.’

Alice again. ‘You what? Who did you give it to?’

‘A woman. She had a bouquet for Fiona.’

‘When was this?’

‘Earlier today. Lunchtime.’

‘Jesus Christ, Zoe, that address was a secret. Jon?’ Her voice was louder now. ‘It’s Flat 2, 15 Ridley Place, Fallowfield. Can you get over there now? I think her husband may have tracked her down.’

He turned and shouted down the corridor, ‘Rick! I’ve got to go, that friend of Alice’s is in serious trouble.’

Rick strode towards him, astonishment on his face.

‘McCloughlin isn’t here yet.’

‘I know.’ Jon handed back the phone. ‘I’ll let you fill him in.’

Rick’s hand was still out, the phone resting on his upturned palm. ‘You’re not serious?’

But Jon was already jogging down the garden path, pulling the car keys from his pocket.