The Surrogate

1

There was a knock at the door.

Claire Fielding and Julie Simpson looked at each other, surprised. Claire started to rise.

‘You stay there,’ said Julie. ‘I’ll get it.’ She stood up from the sofa, crossed the living room. ‘Probably Geraint, forgot something. Again.’

Claire smiled. ‘Changed his mind about lending me his Desperate Housewives DVD.’

Julie laughed, left the room. Claire shifted a little to get comfortable, sat back and smiled. Looked around, taking in the presents on the coffee table. Babygros and clothes. Parenting books. Soft toys. And the cards. Claire had thought it would be bad luck to open them before the birth but the others had insisted so she had given in, her doubts soon forgotten.

She moved from side to side, tried to find a soft spot on the sofa, allow the springs to reach an accommodation with her huge, distended stomach. She patted the bulge. Smiled. Not much longer. She leaned forward, grunting with the effort, and picked up her glass of fizzy fruit drink. Took a mouthful, replaced the glass. Then a mini onion bhaji. She had heard such horror stories of women who couldn’t eat anything during pregnancy and were constantly sick. Not Claire. She was lucky. Probably too lucky. She patted her stomach, hoping it was all baby, knowing it wasn’t. She wished she could be like one of those celebs like Posh or Angelina Jolie who got their figure back in about four days after having kids. They claimed it was all diet and exercise but she knew it must be surgery. Real life wasn’t like that for Claire and she knew she would have to work at it. Still. That was the future. She would get her body back, then start a new life. Just her and her child.

She was no longer anxious or depressed. Tearful or bereft. That was all in the past and finished with, like those things had happened to someone else. It had been painful, yes, but it was worth it. So, so worth it.

Claire smiled. She might have felt happier in her life but she couldn’t remember when. She certainly had not felt as happy as this for a long, long time.

Then she heard sounds from the hallway.

‘Julie?’

Thumping on the walls and floor, bangs and scuffles. It sounded like someone was playing football or wrestling. Or fighting.

A shiver ran through Claire. Oh no. God no. Not him, not now…

‘Julie…’

Claire’s voice was more frantic this time, unable to hide the alarm at what she was hearing, who she imagined was responsible for the noise.

A final thump, then silence.

‘Julie?’

No reply.

With great difficulty Claire managed to pull herself upright from the sofa. The speed with which she got up left her feeling slightly light-headed. She picked up her mobile from the coffee table, left the room and stepped into the hallway. She had a good idea of who to expect there and was ready to call for help. Even the police if needs be. Anything to get rid of him.

She turned the corner. And stopped dead, her mouth open. Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn’t the scene before her. No way could she have expected that. It was horrific. Too horrific for her mind to process. She couldn’t take in what had happened.

Her eyes dropped to the floor and she saw Julie. Or what was left of her.

‘Oh God…’

Then she saw the figure standing over her best friend and she began to understand. She knew that her own, ordinary life had stopped with the knock on the door. She was living through something else now. A horror film, perhaps. A nightmare.

The figure saw her. Smiled.

Claire saw the blade. Shining under the hallway light, blood dripping on to the carpet. She tried to run but her legs wouldn’t work. She tried to scream but couldn’t send the right signals from her brain to her mouth. She just dropped her mobile. Stood there, unable to move.

Then the figure was on her.

One punch and everything went black.

Claire opened her eyes, tried to sit up. But she couldn’t move. Her arms, hands, back, nothing. Her eyes closed again. Even her eyelids felt heavy. Very heavy. She tried once more to force them apart, managed. But it was a struggle just to keep them open.

She could only look upwards. Not even from side to side. She recognised the ceiling of her bedroom. The overhead light was on, blinding her. She tried to blink the light away but her heavy eyelids remained closed. She instinctively knew that wasn’t good, so she forced them open, light or no light.

She tried to make out what was happening. A shadow was moving on the ceiling, large and looming, like something from an old black and white horror movie. Doing something out of her line of vision.

Claire remembered what had happened. The figure in the hall, the attack. And Julie. Julie…

She opened her mouth, tried to scream. No sound at all came out. A wave of panic passed through her. She had been paralysed in some way. Drugged. She felt her eyes close again. Forced them open once more. It was a struggle, the biggest of her life, but she couldn’t allow them to close. She knew now that if she did, she would be dead.

She tried to move her lips, make sounds, call for help. Nothing. No matter how loudly she screamed in her head – and it felt like she was screaming all the time now – all that trickled out of her mouth was a puppy-like whimper.

She saw the shadow on the ceiling move closer to her.

No, don’t… get off me, get away from me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me…

Useless. Just made her head hurt, her inner ear trill.

Claire felt her eyelids being pulled down again, fought to push them up. It was getting harder each time. As was breathing, her lungs slowing with each poisoned breath she took. Panic and fear only helped her heart to speed-pump the crippling drug round her body. She knew she didn’t have long.

Somebody help… please… just break down the door, help…

The shadow of the figure now loomed above her, blocking out the overhead light. Claire felt confusion on top of fear and panic: who were they? Why were they doing this?

Then she saw the scalpel. And she knew.

Not my baby… please, not my baby…

The figure bent over her, light glinting along the scalpel’s razor-edged blade.

No… help me, oh God, help me…

Began to cut.

Claire felt nothing. Saw only the intruder’s grotesque shadow thrown across the ceiling, the light exaggerating the sawing motion of the arm.

God, no, please… please someone, help me, help me, no…

Eventually the figure straightened up. Stood over Claire. Smiled. Something in its hand, red and dripping.

No…

Another smile and the red, dripping thing was taken from her sight. Claire couldn’t scream or move. She couldn’t even cry.

The shadow moved towards the door and was gone. Claire was left alone, screaming and shouting in her head. She tried to pull her arms up, move her legs. No good. It was too much effort. Even breathing was too much effort.

She felt her lungs slow down. Her eyelids close. She could hear the pump of blood round her body slowing down, down…

She tried one last time to fight it but it was no use. Her body was closing down. And she was powerless to stop it.

Her lungs stopped inflating, her heart stopped beating.

Her eyes closed for the final time.

2

‘Oh my God…’

Detective Inspector Philip Brennan, Chief Investigating Officer with the Major Incident Squad, donned surgical gloves, pulled the hood of his pristine crinkling paper suit over his head and stood on the threshold of hell. He knew that when he pulled back the yellow crime-scene tape and entered, he would be crossing a line between order and chaos. Between life and death.

He lifted the tape, stepped inside. So much blood…

‘Jesus…’

The tape fell back into place, the line crossed. No going back now. He took in the scene before him and knew he would never leave this apartment, mentally or emotionally, until he had found who had done this. And perhaps not even then.

The hallway looked like an abattoir. Covered in so much blood, as if several litres of red paint had been dropped from a great height, splashing up the walls and over the floor like a grisly action painting, fading to brown as it dried. But paint didn’t smell like that. Like dirty copper and rancid meat. He tried breathing though his mouth. Felt it on his tongue. Tasting as bad as it smelled. Sweat prickled his body, adding to his discomfort.

‘Can someone turn the heating off?’ he shouted.

Other white-suited individuals moved about the apartment. Intense, focused. He noticed that a few of them were carrying paper bags, some full. They were issued in extreme cases to catch any vomit that might contaminate the crime scene. One of the officers acknowledged his request, went to find the thermostat.

The body still lay in the hallway, ready to be stretchered off to the mortuary for autopsy. The SOCOs had finished extracting every last piece of information from the scene but had left the body in place so Phil could examine it, find something to kick-start his investigation.

He looked down, swallowed hard. A woman was lying there, her torso twisted, her arms outstretched and grasping, as if she had been trying to hang on to the last breath as it left her body. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. A vicious slash had taken out both jugular vein and artery on either side of her neck. He could see she had struggled by the patterns made by her arms in the blood on the wooden floor. Like bloodied angel’s wings.

Phil looked to a SOCO officer standing beside him.

‘Okay if I cross?’

The SOCO nodded. ‘Think we’re done with this one. Got everything we need.’

‘Photos?’

The SOCO nodded again.

Phil stepped over the body, careful not to track blood into any other room. The bedroom door was open. He walked towards it, looked in. And felt his stomach pitch and roll.

‘Oh God, this is a bad one…’

A white-suited silhouette heard Phil’s voice, detached himself from a group of similarly dressed figures at the end of the hall, came to join him in the doorway. ‘Like we ever get good ones?’

‘Not as bad as this…’ The smell was stronger here. He couldn’t describe it; it was life, it was death, it was everything the human body was. It was something he had smelled before. It was something he knew he would never forget.

As he looked at the body on the bed, he felt his chest constrict, his arms shake. No. This was no time for a panic attack. He breathed deeply through his mouth, forced his emotions down, his breathing back to normal. React as a copper, he told himself; it’s up to you to make order out of this chaos.

Detective Sergeant Clayton Thompson, one of Phil’s team. Tall and in good shape, the white of his hood emphasising his tanned features, his usually self-confident, even cocky, smile replaced by a frown of concentration. ‘Should have waited for you to turn up before going in, boss. Sorry.’

Phil always made a point of assembling his team at any crime scene. Entering together got them pooling their initial responses, sharing their theories, working towards a common conclusion. He was slightly annoyed that Clayton hadn’t waited for him, but given the severity of the situation, it was understandable.

‘Where’s Anni?’ he asked.

In response to his question a head poked round the frame of the bathroom door.

‘Here, boss.’ Detective Constable Anni Hepburn was small, trim, with variably coloured spiked hair that always contrasted with her dark skin. The strands poking out of her white hood were today mostly blonde. She gave a quick glance to Clayton. ‘Sorry, we should have waited for you, but Forensics said-’

Phil held up a hand. ‘We’re all here now. Let’s get going.’

A look passed between Clayton and Anni. Quick, then gone. Phil caught it, couldn’t read it but hoped it wasn’t what he thought it was. He always felt slightly jealous at the amount of female attention Clayton attracted, and he knew the DS often did plenty about it. But not with members of his own team. Not with Anni. Still, now wasn’t the time to think about that. They had work to do.

He turned back to the room, took in the scene before him. Forensics had set up their arc lamps, shining down on the bed, lending the central tableau an unreal air, as if it was a film or a stage set. They moved about in the light in hushed, almost reverential silence, kneeling, bending, peering closely at what was before them, scraping and bagging, sampling and storing. Like stage management or props making final adjustments.

Or supplicants before a sacrificial altar, thought Phil. A woman lay on the bed, spreadeagled and naked, wrists and ankles tied to the metal frame. Her stomach had been cut open and her eyes had rolled back in her head as if in witness to something only she could see.

Phil swallowed hard. The one in the hall had been bad enough. This one threatened to reacquaint him with the cup of coffee and two slices of wholemeal toast and Marmite he had had for breakfast. Just what he needed on a Tuesday morning.

‘Jesus,’ said Clayton.

‘I mean, this is Colchester,’ said Anni, shaking her head. The other two looked at her. She was visibly shaken. ‘Things like this don’t happen here. What the hell’s going on?’

Clayton was ready with a retort. Phil sensed his two officers were starting to develop unprofessional responses. He had to keep them focused. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘What do we know?’

Anni snapped back into work mode, pushed a hand down her paper suit, withdrew a notebook, flipped it open. Phil took a grim pride in the fact that she had recovered so quickly, that she was professional enough to work through it. ‘The flat belongs to Claire Fielding,’ she said. ‘Primary school teacher, works out Lexden way.’

Phil nodded, eyes still on the bed. ‘Boyfriend? Husband?’

‘Boyfriend. We checked her phone and diary and we think we’ve got a name. Ryan Brotherton. Want me to look into it?’

‘Let’s get sorted here first. Any idea who’s in the hall?’

‘Julie Simpson,’ said Clayton. ‘Another teacher, works with Claire Fielding. It was her husband who contacted us.’

‘Because she didn’t go home last night?’ asked Phil.

‘Yeah,’ said Clayton. ‘He called us when she didn’t come back. This was well after midnight. Apparently there was some kind of get-together here last night. He’d tried phoning and got no reply. Not the kind to be out on a bender, apparently. ’

‘Not on a school night, anyway,’ said Anni.

‘Has he given a statement?’ said Phil.

Clayton nodded. ‘Over the phone. Bit distraught.’

‘Right. We’ll talk to him again later.’

Anni looked at him, worry in her eyes. ‘There’s, erm… there’s something else.’

She turned, gestured to the living room. Phil, glad of the excuse to not look at Claire Fielding’s body any more, followed her, stopping at the entrance to the living room. He looked inside, instinctively trying to get some idea of her life, her personality. The person she used to be.

The room was tastefully furnished, clearly on a budget, but small flourishes and touches of individuality indicated that the budget had been used creatively. With books and CDs, foreign ornaments and framed photos, it spoke of a rich, full life. But something stood out.

On the coffee table were empty and half-empty bottles of wine, white and red, a sparkling soft drink and several glasses. In amongst the glasses and bottles was the detritus of opened presents. Boxes, bags, gift wrap, tissue paper. The presents were there too. Toys, both soft and primary-coloured plastic. All-in-one Babygros, shawls, hats, jumpers, socks, shoes.

‘This get-together…’ Anni said.

‘Oh Christ…’ said Phil. He was aware of Anni looking at him, gauging his reaction, but couldn’t look at her or Clayton yet. His pulse began to quicken. He tried to ignore it.

‘You’ll see one of them wasn’t drinking,’ said a voice from the bedroom.

The three of them turned. Nick Lines, the pathologist, was straightening up from the bed, peering over the tops of his glasses at Phil. He was a tall, shaven-head, hook-nosed, slightly cadaverous man, with graveyard looks and a gallows humour to match. He always looked excited at a crime scene, Phil thought. As much as he ever looked excited at anything. Lines took his glasses off, looked at Phil. ‘I’m guessing that’s because, as far as I can make out from an initial examination, she was pregnant.’

Phil stared with renewed horror at the slit stomach. He didn’t dare voice the question that all three of them were thinking. ‘Shit,’ was all he could say.

‘Quite,’ said Lines, his voice like Nick Cave’s more miserable brother. ‘She was pregnant. And before you ask, the answer’s no. There’s no sign of it. Anywhere in the flat. Once we realised what condition she had been in, that was the first thing we did.’

Phil felt his heart beating faster, his pulse racing; tried to calm it down. He would be no good to the investigation in that frame of mind. He turned to the pathologist, his voice urgent.

‘What have you got, Nick?’

‘Well, as I said, this is only preliminary; don’t hold me to any of it. The obvious stuff first. Broken nose, bruising. She was punched in the face. Hard. It looks like she’s been injected with something at the back of her neck. Then again at the base of her spine. Obviously I don’t know what it is yet but I’d hazard a guess that it was something to paralyse her.’

‘And the… the cutting?’

Nick Lines shrugged. ‘Carried out with a modicum of skill, it would seem. The one in the hall, they knew which arteries to go for. Likewise here. They had a fair idea of what they were doing.’

‘Time of death?’

‘Hard to say at present. Late last night. Eleven-ish? Sometime round then. Between ten and two, I’d say.’

‘Any sign of sexual activity?’

A faint smile played on Lines’ lips. Phil knew it was his way of displaying irritation at being asked so many initial questions. ‘As Chairman Mao said when asked how effective he thought the French Revolution had been, it’s just too early to tell.’

‘Any clues as to who could have done this?’ said Clayton.

Lines sighed. ‘I just tell you how they died. It’s up to you to find out why.’

‘I meant what kind of person,’ Clayton said, clearly hurt by the response. ‘Build an’ that.’

‘Nothing yet.’

‘How far gone was she?’ asked Anni.

‘Very well advanced, I’d say.’

‘But how far?’

He gave her a professionally contemptuous look, clearly getting irritated. ‘I’m a pathologist, not a clairvoyant.’

‘And we’ve got jobs to do as well,’ said Phil, matching Lines’ irritation with his own. ‘Would this baby be dead by now, or is there a chance it could still be alive?’

Nick Lines looked back at the body on the bed rather than directly at Phil. ‘Judging from the condition of her womb, I’d say almost full term. Only weeks away.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning yes. There’s every chance that this baby is still alive.’

3

Marina Esposito stepped slowly into the room, looked around. She was nervous. Not because of what she was about to do particularly, but because of the public admission. Because once she had taken that step, her life would be changed, redefined for ever.

The room was large, the walls painted in light pastels, the floor wood. It had that warm yet simultaneously cool feel that so many fitness centres had. She had tried to slip quietly into the changing room, not engage anyone with eye contact and certainly not in conversation, get changed as quickly as possible, hoping her body wouldn’t mark her out as one of them. She had heard them and seen them, though, talking and laughing together, and knew instinctively she would never be part of that. Never be one of them. No matter what circumstances dictated. Now she saw the same women in here and her heart sank. Hair piled up or tied back, trainers or bare feet. All wearing brightly coloured, almost dayglo leotards and co-ordinated joggers. Full make-up. Marina was wearing grey jogging bottoms, a black T-shirt, old trainers. She felt dowdy and dull.

Someone stopped behind her. ‘You lost?’

‘Yes,’ she said, turning. She tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t emerge.

‘Pre-natal yoga?’ the woman said, seeing the mat under Marina’s arm.

Marina nodded.

The woman smiled. ‘That’s us, then.’ She patted her stomach. It was much bigger than Marina’s. Taut and hard, the bright orange leotard stretched tight across it. It protruded proudly over the waistline of her rolled-down joggers. Marina could see the distended navel through the material, like the knot of a balloon. The woman smiled like being that size and shape was the most natural thing in the world. She looked at Marina’s stomach.

Oh God, Marina thought. Looking at stomachs. That’s how I have to greet people from now on.

‘How far gone?’

‘Just… three months. Four.’

The woman looked into the room. ‘Starting early, that’s good.’

Marina felt she had to reciprocate. ‘What… what about you?’

The woman laughed. ‘Any day now, from the size of it. Eight months. I’m Caroline, by the way.’

‘Marina.’

‘Nice to meet you. Well, come on in. We don’t bite.’

Caroline walked into the room, Marina following. Marina sized the other woman up, looking at her face rather than her stomach for the first time. Mid-thirties, perky, cheerful. Probably a housewife from somewhere like Lexden. Kept herself in good shape, filled her days by lunching with friends, going to the gym, the hairdresser’s and the nail salon, shopping. Not Marina’s type of person at all. Caroline stopped to talk to other women, greeting them like old friends. All of them scooped from the same mould as her. Brightly coloured and round. Giggling and laughing. Marina felt she had walked into a Teletubbies convention.

She wanted to turn round, walk out.

But at that moment the instructor arrived and closed the door behind her, cutting off her escape route.

‘See we have a new member…’ The instructor beckoned Marina into the room.

Caroline waved her over and Marina, trying to disguise her reluctance, crossed the room, unfurled her mat and waited for the session to start.

There. She had done it. Admitted it in public.

She was pregnant.

4

Phil couldn’t speak.

He looked at his two junior officers. They seemed similarly dumbstruck as the enormity of the statement sank in.

There’s every chance that this baby is still alive…

‘Shit…’ Phil found his voice.

‘Quite,’ said Nick Lines. He looked back at the bed. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me?’

Phil nodded and ushered his team away from the bedroom, leaving the pathologist to carry on with his job. The three of them still didn’t speak.

He felt his chest tightening, his pulse quickening. He could hear the blood pumping round his body, feel the throb of his heart like a huge metronome, marking off the seconds, a ticking clock telling him to get moving, get this baby found…

He called over one of the uniformed officers in the living room. ‘Right, I want this whole-’ He stopped. ‘Liz, is it?’

She nodded.

‘Right. Liz.’ He spoke fast but clearly. Urgent but not panicking. ‘I want this whole block of flats searched. Everyone questioned, don’t take no for an answer, draft in as many as you can on door-to-door work.You know what I mean: did anyone hear anything, see anyone suspicious. Someone must have done. Use your instincts, be guided by what they say. I noticed the flats have all got video entry-phones. If someone got in, they must have been buzzed in. And seen. And I want the area combed. Do it thoroughly but do it quickly.’ He dropped his voice. ‘You know what we’re looking for.’

The officer nodded, went away to begin the search.

‘Boss…’

Phil turned, looked at Anni. She was the highest-ranking woman on his team and he had requested for her to be there. She was trained to deal with rape cases, abused children, any situation where a male presence might be a barrier to uncovering the truth. But that wasn’t why Phil wanted her. She had an intelligence and intuition that he had rarely encountered. And despite the ever-changing hair and the impish smile, she could be tougher than the best when needed to be. Even tougher than him. For all of that, he could forgive the affected way she spelled her first name.

‘Yes, Anni?’

‘What about Julie Simpson?’

Phil looked around, mentally trying to think through what must have happened. ‘If it’s all about…’ he gestured towards the bedroom, ‘then I’m afraid she was just wrong place, wrong time.’

Anni nodded, as if he had confirmed her thoughts. Then frowned. ‘Shouldn’t we keep an open mind?’

‘Course.’ He felt the blood pumping once more, his internal clock telling him time was running out. ‘But…’

‘So was this party a baby shower, then?’ said Clayton.

Anni looked at him. ‘You’d know about them, would you?’

Clayton reddened. ‘My sister. She had one…’

Despite the situation, Anni smiled.

Phil cut their repartee short. ‘Right. Let’s think. So Claire Fielding was having a baby shower. If she, or her baby, was the one deliberately targeted, then whoever did this must have thought she was alone. Maybe they miscounted or something.’ He sighed, trying to control his heart rate. ‘But just in case it’s anything to do with Julie Simpson, get the Birdies to follow up on her. Talk to the husband. See if he knows who else was here.’

The Birdies. DC Adrian Wren and DS Jane Gosling. Inevitable they got paired together. But no one was laughing about their names at the moment.

‘You think it’s about the baby, boss?’ Anni again. ‘He’s taken it, hasn’t he? Whoever did this.’

‘Like I said, not jumping to conclusions, it seems the likeliest explanation.’

Anni looked into the bedroom once more. ‘D’you think it’s still alive?’

Phil sighed. ‘Nick reckons it is, so we have to assume the same; bear that in mind.’

‘Until we find out otherwise,’ said Clayton.

‘Yeah, thanks, Dr Doom.’ Clayton had the potential to be an exceptional police detective, Phil knew. He had made no secret of his ambition, but despite what he thought and told people, he wasn’t the finished article yet. And sometimes his comments, as well as irritating Phil, betrayed the fact. ‘I’m aware of that.’

‘Putting aside how fucked up this is,’ said Anni, stepping between them, ‘I think there’s another possibility we should consider.’

‘That it’s him, you mean?’ said Clayton.

Phil knew what they were both talking about, glanced round to see who was in earshot, bent in close to them. ‘Not here. You know what walls have got, and it’s not ice cream.’ He sighed, ordering his thoughts, willing his training to kick in, take over. He could still hear his heart beating, each beat signalling inactivity that took him further away from catching the perpetrator.

‘Right. A plan. Anni, chain of evidence. Accompany the bodies through the post-mortems. See what you can find there. Get Nick to prioritise. Don’t let him fob you off. I’m sure the budget for this one’ll get upgraded.’

She nodded.

‘Now. Claire Fielding’s background. Who loved her, who hated her. Friends, family, work colleagues, the lot. Her boyfriend, Clayton, what was it? Brian…’

‘Ryan. Ryan Brotherton.’

‘Right. Let’s see what we can get on him, then you and me will pay him a visit. See what he has to say, where he was when he should have been here.’

Clayton nodded.

‘Now-’

Whatever Phil was about to say was cut short by the sharp ringing of a phone. Everyone stopped what they were doing, looked around at each other. An eerie stillness fell, disturbed only by the insistent sound. Like someone had just broken through at a seance. The living trying to contact the dead.

Phil saw the phone in the living room and motioned to Anni. Whoever it was would be expecting a female voice. Anni crossed the room, picked it up. She hesitated, put it to her ear.

‘H-hello.’

The whole room waited, watching Anni. She felt their stares, turned away from them.

‘Can I help you?’ She kept her voice calm and courteous.

They waited. Anni listened. ‘Afraid not,’ she said eventually. ‘Who is this, please?… I see. Could I ask you to stay on the line, please?’

She held the receiver to her chest, cupping it with her hand. She called Phil over. ‘All Saints Primary. Where Claire Fielding worked. They’re wondering why she hasn’t turned up for work.’ She mouthed the next words. ‘What should I tell them?’

Phil didn’t like handing out death messages to work colleagues before close relatives had been informed.

‘Have they spoken to Julie Simpson’s husband yet?’

‘Don’t think so. He would have told them what was going on.’

‘Good. Tell them we’ll send someone round to talk to them this morning. But don’t say anything more.’

‘Why not?’

‘I think next of kin should know first.’

Anni nodded, went back on the phone.

Phil turned to Clayton, his voice lowered so it wouldn’t carry down the phone line. ‘Okay. Like I said, the Birdies can follow up on Julie Simpson. Now, the media’ll be here soon. Before we go, I’ll call Ben Fenwick. Get him down here to deal with them.’

‘King Cliché rides again,’ said Clayton.

‘Indeed,’ agreed Phil, not irritated by this comment of Clayton’s, ‘but he’s good at that kind of stuff and they seem to like him. Plays well on screen. They’re going to be on our side with this one – at least for now – so we’ll sort out our approach in the meantime. And find out if Claire Fielding’s parents live in the area. Get someone over to talk to them.’

‘Shouldn’t we get the DCI to deliver the death message, boss? All PR to him.’

‘Yeah, but he might want to take along a camera crew. See who’s at the station. Get someone with a suitable rank to do it. Draw straws if you have to.’

‘Yes, boss.’ Clayton was writing everything down.

Anni came off the phone. ‘We’d better get someone round there soon as. They’re not going to keep a lid on this for long. And it was a baby shower.’

‘How d’you know?’

‘Lizzie, that’s Lizzie Stone who just phoned, knew Claire was having a get-together with friends last night. Mostly other teachers, I think.’

‘Right,’ said Phil, thinking on the spot. ‘Can’t remember who said this, but it’s true. My mind will change when the facts change. So. Anni, get the Birdies sorted. Adrian chain of evidence, Jane still sticks with what she was doing. You get yourself round to All Saints, take as many spare units as you can. Statements, the works. Separate them, don’t give them a chance to collude. I want to know exactly what happened at that party last night. Get Millhouse up and running as gatekeeper for the investigation back at base. And get him to give the computer system a pounding. We’re going to need extra bodies. DCI Fenwick’ll sanction that, I’m sure, because I want the Susie Evans and Lisa King cases re-examined with a fine-toothed comb. Any similarities, no matter how small, they get flagged and logged. And get uniforms to check CCTV for the whole area, inside these flats and out, registration plates, the lot. Everything referenced and cross-referenced. Right?’

The other two nodded.

‘Any questions?’

Neither had any. He looked at them both. They dealt in murder and violent crime and he had hand-picked them himself. There was mutual trust between them and he hoped that look he had caught earlier wasn’t going to undermine that. He examined their faces, saw only determination in their eyes. The need to catch a double killer and a possibly living child. None of them would be going home any time soon. Or going out. He felt a pang of guilt, wondered how that would go down. Could guess.

He pushed the thought out of his mind. Deal with it later.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go. We’ve got work to do.’

He strode out of the apartment as quickly as possible.

5

Phil stood outside the apartment block, ripping apart the Velcro fastenings of his paper suit, hunting for his phone. He thought of Anni’s words once more: I mean, this is Colchester…

Colchester. Last outpost of Essex before it became Suffolk. If heaven, as David Byrne once sang, was a place where nothing ever happened, then heaven and Colchester had a lot in common. But as Phil knew only too well, something, like nothing, could happen anywhere.

He looked round. Claire Fielding’s flat was in Parkside Quarter, sandwiched between the river, the Dutch Quarter and Castle Park. The Dutch Quarter: all winding streets and alleyways of sixteenth-century and Edwardian houses stuck between the high street and the river. An urban village, the town’s self-appointed boho area, complete with cobblestones, corner pubs and even its own gay club. Parkside Quarter was a modern development of townhouses and apartment blocks, all faux wooden towers and shuttered windows, designed to fit sympathetically alongside the older buildings but just looking like a cheap toytown version of them.

He was on a footpath by the river, where weeping willows shaded out the sun, leaving dappled shadows all around. It took joggers and baby-carriage-pushing mothers to and from Castle Park. On the opposite bank was a row of quaint old terraced cottages. Up the steps and beyond was North Station Road, the main link for commuters from the rail station to the town centre. It seemed so mundane, so normal. Safe. Happy.

But today the Dutch Quarter would be silent. There would be no joggers or mothers along the footpath. Already white-suited officers were on their hands and knees beginning a search of the area. He looked down at the ground. He hoped their gloves were strong. Discarded Special Brew cans, plastic cider bottles were dotted around on the ground like abstract sculptures. The odd used condom. Fewer needles than there used to be but, he knew, no less drug-taking.

He looked up to the bridge, saw others peering from their safe, happy world into his. Commuters carrying cappuccinos, mobiles and newspapers on their way up the hill were stopping to stare down, the blue and white crime-scene tape attracting their attention like ghoulish magpies dazzled by silver.

He ignored them, concentrated on getting out of his paper suit. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of himself in the window of the downstairs flat. Tall, just over six foot, and his body didn’t look too bad, no beer gut or man boobs, but then he kept himself in shape. Not because he was particularly narcissistic, but his job entailed long hours, takeaway food and, if he wasn’t careful, too much alcohol. And it would be all too easy to succumb, as so many of his colleagues had done, so he forced himself to keep up the gym membership, go running, cycling. Someone had suggested five-a-side, get fit, make new friends, have a laugh and a few beers afterwards. He’d turned it down. It wasn’t for him. Not that he was unsociable. He was just more used to his own company.

He tried not to conform to the stereotypical image of a police detective, believing that suits, crewcuts and shiny black shoes were just another police uniform. He didn’t even own a tie, and more often than not wore a T-shirt instead of a formal shirt. His dark brown hair was spiky and quiffed, and he wore anything on his feet rather than black shoes. Today he had teamed the jacket and waistcoat of a pin-striped suit with dark blue Levis, a striped shirt and brown boots.

But his eyes showed the strain he was under. A poet’s eyes, an ex-girlfriend had once said. Soulful and melancholic. He just thought they made him look miserable. Now they had black rings under them.

He breathed deep, rubbing his chest as he did so. Luckily the panic attack he had felt in the flat hadn’t progressed. That was something. Usually when they hit it felt like a series of metal bands wrapping themselves round his chest, constricting him, pulling in tighter, making it harder and harder for him to breathe. His arms and legs would shake and spasm.

It was something he had suffered since he was a child. He had put it down to his upbringing. Given up for adoption by a woman he never knew, he was bounced from pillar to post in various children’s homes and foster homes as he grew up. Never fitting in, never settling. He didn’t like to dwell on those times.

Eventually he was sent to the Brennan household and the panic attacks tailed off. Don and Eileen Brennan. He wasn’t one for melodrama, but he really did believe that couple had saved his life. Given him a sense of purpose.

Given him a home.

And they loved him as much as he loved them. So much so that they eventually adopted him.

But the panic attacks were still there. Every time he thought he had them beat, had his past worked out, another one would hit and remind him how little progress he had made.

Don Brennan had been a policeman. He believed in fairness and justice. Qualities he tried to instil in the children he fostered. So Don couldn’t have been more pleased than when his adopted son followed him into the force.

And Phil loved it. Because he believed that alongside justice and fairness should be order. Not rules and regulations, but order. Understanding. Life, he believed, was random enough and police work helped him define it, gave it shape, form and meaning. Solving crimes, ascribing reasons for behaviour, finding the ‘why’ behind the deed was the fuel that kept his professional engine running. He was fairly confident he could bring order to any kind of chaos.

He turned away from the window. Do it now, he told himself. Put yourself in order.

He would start with the two previous murders.

6

Lisa King and Susie Evans. The two previous murder victims. Phil pulled those two names from his mental Rolodex, focused on them. He had seen their faces so many times. Staring out at him from the incident room whiteboard, imprinted on his memory.

Lisa King was a twenty-six-year-old married estate agent. She had arranged a viewing of a vacant property on the edge of the Greenstead area of town. She had never made it out of that house. She was discovered later that day by one of her colleagues. Laid out on the floor of the house, drugged, brutally knifed. Her stomach ripped to pieces. Her unborn child mutilated, killed along with her.

There had been a huge media circus and Phil and his team had doggedly followed every line of inquiry, no matter how tenuous or tedious. The appointment had been made over the phone, from a cheap, unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile bought from a branch of Asda with cash. Lisa had taken all the details herself; the client was hers. A woman’s name had been given, according to the file in the office. No such woman existed.

Phil and his team had tried their hardest but failed to make any headway. No forensic evidence, no DNA, no eyewitnesses coming forward, no CCTV pictures. Nothing. It was as if the killer had materialised, murdered, then vanished into thin air.

Appeals had been made to the woman who had called the estate agent to come forward. She was promised protection, confidentiality, anything. Lisa’s husband had been brought in, questioned, and released. The usual informants, paid or otherwise, came up with nothing. Everyone was talking about it; no one was saying anything.

Then, two months later, Susie Evans was murdered.

A single parent living in a council flat in New Town. Pregnant with her third child and, as she had laughingly said to her friends in the pub, between boyfriends. A part-time prostitute and barmaid, she hadn’t made such a sympathetic victim as Lisa King, but Phil and his team treated her exactly the same. He didn’t hold with the view that one life was somehow worth more than another. They were all equal, he thought, when they were dead.

Her body was found in a friend’s flat. She had asked the friend if she could borrow it as she had a client who was going to pay her handsomely. Her eviscerated, broken body had been dumped in the bath, the walls, floor and ceiling covered in arterial blood sprays, the baby cut out, left on the floor beside her dead mother.

A door-to-door had been mounted, but it was an area that was traditionally unsympathetic to the police. A mobile station had been set up on the estate but no one had volunteered any information. Again there was no DNA, no forensic evidence and certainly no CCTV.They had speculated on many things: that it might have been a particularly twisted punter with a pregnant woman fetish. Even that it had been an abortion gone horribly wrong. And, most worryingly, that it was the same person who had killed Lisa King and his crimes were escalating. But the investigation went nowhere. And they were left with just a dead mother and child.

Then nothing for another two months. Until now.

Phil took out his mobile. Eileen Brennan, worried that he was in his thirties and unmarried, had been trying to fix him up with Deanna, a friend’s daughter, a divorcee the same age. They had never met, and weren’t particularly keen to, but had agreed on a date to keep the two older women happy. This evening. He had to phone her and, with not too much reluctance, call it off.

He had the number dialled, was ready to put the call through, when his phone rang. Grateful for the diversion, he answered it.

‘DI Brennan.’

DCI Ben Fenwick. His superior officer. ‘Sir,’ said Phil.

‘On my way over now. Just wanted a quick chat beforehand. ’The voice strong and authoritative, equally at home in front of the cameras at a news conference or telling a joke to an appreciative audience in an exclusive golf clubhouse.

‘Good, sir. Let me tell you what we’ve found.’ Phil gave him the details, aware all the time of the missing baby, the clock still ticking inside him. He was pleased the rubberneckers on the bridge couldn’t hear him. He hoped there were no lip-readers in the crowd. Hid his mouth just in case.

‘Oh God,’ said Ben Fenwick, then offered to deal with the media as Phil knew he would. It wasn’t just that he never missed an opportunity to get his face on TV; he had so many media contacts he ensured the story would be presented in a way that would benefit the investigation.

‘Sounds to me like we’ve got a serial. What do you think? Am I right?’ Fenwick’s voice was tight, grim.

‘Well, we’ve still got the party aspect to pursue, the boyfriend to question…’

‘Gut feeling?’

‘Yeah. A serial and a baby kidnapper.’

‘Wonderful. Bad to worse.’ He sighed. It came down the phone as a ragged electronic bark. ‘I mean, a serial killer. In Colchester. These things just don’t happen. Not here.’

‘That has been mentioned, sir. A few times. I’m sure they said something similar up the road in Ipswich a couple of years ago.’

A serial killer had targeted prostitutes in the red-light area of the Suffolk town. He had been caught, but not before he had murdered five women.

Another sigh. ‘True. But why? And why here?’

‘I’m sure they said that too.’

‘Quite. Look. This is a priority case. God knows how long we’ve got to catch this bastard and get that baby, but we’ve got to step up.You’re going to need a bit of help.’

‘How d’you mean, sir?’

‘Different perspective, that kind of thing. Psychological input. Profile.’

‘I thought you didn’t go for that sort of thing.’

‘I don’t. Not personally. But the Detective Super’s been on the phone from Chelmsford. Thinks it would be helpful. Sanctioned the money too. So there we are. Another weapon in the arsenal and all that.’

‘Who did you have in mind?’ A shiver ran through Phil, as if he had just plugged his fingers into a wall socket. He had an idea of what Fenwick was about to say next. Hoped he was wrong.

‘Someone with a bit of specialist knowledge, Phil. And I know you’ve worked with her before.’

Her. Phil knew exactly who he was talking about. His chest tightened again, but this wasn’t a panic attack. Not exactly.

‘Marina Esposito,’ said Fenwick. ‘Remember her?’

Of course Phil remembered her.

‘I know it all ended rather unfortunately last time-’ Fenwick didn’t get to finish his sentence.

Phil gave a bitter laugh. ‘Bit of an understatement.’

‘Yes,’ said Fenwick, undaunted. ‘But by all accounts a cracking forensic psychologist, don’t you think? Or at least as far as they go. And, you know, what happened aside, she got us a result.’

‘She did,’ said Phil. ‘She was good.’ And an even better lover, he thought.

He felt his chest tightening again at his own words, tried to ignore it. He sighed. He remembered the case well. How could he not?

Gemma Hardy was in her mid-twenties, a dentist’s receptionist who lived in a shared flat in the Dutch Quarter. She had friends and a regular boyfriend. Life was good for Gemma Hardy, she was happy. But that was all about to change. Because Gemma had also attracted a stalker.

At first it was just texts, then letters. Love letters, dark and twisted, the writer telling her that she was the only girl, his true love.That he would kill anyone who got in their way.That he would kill her rather than let her go with someone else.

Scared, she contacted the police. Phil was handed the case. He and his team went through Gemma’s life intimately. They found no one, nothing that could possibly point to the perpetrator. They arranged for her flat to be watched. Saw no one apart from her friends and boyfriend. They were getting nowhere, she was still terrified. Then someone suggested bringing in a psychologist.

Marina Esposito, a lecturer in psychology at nearby Essex University, was called in to consult. She specialised in deviant sexuality. The case was tailor-made for her. Along with Phil she examined every aspect of Gemma’s life, and they found their stalker: Martin Fletcher. Her flatmate’s boyfriend. He was arrested and confessed.

And that should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t. Not for Marina.

‘I doubt she’d do it, to tell you the truth, sir.’

‘I thought a bit of persuading, perhaps.’ Fenwick sounded surprised.

Phil couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Persuading? Last time she worked with us she nearly died. Severed all links.You sure you want her?’

‘Super mentioned her personally. Good a place as any to start with. And if ever a case was right up her alley it’s this one.’ Fenwick’s voice changed gear then, moved from politician to friend, counsellor. Phil didn’t trust him when he did that. ‘Leave it to me, Phil. I’ll talk to her, see what I can do.’

Phil closed his eyes. Marina was there. He shook his head. Marina was always there. He sighed. Fenwick was right. Whatever else had happened, she was the best. And he needed the best on this case. ‘Well, good luck with that.’

‘Thank you.’ Phil couldn’t tell if Fenwick was being sarcastic or not.

There was a silence on the other end of the line. Then: ‘Are you sure you can handle this, Phil?’

Phil was jolted back. ‘Don’t see why not. I’ve been CIO on high-profile cases before.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ Fenwick’s voice was quiet. Solicitous.

Phil couldn’t speak for a few seconds as he absorbed the impact of Fenwick’s words. He knows.The bastard knows.

His heart started to beat faster again. It’s the case, he told himself, the baby, the seconds ticking away. That’s all it is, not… ‘Yes, sir, I can handle it.’

‘Good. Then I’ll talk to her. Because we’re going to need all the help we can get on this one. There’s a budget for this; it’s been upgraded as high priority so we don’t need to worry about that aspect. Extra manpower too. Personpower I should say. Let us not speak the language of dinosaurs in this department.’ He gave a snort.

Phil wasn’t listening. He had butterflies in his stomach.

‘Right. Well, we’d better get going. The clock’s ticking and all that. ’

‘Right you are, sir.’

Phil broke the connection. Stood staring at the phone, stunned at Fenwick’s words. But he didn’t have time to think about them now. He had another call to make.

Somehow it didn’t seem to matter too much.

Clayton emerged from the block of flats, joined him.

‘Ready, boss?’

‘Nearly,’ said Phil. He looked at Clayton, looked at his handset. Do it now. Get it over with.

‘Just got a call to make. Won’t be a moment.’

He walked away for privacy, dialled the number. Hoped Clayton was out of earshot.

It wasn’t good for morale to hear your boss get told off by his mum.

7

He had done it. Actually done it. Gone out and got her a baby, just like she had asked, just like he had promised to. Hester couldn’t believe it.

But she looked down at the baby and frowned. It wasn’t right. Not right at all.

She knew what babies looked like. Especially newborn ones. She’d seen them on TV. They were always happy and smiling, with hair. This one wasn’t. Small, wrinkled, shrivelled and pinky blue. More like Yoda than a baby. And it didn’t smile. Just twisted its face up and made a gurgling, wailing noise, like it was being tortured underwater.

But it was a baby, so Hester would have to make the best of it. A baby of her own. And when you had a baby, you had to clothe it and feed it and make it grow. She knew that.

It was wailing now. Hester brought her face into a smile.

‘Do you want feeding, baby?’ Her voice was an approximation of baby talk. Like she had heard on TV. ‘Do you?’ More wailing. ‘Mummy’s got something for you.’

Mummy. Just the word…

She went to the fridge, took out a bottle, placed it in the microwave. She had given him a list of what she wanted and he had got the lot. Powdered milk. Bottles. Nappies. Everything the books said.

She waited for the ping. Took it out.

‘Just right,’ she said, squirting some into her own mouth. She stuck the teat into the baby’s mouth, waited while it sucked hard. ‘That’s it. That’s better…’

Yes, it was tiny and pink and shrivelled. Yoda. But unlike Yoda its eyes wouldn’t open all the way, no matter how much Hester pulled at them. That wasn’t important, though. She looked down at the infant. She had wrapped it in blankets because that was the right thing to do, but it still looked cold. Like its skin wasn’t the right colour. But it didn’t matter. Hester had a baby. At last. That was the important thing. And she had to bond. That was important too.

She looked down at it again, feeding, managed a smile. ‘I’ve been through a lot to get you,’ she said, her usually broken voice sounding like a baby coo, ‘a lot. I could have just walked in somewhere, taken you, but that wouldn’t have been right, would it? No… Because you’d have been someone else’s by then, wouldn’t you? You’d have a different mummy and you’d have to forget her before you met me.’ She sighed. ‘Yes, I’ve been through a lot. But you were worth it…’

The baby spat the teat out, began to cough. Hester felt anger rising inside herself. It wasn’t doing what it was supposed to. It should take all the bottle. The book said. TV said.

‘Don’t you fuckin’ do that,’ she said, no trace now of baby talk. ‘Take it…’

She shoved the teat back in the baby’s mouth again, forced it to drink. Pushed the rising anger back down.

The baby stopped coughing, took the teat. That was better.

It was shrivelled and the wrong colour. And it wailed and shat all the time. She hated that. But it was a baby. And that was all she had wanted. So she would put up with it.

‘But you’d better start to be like the TV babies,’ she said to its bare head, ‘the proper babies, or there’ll be trouble…’

The baby kicked and wriggled, tried to get away from the bottle.

‘No,’ she said, ‘you need to be big and strong. And you’re not finished until I say you’re finished…’

Milk ran down the baby’s cheeks. It had finished feeding. Hester kept the teat in place.

She smiled, looked at her watch. Closed her eyes. It would be time for her husband to go out soon.Yes, she had a baby now but his work wasn’t done. There was still the list to be attended to. Then, when he had finished, he would come back to her and they would all settle in. A real family. Complete. She opened her eyes. Smiled. Content with her life.

For now.

8

‘Fancy a coffee?’ The bright and perky voice was in Marina’s ear once more.

Marina turned. Caroline was standing with some of the other women from the group, heading towards the door.

‘A few of us usually head off into town,’ Caroline said. ‘Go to Life for a coffee. Well, those of us who can still drink it. And usually a little something else.’

‘Doesn’t that undo everything you’ve just done here?’ asked Marina.

Caroline laughed, shrugged. ‘What’s life without a few little treats?’

Marina smiled. ‘That’s kind, thanks, but I have to get back to work.’

Caroline, Marina noticed, was now dressed in the latest in designer and high-end high-street maternity wear. She had also done her make-up in the time it had taken Marina to get showered and dressed. How had she managed that?

Caroline smiled again. ‘You sure?’

And Marina saw something in her features she hadn’t noticed earlier. Tiredness, lines around the eyes. Her smile too brittle. Caroline was older than Marina had first thought, older than her peers in the group. She dressed younger, acted younger, but she couldn’t quite hide the extra years.

‘It would be lovely to have you along.’

Marina returned the smile. ‘Maybe next time.’

‘Okay, then. Next time.’ Caroline turned, went off with her happy, chattering friends, all similarly dressed. They smiled as they passed, and Marina reciprocated, letting it fade once they had all exited.

She watched them go, talking and laughing. They were a group Marina would have instantly categorised, even stereotyped. Middle class, husbands at work, the type of women who would have pain-free births and, by hitting the gym and the fad diets, get their pre-pregnancy figures back within a week. The type of women other women would envy and even secretly despise.

From a distance Caroline looked like she was one of the group, but Marina sensed something different about her. Something separate. Maybe that was why she had wanted Marina to go with them. Or maybe she was just being friendly. No matter. Not her problem. Marina waited until they had all gone, walked through the foyer of Leisure World.

The piped muzak drowned out the shrieks, cries and splashes of schoolchildren cramming in five minutes of play after their prescribed swimming lessons, the multicoloured flume and slide tubes sticking out of the side of the building taking a pounding. She walked through the doors and on to the forecourt. The noise was bad enough but the chlorinated smell was seriously starting to assault her nostrils. She knew things like that happened in pregnancy. The senses were heightened; women became intolerant of scents that had never previously bothered them. She knew one woman from university who couldn’t stand the smell of her own husband. A shiver of dread ran through her body. She hoped nothing like that happened to her.

Outside, she stood on the kerb of the car park on the Avenue of Remembrance, pulled her coat close to her to keep out the November cold, waited for the cab that would take her back to her new office and her afternoon clients. She had showered but her muscles were still aching, throbbing. She would suffer tomorrow.

A few minutes later, a 4x4 went past, tooted. Caroline and her friends. Marina gave a smile that disappeared as the car rounded the corner.

The changes in her life in such a short space of time had been huge. Leaving the comfort and safety of the university to go into private practice – although by the time she left it didn’t feel safe or comfortable – and the fact that Tony, her long-term partner, had proposed to her. But the most important change had been the baby. Unplanned and, initially, unwanted, she was still coming to terms with it. She felt she always would be.

She looked at her watch, getting impatient for the cab, killing time by working out what she would be doing if she were still at the university. Probably preparing for her second-year class, gathering together papers, books and notes in her old office, readying herself for the seminar she would be about to give. Chimerical Masks and Dissociation in the Perception of the Self. Something like that.

The self. Her hands, as they so often did these days, went automatically underneath her coat to her stomach. Began stroking the bump. Slight to a disinterested onlooker’s eyes, but to her enormous. And, she knew, it would only get bigger. This self – her self – was one she barely recognised any more. When she thought of her old life, her old self, she became choked, felt like crying. But she was beyond the tears stage now. Four months beyond.

She felt something flutter. Like butterflies in her stomach. Big butterflies. She jumped, startled and scared. Tried to breathe deeply, calm down. It was natural, it was expected. It was what the body did. But not her body. She didn’t feel it was her body any more. She was just a carrier, a vessel for this child. Which was fine while she was carrying, but when it had left her, what would she be then?

The physical stuff was scary enough – the changes that would occur in her body as the baby grew and demanded life from her, the actual pain of childbirth itself and then how ravaged her body would be afterwards. And then there were the years as a mother to come.

Her first response to the pregnancy was to get rid of it. Get it out of her, don’t let it grow, take her over, like some hideous invasion-of-the-bodysnatchers-type creature. And with her starting up in private practice it was the wrong time, if nothing else.

Tony said he would be fine with whatever she wanted to do. It was her body, after all. So she decided on a termination. But when the time came, she couldn’t go through with it.

Marina had swallowed her fear, tried to live with it. Prenatal yoga, relaxation and meditation, eating the right things, not drinking. Luckily she wasn’t one of those women who were sick all the time and couldn’t eat anything. Or at least not yet. Feeling the baby grow inside her was bad enough. That would have been intolerable. She also thought that being with other pregnant women would help. Take away the fear, the uncertainty. And it had, for a while. But now that she was alone again she felt the old doubts coming back.

She wondered how she had looked to the other women in the class. Long, dark hair, mercifully free of grey. Or rather chemically assisted to be free of grey. A pretty face for a thirty-six-year-old, she thought, just spoiled by worry. She had good bone structure due to her Italian parentage; the worry she had added herself. Her eyes looked sunken, hollow, like a ghost waiting to be brought back to life. Once she had resigned herself to the baby she had hoped it would do that. Four months in and it hadn’t. She was beginning to doubt that it ever would. She needed something else.

She checked her watch, stamped her feet. The cab driver had said goodbye to his tip.

From within her bag, her mobile rang.

Sighing, she extracted her hand from her coat, went to answer it. ‘Yes.’

‘Marina? Marina Esposito?’

She knew that voice. It took her a few seconds to place, but she did it. And gave an involuntary gasp. DCI Ben Fenwick. She exhaled slowly.

‘Ben Fenwick?’

‘Yes, Marina, hi. Sorry to bother you. I need to talk to you.’

‘Oh.’ She looked round. And there in front of her was Martin Fletcher. Advancing on her, features twisted by hate.

She screwed her eyes up tight, opened them again. Nothing but the cold car park, the missing cab. The faint sounds of screaming children in the background. Martin Fletcher had gone. But Ben Fenwick’s voice was still on the phone.

‘Marina? You still there?’

‘Yes… yes, Ben. I’m still here.’

‘Look, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’

That was all she needed to hear and immediately the barrier was back up. ‘Look, I’m… I’m busy. Can we do this another time?’

‘I’m afraid not. We’ve got a problem.’

‘What kind?’

He sighed. ‘The worst kind.’

She wanted to push the button, end the call. Get into her cab – if it ever arrived – and forget Ben Fenwick had phoned. Instead she said, ‘What kind of problem?’

‘A new case has come up and we need help.Your help.’ He paused as if thinking over what to say next. ‘Look, I realise this may be difficult for you…’

She saw Martin Fletcher advancing towards her out of the corner of her eye again, felt blind, trapped panic rise in her chest. She blinked him away, breathed deeply.

She kept her voice low, contained. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s… it’s not really the kind of thing we can discuss over the phone. Best if we talk in person.’

She felt a shiver run through her. Say no. Say no. Say no. ‘Okay. Where…’

‘I’ll get a car sent to pick you up.’

‘When?’

‘No time like the present.’

‘But I’m… busy. Clients…’The words sounded weak, even to her ears.

Fenwick sighed, evidently thinking again. ‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, but with all due respect, Marina, I think when you hear what I’ve got to say, you may find it takes precedence.’

She said nothing, thought. He took her silence as a need for more explanation, reassurance.

‘Look, I’m sorry about what happened before. We all are. It was horrific, unacceptable. Totally. If there was… if we could have done things differently…’

‘Not your fault,’ she said, her voice small and unconvincing.

He sounded relieved. ‘It won’t be like that this time. I promise. I give you my word.’

Despite everything she felt a slight thrill at Fenwick’s words. Perhaps enough time had passed to want to get away from the office. Like childbirth, she thought with a grim smile, the memory of the pain dissipates so you can go through it again.

‘Okay, send the car. Give me a couple of hours.’

‘Can you come quicker? It really is urgent.’

‘Right away then. I’m standing outside Leisure World. Tell the driver to hurry. It’s freezing here.’

‘Thank you, Marina. He’ll find you.’

She put the phone away while he was still thanking her. Smiled to herself. Didn’t even attempt to suppress the thrill that ran through her. Whatever they wanted her for must be bad, she thought. Psychosexual deviance was what she specialised in.

Another shudder went through her. Phil. She would be working with Phil.

She had tried to put him out of her mind. Concentrate on her life with Tony, the impending baby. But there he was again, Fenwick’s phone call summoning him up. He didn’t dress like any of the other coppers, but his clothes always showed off his broad shoulders and slim waist. She had thought he played rugby when she first met him but she soon found out that wasn’t him. He wore his childhood on his face; the nose that had been broken and reset, the small scars he still carried from fights that only showed up when he was angry. But it was the eyes she remembered most. The eyes that had drawn her in. His melancholic, poet’s eyes. Because when she talked to him, he listened. Actually looked her in the eye and listened. He would remind her a few days later of something she had said, proving it. And it wasn’t a trick, an affectation, it was the way he was. She imagined how this could make him a good policeman, but it had done something more to her. Made her feel wanted, special.

No wonder she fell for him. And now she would be working with him again. Well, things were going to be different this time. They would have to be. Because she might have told Fenwick that what happened with Martin Fletcher wasn’t his fault. But with Phil it was a different story.

Her cab chose that moment to arrive. She waved him off, told him he’d taken too long. The driver got out, started to argue, but the arrival of a police car behind him and the presence of a policeman seemed to shut him up.

Marina got in the passenger door of the police car.

Hoped this would be just the displacement activity she needed to take her mind off her own troubles.

9

H e watched them go in and he watched them come out.They didn’t see him, didn’t even know he was there. Not a clue. So sure were they of their place in the world, their importance in it. Safely inside their own protective little bubble.They would soon find out how unsafe they were.

Or at least one of them would.

He knew they wouldn’t see him. He was too good for that. Prided himself on it. Sitting in the car park of Colchester’s Leisure World, a clear view of the front entrance, just far enough back not to attract any attention. But he could see them. Talking and laughing as they emerged from their yoga session, their full, distended bellies sticking out in front of them.

Surrogates. All of them. If he wanted them to be.

He had the list, knew which one would come next. Knew the order.

It wasn’t for the babies. He didn’t care about that. It was all about the hunt. Planning. Preparation. The chase.The thrill.The kill. He had always enjoyed hunting. The breed of animal was unimportant.

There she was, his next prey. She had stopped to talk to another one on the pavement.This one didn’t have such a big belly; in fact she was barely showing at all. His prey wanted the new one to go with them. But she wouldn’t. His prey didn’t seem too bothered, just walked away with her pack.

Past his own vehicle. Didn’t even stop to look at him. He grinned. An invisible god with the power of life and death.

She got into her own car, drove away.

He didn’t need to follow her. He knew where she was going. He would catch up with her later. Instead he turned his attention back to the one left on the pavement.The new one who didn’t want to go with them. He shouldn’t have been interested in her but he was.There was something about her. She was alone, apart from the pack. But not because of weakness.The opposite, he sensed.A strength, an attitude.

He smiled. He liked that in his prey. A challenge. Something to work with. Something to break down.

He knew he should be driving away, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She wasn’t like the others. He sensed cunning, intelligence. Just from the way she stood, her body language as she talked on her phone. There was nothing he could do about her now, but she would be filed away. And one day, at a time of his own choosing, he would come back for her.

And then he would have fun.

He was about to start his engine when a taxi arrived. She bent down, spoke to the driver.The driver wasn’t happy with what she said. There was going to be a fight. He sat back, watching. This would be interesting. But before anything could happen, another car pulled up and the driver got out.There was no mistaking who this person was. Even if he didn’t know him, he knew the type. A policeman. He could see that from here.

The taxi driver drove away, clearly unhappy. The woman got into the unmarked police car and was driven away.

Interesting. Curious. He would look out for her, watch for her. She wouldn’t be forgotten.

With nothing else to stay there for, he turned the ignition, drove away.

She had been marked.

10

It was nearly lunchtime when Phil Brennan turned the Audi off the main road. Aware of the constant ticking of the clock, he had made the drive to Braintree as fast as he could. He had pushed the Audi to the legal limit, done everything short of sticking the siren on the roof.

The satnav pinged, informing them that they had reached their destination. Clayton Thompson reached across the dashboard and turned it off.

‘Hate those things,’ he said.

‘Thought you’d be all for them. Know how you love a gadget.’

Clayton shrugged. ‘Yeah, but it’s just their smug little voices. Like the top brass have put them here to spy on us. Like we have to stick to the journey. If we know a short cut or a better route they tell us we can’t use it, that they know best.’

Phil gave a grim smile. ‘Clayton, I think you’ve just discovered a metaphor for policing in the twenty-first century,’ he said.

He looked out of the window. They were on an industrial estate in Braintree, a few miles south of Colchester, just off the A12. Low-level metal and brick buildings surrounded them, stretching all the way from the main road to the railway line running from London to East Anglia. Directly ahead of them was a double set of metal mesh gates bearing the name B & F METALS. Behind the gates was another low-level metal and brick building with a forecourt on which stood a pair of huge cranes and several trucks and lorries. Cars were parked at the side. Metal canisters were piled all around: old gas bottles, fire extinguishers. Further on were huge square bays made out of old railway sleepers in which sat various kinds of scrap metal, piping, wire and old electrical appliances. One of the cranes was moving, a grabbing claw on the end of it. As they watched, it lifted a massive handful of metal from a bay, swung it round and deposited it into the back of a waiting high-sided lorry.

Phil shared a look with Clayton, turned off the engine.

‘Come on,’ said Clayton, getting out of the car, ‘let’s do it.’

‘Yeah,’ said Phil. ‘Clock’s ticking.’

Clayton stopped to give him a look. ‘Nothin’ to do with the clock. Just a relief to get away from that awful music you keep playin’. Glasvegas? You listen to some shit.’

Phil stared at him, said nothing.

‘With all due respect, boss,’ mumbled Clayton, his eyes dropping.

Clayton had an attitude on him. Phil knew that. Most of the time he tolerated it because his junior was a damned good copper, but sometimes he overstepped the mark. Phil often wanted to hit him. But just as often wanted to praise him.

‘Well at least it’s better than that stuff you listen to,’ said Phil. ‘Just how many songs do we need by black ex-gang members boasting about their genitals and their bank accounts?’

Clayton didn’t answer, just looked sullenly at the ground, a naughty schoolboy facing detention.

‘Now get your head straight,’ said Phil. ‘We’re going in.’ He started off, Clayton trudging behind him.

They knew this wasn’t going to be an ordinary death-message delivery. In running a routine check on Claire Fielding’s boyfriend Ryan Brotherton before coming to his place of work, they had found something interesting. He had done time in HMP Chelmsford for assault. The reports were over five years old, but from what they could gather it had been a previous girlfriend he had assaulted. This had made them all the more interested in talking to him.

Phil and Clayton walked into the yard. Men, barrelchested and shaven-headed for the most part, dressed in dirty work clothes, went about their business. Phil knew immediately that they had been clocked. He also guessed that most of the men who worked here had had run-ins with the police before so weren’t inclined to help them or ask what they were doing here. They would assume it was bad news and hope it didn’t concern them.

They found an office at the corner of the main building, the glass streaked with grease and dirt. They knocked on the door. It was answered by a woman; blonde and middle-aged, but fighting it hard. Petite but pneumatic, her breasts, lips and expressionless forehead screaming surgery, she was dressed like a secretary in an eighties porn film. As the smile she gave them faded once she worked out who they were, Phil reckoned she might have had a run-in with the law too. For something entirely different.

He held out his warrant card, Clayton doing likewise, and introduced themselves. ‘DI Brennan and DS Thompson. Could we come in?’

‘What’s this about?’ Her voice had a hardness that no amount of surgery could soften.

‘Better we talk inside, I think.’

Looking round warily, she reluctantly led them into the office. Inside was bare-walled and functional. Not a place for interior designers or feng shui consultants. Two desks, two computers, two phones. A charity calendar on the wall. Metal filing cabinets.

‘What’s this about?’ she said, not offering them a seat.

‘We’re looking for Ryan Brotherton,’ said Clayton, trying to move his eyeline away from her breasts and, Phil noticed, not entirely succeeding.

Knowing she had his DS, she turned to Phil, stuck them out further.

‘What’s it concerning?’

‘It’s a private matter.’

No one moved. The phone rang. She ignored it.

‘Shouldn’t you get that?’ Phil said. ‘Might be work.’

She still didn’t move.

‘Want me to?’ said Phil, moving towards the desk.

She beat him to it, grabbing the receiver and saying, ‘B and F Metals,’ then listening. ‘Right, Gary, can I call you back in a minute?’ She put the phone down, turned back to them.

‘Ryan Brotherton?’ said Phil, reminding her.

‘And I want to know why you need to see him.’

‘Look,’ said Phil, trying to keep a lid on his irritation, ‘he’s not in any trouble, he’s not done anything wrong. We just need to have a few words with him.’

He looked at her, didn’t break eye contact. She wavered, looked away. ‘I’ll go and get him.’

She left the office, walked across the yard. Clayton watched her go.

‘You okay?’ said Phil.

Clayton shook his head as if coming out of a trance. His face was unreadable. ‘Yeah, uh… not your average scrap-metal dealer,’ he said.

‘This is Essex, remember,’ said Phil, trying not to look, but unable to stop his eyes tracking her swinging hips like a spectator at Wimbledon. ‘Wonder why she wants to work here? Surrounded by all those men?’

‘Maybe that’s your answer,’ said Clayton, not bothering to disguise his leer. ‘Might consider a change of career…’

‘Focus, sonny. Think with your brain, remember. Look around. See anything that might help us?’

Clayton scanned the office, giving it close scrutiny. He shook his head.

‘Me neither.’ Phil returned his attention to outside the window.

As they watched, the pneumatic secretary walked to the bottom of the grabber and gestured to the man in the cockpit. He swung the arm over a bin and left it dangling there as he put the brakes on and opened the cab door, leaned out. Phil got a good look at him. He was big, and not unattractive, fine-featured. His hair was close-cropped, his upper torso very well muscled. He listened to what the woman said, his eyes going to the office, following her pointing arm. He didn’t look pleased.

‘Look at those guns,’ said Clayton. ‘Whoever he hit didn’t stand a chance.’

Ryan Brotherton got out of the cab and made his way across the yard to the office. Not in a good mood. He reached the cabin, opened the door, stepped inside. The space was small enough; with his large frame as well as the two of them, he seemed to suck all the air from the room.

‘Yeah?’ he said.

Phil held out his warrant card again. ‘DI Brennan and DS Thompson,’ he said.

‘So?’

‘Can we have a word, please?’

Brotherton shrugged.

Phil noticed the pneumatic secretary trying to enter the office. ‘In private.’

Brotherton noticed her entering too, didn’t try to stop her. ‘This is Sophie. Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of her.’ His face twisted into an expression that on someone else could have been a smile. ‘And I’ve found, Mr Brennan, that when your lot are around it’s better to have a witness.’

Phil weighed his options. Reassure Brotherton that he had done nothing wrong, insist on privacy. Or just say what he had to say to this unpleasant man, no matter how painful, and get out. He decided on the latter.

‘I’m afraid we’ve got some very bad news to tell you, Mr Brotherton.’

Brotherton said nothing, waited.

Phil and Clayton exchanged a glance. Phil continued. ‘It’s your girlfriend.’

Brotherton frowned. Sophie joined him. ‘Girlfriend?’

‘Claire Fielding.Your girlfriend.’

‘You mean ex-girlfriend,’ said Sophie quickly before Brotherton could speak.

Phil looked between the two of them. He knew what was happening. ‘Ex-girlfriend. I’m sorry.’

‘So? What about her? What’s she done now?’ He took a step forward, hands instinctively bunching into fists. ‘What’s she said about me now, eh? What lies has she come out with this time?’

Phil kept his face straight, his voice neutral. ‘What lies has she told before, Mr Brotherton?’

Brotherton gave a harsh bark. It could have been a laugh. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know.You wouldn’t be here otherwise. ’

‘Would this have something to do with your assault charges?’ said Clayton.

‘You know fuckin’ well it does. Just because I’ve done time for assault over five years ago you think you can keep dredgin’ it up all the damned time. Every time some bird makes some allegation you automatically come to me. Well I’m sick of it. Any more of this and I’ll get my solicitor on to you.’

‘That won’t be necessary, Mr Brotherton,’ said Phil. ‘There won’t be any more allegations against you. At least not from Claire Fielding.’

Another snort. ‘Why? She been given a restrainin’ order? Stop pesterin’ me?’

‘No, Mr Brotherton,’ said Phil, ‘she’s dead.’

He waited, scrutinising Brotherton and Sophie’s faces for the slightest out-of-place expression, to file away for a later date. The two of them exchanged glances. Sophie looked to be about to say something but Brotherton shushed her. ‘What happened?’ he said, voice flat.

‘She was murdered. In her flat, last night.’

His jaw sagged slightly open, his eyes went blank. Phil imagined that for him it was quite a display of emotion. Brotherton’s usual range probably went all the way from anger to anger.

‘What… what…’Then a thought struck him. ‘She was pregnant, wasn’t she?’

‘She was, Mr Brotherton. With your baby?’ said Clayton.

‘So she said,’ said Brotherton, the anger in his words indicating that whatever grieving process he had undergone for Claire Fielding was now officially over.

‘What d’you mean by that?’ said Phil.

‘What I said. Oldest trick in the book, innit? You wanna catch a man, you tell him you’re pregnant.’ He made an expansive arm gesture, looked round the office. ‘I mean, look at this place. I’m not bleedin’ Alan Sugar, but this is all mine. I own it.’

‘Your company?’ said Phil.

Brotherton nodded. ‘I do all right out of it. And women, when they see that, they think, ooh, I’ll have a bit of that for myself. Better than workin’. So what’s the easiest way to do it?’ He shrugged, gave a self-satisfied smile as if he had just explained a particularly thorny issue to the Oxford University debating society. ‘Exactly.’

‘Well she’s dead now, Mr Brotherton, so your empire is safe.’

Brotherton nodded, failing to pick up the sarcasm in Phil’s tone.

‘So who’s the F?’ asked Clayton.

‘What?’ Brotherton was clearly irritated by the question.

‘The F. In the sign out there. B & F Metals.’

Brotherton shrugged. ‘Bought him out. Kept the name so people knew who they were dealing with.’

‘And that’s important, isn’t it?’ said Phil. ‘Knowing who you’re dealing with.’

Brotherton just stared at him.

‘Why were you out on the crane if you’re the boss of the company?’ asked Phil, frowning. ‘Don’t you pay someone to do that?’

Brotherton’s chest puffed out with pride. ‘Good to keep your hand in. Keeps you fit, strong.’

‘Never know when that’s going to come in handy, do you?’

Brotherton turned to Phil, his muscles flexing, hands balling into fists. Clayton looked between the two, spoke.

‘So you were no longer seeing her?’ he asked. ‘Claire Fielding?’

Another snort, attention diverted from Phil. ‘Why would I?’ He looked around, smiled triumphantly. ‘I’ve got Sophie now, ain’t I?’

Sophie returned the smile with all the warmth and animation her Botoxed features would allow.

‘So why would you still be described in her diary as her boyfriend?’ asked Phil.

‘Bollocks.’

‘It’s true, Mr Brotherton. Her address book still has your name in it too, and she carried a photo of you in her wallet.’

‘You know what birds are like,’ he said, trying to remain cocky. ‘Can’t let go, can they?’ But his features didn’t mirror his words. And something unfamiliar entered his eyes. Fear?

‘Mr Brotherton, where were you last night between the hours of ten p.m. and two a.m.?’

‘What?’ Brotherton looked between the two policemen.

‘You heard the question,’ said Clayton.

‘I was…’ He looked to Sophie for support.

‘He was with me,’ she said, picking up on his visual clue.

‘Where?’ said Phil.

‘At my place,’ she said quickly.

‘Doing what?’ said Clayton.

‘What business is that of yours?’ she said, her face finding animation at last.

‘This is a murder inquiry; answer the question, please.’

‘Watching a DVD. Bottle of wine, takeaway.’

‘What film?’

‘What?’ she said.

‘What film were you watching?’ Phil said again.

‘We… had a couple,’ Brotherton said.

‘What were they?’ Clayton’s voice was calm and emotionless.

‘Something… something Sophie wanted and… and something I wanted.’ Brotherton looked at her again, willing her to speak.

‘Which was?’ Phil’s voice was also flat and emotionless. A question machine.

‘Atonement,’ said Sophie.

‘No Country for Old Men,’ said Brotherton.

‘Is that out on DVD yet?’ said Clayton.

‘Got a pirate.’

Phil allowed himself a small smile. ‘Want us to do you for that as well?’

‘Look, just… fuck off. You’ve got what you wanted, we’ve told you what we were doin’. You’ve got your information, just… leave. Now. I’ve got a business to run.’ Brotherton was talking himself into confidence again. ‘And you’re bad for it.’

Phil and Clayton exchanged another look, the purpose of which was to rattle Brotherton and Sophie even more than their questioning had. Leaving them with that, they made their way to the door.

Phil stepped through first, Clayton following. As he came abreast of Brotherton, he turned.

‘What did you think of Romola Garai?’

‘What?’ he said, startled.

‘Briony,’ he said.

Brotherton’s face was blank. He looked to Sophie for help, but she was as lost as he was.

‘Romola Garai,’ Clayton continued. ‘She played the adult Briony. The lead character in Atonement.’ He smiled. ‘Thought you might have remembered that. I mean, you only saw it last night.’

He left, following Phil across the yard to the car.

‘That’s my boy,’ said Phil when Clayton caught up with him.

‘Thank you, boss. Everythin’ I learned, I learned from you.’

‘You like Atonement, did you?’

Clayton smiled. ‘Never seen it. Saw some pictures of that Romola Garai in Nuts. Thought she looked hot. Remembered what film she was in.’

Phil’s turn to smile. ‘So there is some value in those magazines after all.’

They reached the Audi, got back in.

‘So what d’you think, boss? Dirty?’

‘Hard to say. Something’s not right. He’s big enough to do it and he’s got previous. And from the way he responded, there seemed to be some unfinished business between him and Claire Fielding.’

‘He didn’t seemed too upset about her death,’ said Clayton.

‘He didn’t.’

‘And he was lyin’ about where he was last night.’

‘They all lie to us, Clayton. Haven’t you worked that out yet?’ He put the car into gear. ‘Back to Colchester.’ He thought of Marina. She would be at the station by now. He felt butterflies at the thought, tried to immediately tamp them down. He had work to do.

Clayton looked back at the office, then round again. He groaned. ‘Not Glasvegas again…’

‘No,’ said Phil, thinking. ‘About time you developed some taste, I think.’

Clayton’s eyes brightened. ‘Yeah?’

‘How about some Neil Young?’ Phil knew his DS would have never heard of him, but after the last admonishment he wouldn’t dare to argue. ‘A classic. Something to get the old brain cells working.’

Clayton shook his head. ‘Kill me now,’ he said under his breath.

Phil took a perverse and childish satisfaction in putting Clayton in his place.

They drove back to Colchester as fast as they could.

11

Marina bent over the washbasin and vomited again. One hand on the porcelain, one holding her hair away from her face.

‘Oh God…’ Her voice broken, riding out the waves of nausea, crying as she spoke. ‘I can’t… can’t do this…’

She gasped, breathed hard, waiting to see if there was to be any more. A deep breath in. Held and let go. And again. She sighed, eyes closed, listening to her body. That was it, she felt. No more. There was nothing left inside her to come out.

Opening her eyes, she ran the cold tap, splashed her face, the water disguising the tears, and straightened up, running her fingers through her hair, looking at herself in the mirror. Her eyes more haunted than ever. More fearful.

And with good reason, she thought.

Her hands went automatically to her stomach as she tried to control her breathing, will herself to calm down.

So, she thought. She was one of those women who were sick. And she knew the cause: the photos. She had been shown into reception at Colchester’s main police station on Southway. The duty sergeant had rung through; DCI Ben Fenwick had come down to greet her. He looked exactly the same. Smart suit, hair greying but neatly cut. His features were symmetrical and pleasing to look at, but somehow avoided being handsome. Marina assumed this was because he was too bland.

He came towards her, hand outstretched, smile in place, reminding her once again of the overeager head boy, welcoming newcomers to the sixth form. She felt sure he had done that.

‘Marina,’ he said, shaking her hand, moving her forward. ‘Welcome back. Come through. Let’s walk and talk.’

They went through the double doors, Fenwick striding urgently. ‘You know,’ he said without breaking stride, ‘we could never have reached a successful conclusion in the Gemma Hardy case without you.’

‘Thank you.’ And we know what happened with that, she thought, almost running along behind him.

Fenwick must have picked up her thought telepathically. ‘Of course, what happened afterwards, none of us could have predicted. And for that I am most deeply, deeply sorry. I am just so pleased that it was concluded successfully.’

And that I never sued the department, she mentally added.

‘I’m fine now.’ She was glad he wasn’t level with her, couldn’t see her eyes.

‘I’m delighted to hear it. Delighted.’ His voice changed, the pitch deepening. Through another set of double doors. ‘Of course, there will be nothing like that this time. Nothing. You have my personal word on that.’

King Cliché, she thought. Of course. How could she forget?

‘Thank you. Heard you on the radio on the way in, Ben,’ she said. ‘A double murder? Two women?’

Fenwick nodded, rounded a corner. ‘A flat in that new development. Parkside Quarter. Neither showed up for work today. Both stabbed to death. Nasty. Very nasty.’

Marina nodded, already processing the information, making quick assumptions. Women, stabbing. The blade a surrogate sexual organ. Since her specialisation was psychosexual deviancy, that was obviously why she had been called in. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘What else have you got?’

‘Well…’ Fenwick stopped walking, looked at her. She instinctively pulled her coat close around herself. A specially bought swing-cut coat to hide the baby bulge. And something told her she should disguise it. Despite numerous diversity training courses, she still believed that the police as an organisation remained not only institutionally racist but sexist too. And always would be: a brick house is always a brick house and no amount of beechwood cladding is ever going to change that, she thought. It was just something she had to accept if she wanted to work alongside the police. But she didn’t want any of her findings being dismissed as the misguided thinking of a hormonally overcharged woman.

Fenwick sighed. And she saw beyond his politician’s bonhomie a worried, weary man. ‘We think it ties in with another two murders we’ve had,’ he said. Marina could clearly see the stress lines etched on his face. ‘It’s a biggie. A real biggie. Under a lot of pressure on this. A hell of a lot. We’ve got to come up with a result, and soon.’ Another sigh. He rubbed his eyes, then, aware that she was watching him, rallied. ‘Come on. I’ve got the case files ready for you. And a desk too, come to that. This way.’

She was led through more corridors. She tried to remember the layout from the last time, but this time she was being taken somewhere different. Fenwick opened the door to the bar. She frowned, followed him in. The pool tables were covered over, turned into desks with computers and phones on them, likewise the tables, banquettes and booths. Filing cabinets next to fruit machines. And there were plenty of people working. More than she had seen last time.

‘Bit unorthodox,’ said Fenwick. ‘Major Incident Squad is usually based up at Stanway, but they’re having asbestos removed in the interview rooms. Plus we need a lot of space for this one. Lot of space.’

The shutters were down over the bar, whiteboards placed in front, dominating the room. They kept the team focused, reminding them all what they were working towards; the desks, tables and chairs in the bar were in satellite formation to them.

She looked at one of the whiteboards, saw photos of four women’s faces. All smiling, anyone else cropped, leaving them the centre of attention, all unaware through their smiles that they would one day end up here. Names were attached: Lisa King, Susie Evans, Claire Fielding, Julie Simpson. Ordinary names, extraordinary deaths. Marker-pen lines linking them together like a grisly dot-to-dot. Other names, dates, locations beneath them. Nothing yet linking them. Marina knew there wouldn’t be. She wouldn’t be here if there were.

Fenwick gestured from a table at the side of the room. She crossed to him.

‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘Not much, I’m afraid, but there’s a computer and a phone. And these.’ He tapped a set of files sitting by the keyboard. ‘All yours. Photocopied this morning. If you could keep them on the premises we’d be grateful. But if you can’t, you know, be discreet.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Can I get you anything?’ said Fenwick, a smile playing on his lips as he gestured to the shuttered bar. ‘Gin and tonic? Wine? Beer?’

Marina smiled. ‘Coffee would be good, thanks.’

Fenwick arranged for a junior officer to fetch her a coffee. Marina sat down at the desk, took her notebook and pen from her bag, ready to read.

‘There you go. I’ll leave you to do your… whatever it is you do,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘But I should warn you. The photos… they’re pretty upsetting. And if I’m saying that, they must be. So be warned.’

She nodded and he left her to it. She opened the first file, marked Lisa King, and began to read. She hadn’t reached the photos before she felt her stomach start to lurch. The uniform placed the coffee down on the desk and she took a mouthful. It tasted bitter. She felt it swirl around in her stomach. She kept reading.

Her head began to swim. She swallowed hard, blinked. Picked up the next file: Susie Evans. Read on. It became harder to breathe. Despite the room being large and open, it felt stuffy and hot. She needed air. Her stomach lurched and a heaving sensation began working its way up her chest. Her hand went to her throat, tried to hold down the rising acid and bile. She looked again at the photos.

And knew she was going to be sick.

12

Phil Brennan pulled the Audi into the car park, switched off the engine.

‘Come on,’ he said to Clayton, unfastening his seat belt and swinging open the door. ‘Report to write. Let’s see if Anni’s back yet.’

Clayton didn’t move. ‘You go on without me, boss. Just got something I need to do.’

‘What, put in a harassment claim because I made you listen to Neil Young? Again?’

Clayton managed a polite smile. It had sounded like the same three-note song all the way back. He had hated it. ‘Just got an idea,’ he said. As he spoke, his eyes darted round, looking anywhere but at Phil. ‘Thought someone in that scrapyard looked familiar.’

‘Who?’

Clayton began to get out of the car. ‘Not sure. Give me a couple of hours.’

‘Don’t take too long,’ said Phil.

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Clayton, turning and walking away. ‘First twenty-four hours and all that.’

Phil bit back the retort, tamped down the irritation he felt at his junior officer. Let him go, he thought. Give him his head. He entered the building, pushing through the doors, swiping his pass. He felt tense, on edge.

Nothing to do with seeing Marina again. All to do with the clock ticking, he said to himself.

He made his way up to his office.

Marina stood outside the bar, trying to pluck up courage to enter once again. She knew what they must be thinking of her.

Civilian. Can’t stand the heat. Can’t take the pressure. Shouldn’t do it, then. And a woman, what can you expect?

She knew. Was sure they were saying it out loud. Normally she would be in there, confronting them, facing down anyone who dared to question her fitness for the job. But not this time. This time she didn’t blame them. This time she even agreed with them.

She put her hand beneath her coat, cradling the baby growing inside her. It might not have been planned, but she didn’t want anything to happen to it. To her. Not like in those reports, those photos. Dead mothers. Dead babies.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the door to the bar, walked back in. A few heads turned in her direction, then went back to what they had been doing. She walked over to her desk, sat down again, picked up a report.

‘You okay?’

She looked up. Fenwick was standing over her, concern in his eyes. She gave a quick look round the room. Saw only sympathetic looks in her direction, nothing judgemental.

She nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s just…’

‘Don’t worry. Nobody blames you for your reaction. I told you this was a bad one. I mean, I’m sure I’ve dealt with worse, but I really can’t remember when.’

She nodded again.

‘There’s something else,’ said Fenwick, leaning over her. ‘Now that you’ve had a look at the files I should tell you. In the first murder the baby was cut up in the mother’s stomach. In the second it was removed. The baby in this morning’s murder is missing.’

‘Oh God…’

‘So work your magic, the quicker the better, please.’

He laid a hand on her shoulder that could have been either comforting or patronising and walked away, leaving her to it. She watched him go into his office, close the door.

She looked at the reports in front of her, then to her notebook. She opened the Susie Evans report again, began to read once more. She was here to do a job.

She became engrossed, didn’t notice someone standing at her side until they spoke.

‘Hey.’

Her breath caught in her throat. She stopped reading. She wanted to look up but didn’t dare until she was ready.

‘Hey yourself.’

He looked good. A bit thinner perhaps but that was no bad thing. She found a smile for him and sat upright in her chair. ‘You still here, then?’

‘They tried to get rid of me, kept coming back.’

‘Bit like me,’ she said.

Phil smiled, then looked round the room, as if aware that people might be staring. Marina was unsure how many people knew of their relationship or its ending and she felt herself blushing. She picked up the coffee mug to cover it, put it to her lips. Cold. She made a face, replaced it on the desk.

‘I’ll get you some fresh,’ he said.

‘Doesn’t matter. I doubt it’ll taste any better.’

Silence. She saw Phil’s mouth move, as if rehearsing what he wanted to say. But knew he wouldn’t say it.

‘Ben Fenwick been looking after you?’ he said eventually.

‘My every whim catered for.’

Phil gave another smile. ‘Is that right. You got everything you need?’

She nodded.

‘Good.’ Another look round, then back to her. ‘How’s…’ He paused.

She knew he was only pretending to forget the name.

‘Tony,’ she said, prompting him.

‘Tony. Right. He okay?’

‘Fine.’ She looked into the coffee mug. ‘Everything. Fine and Jim Dandy.’ She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, breathed in, her stomach suddenly feeling enormous.

‘Whoever he is,’ said Phil. ‘Well, you look like you know what you’re doing. I’ll leave you to it, right?’

‘Okay.’

‘Right.’

‘You said that already.’

He laughed. ‘Right.’ Laughed again. ‘Well… I’m sure I’ll see you later.’

‘Later.’

He moved away, walking towards his desk. She kept her eyes on him the whole time, then shook her head. No, she thought, that’s the last thing I need right now.

She put her head down, looked again at the paperwork in front of her but couldn’t concentrate. There had been too many things left unsaid between her and Phil. Things they should talk about. If she decided she wanted to. But they would have to wait.

She went back to the reports. Concentrating this time.

Because lives depended on it.

13

Emma Nicholls sat down behind her desk and gave DC Anni Hepburn a smile intended to convey confidence and professionalism but which instead screamed tension and barely suppressed emotion.

She was dressed as if for a normal day at work as a head teacher: black two-piece trouser suit, light-coloured blouse, hair cut into a long bob. But the day was no longer normal. Two of her teachers had been murdered and now the school had been invaded by police.

DC Anni Hepburn had been a detective long enough to develop a detachment that enabled her to do her job effectively while still retaining sympathy for the victims of violent crime. She hoped she always would. Human debris, was how she often secretly referred to them. Broken remains needing – and hoping for – repair. But she had also been a detective long enough to know that that wouldn’t always happen.

Emma Nicholls, she thought, would be all right eventually. She hadn’t seen what Anni had seen earlier that day in Claire Fielding’s flat, smelled what she had smelled. And, as the headmistress kept stressing, her relationship with Claire Fielding and Julie Simpson had been mainly professional.

‘Please understand,’ Emma Nicholls said, tipping her head back and appearing to audition words in her head before trusting them to leave her mouth, ‘that my primary concern is for this school.’

‘Of course.’

‘By that I mean everyone. The welfare of the children and the staff I consider to be equally paramount.’

‘Right.’

Words chosen, she continued. ‘Having said that, I seldom interfere in the affairs of my staff unless they are personal friends or they ask for help.’

Anni nodded, knowing a disclaimer when she heard one. ‘Okay.’

Emma Nicholls’ office managed to be both professional and welcoming, with achievements and diplomas on the walls alongside schedules, year planners and pictures the children had made especially for her. She seemed to be popular and well thought of. It was how Anni thought a primary school head teacher’s office – and a primary school head teacher – should be.

The school was old but had been modernised. Clean, bright and bursting with positive energy, and with children’s work and achievements decorating the walls, it was clearly a place where the children were valued and well taught. But then, thought Anni, this was Lexden. An affluent suburb of Colchester. She would expect it to be like that.

The children, or at least most of them that Anni had come into contact with since she had arrived there, seemed so full of hope, of life, of potential and enthusiasm for the world. They had seemed thrilled by the arrival of the police. Something different, something exciting to break up the routine. But as Anni and her small team of junior officers and uniforms had gone about their business of interviewing staff and explaining what their procedures would be, the children, she knew, no matter how discreet her team or how careful the teaching staff in explaining things, would soon find out. There was no way the murder of two teachers – well loved, if the comments she had overheard were anything to go by – could not affect them. And then they would see what the police were really there for. And begin to understand that the world wasn’t like they saw on TV; that it could be a horrible, cruel place. That was why Anni had never wanted kids herself. Because no matter how hard you tried to protect them from the world, the world would eventually claim them.

‘So,’ she continued, her notebook open, ‘were Claire Fielding and Julie Simpson personal friends?’

Emma Nicholls seemed about to answer but instead sighed, her eyes drifting off, her forced pleasantness slipping away to be replaced by a dark, depressive air. Like a cancer victim who had momentarily forgotten their predicament.

‘This is just terrible,’ she said.

With nothing to add, Anni nodded.

‘Oh my God…’

The dark, depressive air was increasing. Anni had to take control. ‘Ms Nicholls,’ she said. ‘I’m most terribly sorry about what’s happened. I realise this is an awful time, but I really do need to ask you some questions.’

Emma Nicholls pulled herself upright. ‘I know, I know. You’ve…’ Her mind drifted again, her features taking on the appearance of approaching tears. She managed to pull herself together. ‘Sorry.’

‘That’s all right.’

The head teacher allowed a small smile to cross her face. ‘At times like this I wish I still smoked.’

Anni gave a small smile. ‘I’m sure you do. Right. Claire Fielding and Julie Simpson. Friends?’

Emma Nicholls nodded.

‘Julie was Year Six, Claire Year Four, right?’

Emma Nicholls nodded again, her hands fidgeting as if an imaginary cigarette was there.

‘And Claire was pregnant.’

Another nod.

‘How long did she have to go until maternity leave?’

‘A couple… a couple of weeks.’

‘Was it planned, d’you know? Was she happy about it?’

Emma Nicholls frowned. ‘Is that important? She’s dead.’

‘I know. But we have to ask these questions. Helps us find out who did it.’

‘Right.’The frown slowly disappeared to be replaced by a sigh. ‘She seemed happy about it, from what I could gather.’

‘We believe she had friends round last night.’

‘Yes. A baby shower.’ Her lip trembled again.

‘Ms Nicholls, we’re trying to track down anyone one else who may have been there. Could you give me any names?’

Emma Nicholls didn’t have to give the matter any thought. ‘Chrissie Burrows. Geraint Cooper. They were talking about it this morning.’

‘That’s it? Just those two?’

‘Just…’ Tears threatened her eyes again.

Anni waited until the head teacher was once more under control.

‘Ms Nicholls, I’ll need to talk to them too.’

Emma Nicholls nodded. Anni looked at her notes. ‘What about Claire’s boyfriend? Did she ever mention him?’

The frown returned to Emma Nicholls’ face, along with a guarded look in her eyes. ‘Her boyfriend.’

‘Ryan Brotherton,’ said Anni, looking at her notes once more. ‘At least that’s what we’re assuming. His name crops up a lot in her diary. Dates, that sort of thing. Did she ever mention him at all?’

‘Well, Claire didn’t have a very… easy relationship with him from what I could gather. As I said, it was none of my business. She was an excellent teacher, very professional, and the children adored her. Whatever else went on in her life, as long as it didn’t impinge on work I couldn’t get involved.’

Anni said nothing.

Emma Nicholls continued. ‘Claire had recently split up with her partner.’

Anni frowned. She hadn’t received that impression from the notebooks in Claire’s flat.

‘You look surprised.’

‘I am. I was given to understand that the relationship was still ongoing.’

Emma Nicholls shook her head. ‘Again, I must stress that I seldom interfere, but my staff know my door is always open for them. A few months ago Claire was looking very despondent. I asked her if she wanted to talk. She didn’t. Julie…’ Again the dark cloud descended as she spoke the name. ‘Julie… told me that Claire and her partner had split up. And that Claire was taking it very badly.’

‘When would this have been?’

Emma Nicholls thought. ‘About… when she announced she was pregnant. Five months ago? Six months. Something like that.’ Her fingers fidgeted again. ‘Everyone rallied round, as I said. And she got over it eventually.’

‘Do you think she wanted him back?’

Emma Nicholls looked surprised at the question. ‘Of course. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes. I suppose I would,’ Anni said, trying to smile.

‘Yes. Even him.’

Anni leaned forward. ‘Even him? What d’you mean?’

Emma Nicholls did her auditioning thing once more. ‘He… I don’t think he did her much good. Not just running out when she was pregnant, but…’ She put her head back. Anni felt as if she was about to impart something important. Then she leaned forward, waved her hand. Whatever it was she was going to say, the moment had passed. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. You wanted facts. Anything else I could say would be conjecture.’

Anni realised this would be as much as she was going to get on Claire Fielding. She checked her notes once more. ‘What about Julie Simpson?’

‘What about her?’

‘Anything happened to her recently that strikes you as out of the ordinary?’

Emma Nicholls frowned in thought. Shook her head. ‘Nothing… No. Nothing.’

‘Any enemies?’

‘Enemies?’ Emma Nicholls looked round the room as if unable to believe what she had just heard. ‘She was a primary school teacher, not a… an international terrorist.’

‘No,’ said Anni, ‘but she’s also just been murdered.’

Emma Nicholls’ face fell. Her head nodded forward. ‘No,’ she said to the floor, ‘no enemies. She was liked in this school. Well liked.’

‘No…’ Anni tried to be tactful, ‘liaisons? Anything like that? Something that could go wrong?’

‘No. Nothing at all. Nothing.’

Anni nodded. There were at least two people she thought would be able to help her more than the professionally guarded Emma Nicholls. ‘Chrissie Burrows, Geraint Cooper,’ she said. ‘Where could I find them, please?’

Emma Nicholls made arrangements for Anni to see them. Anni put her notebook away, rose to go, thanked the head teacher for her time.

‘Not at all. I just wish I could have been more help.’

‘You’ve been fine.’

Emma Nicholls put her hand on Anni’s arm, stopped her from leaving. ‘There is one more thing. Perhaps you were right.’

Anni frowned. ‘About what?’

‘Ryan Brotherton. I know I said it was over between them. But I got the impression… and again this is just conjecture, not fact… I got the impression that it may have been over but it wasn’t quite finished. Do you know what I mean?’

‘I do. Some people are like that,’ said Anni.

‘Men in particular,’ said Emma Nicholls.

14

Caroline Eades pointed the BMW 4x4 towards Stanway, drove out of the city centre. As she took it round the roundabout and down the Lexden Road, she felt once again that she wasn’t just driving a car but manoeuvring a tank. She knew all her friends at the gym were jealous, told her how much they loved it, but she hated it. She wished she had never let Graeme buy it for her.

Her lunch had passed in a pleasant enough way, the same as it always did. Her friends were good company and it was always fun to catch up with the gossip. The Life café on Culver Street West wasn’t Starbucks or Caffè Nero, and when it was her turn, she always insisted they went there. Everyone else went to the chains because they thought they were somewhere to be seen. And because they had the same menu all day every day in every branch and you knew what you were getting. But Caroline found that boring, depressing even. She preferred Life. And the others went along with her.

With original art for sale on the walls and iMac internet access, Life was individual, a one-off, and it made her feel like an individual going there. It was bright and airy and the coffee and cakes were good. Not that she allowed herself cakes all that often. She had compromised: a slice of rocky road with the marshmallows removed. Well, most of them.

She turned off the Lexden Road before it became London Road, feeling her arms ache as she spun the wheel – even with the power steering it was a beast to manage – and headed towards her estate. It was starting to feel like home now. She had moved there nearly two years ago from a small but very pleasant house in St Mary’s, an area over the walkway from the Mercury Theatre, just outside the town’s wall. Bordered to the west by Crouch Street, and on the east by the wall, it had the feel of a little village within the town, but the nearness to the centre meant it wasn’t too cut off. Broad Street also had its delis, designer clothes shops, restaurants, pubs and furniture shops, all adding to the feel. However, like so much of the town, it had become choked by new apartment blocks and she took that as her sign to leave. By then it was just another suburban outpost of Colchester, the chi-chi shops of Crouch Street an affectation on what was really a main road off the Queensway roundabout.

The estate in Stanway was further away from the town centre. Secluded, the estate agent had said. Select. And it looked it. Large executive houses, tastefully designed, solidly built. No two the same, and each one with space for at least two cars on the driveway. It was what Graeme wanted. Caroline had loved the house in St Mary’s but was trying to feel content here.

She pulled up in front of her house, the black 4x4 jerking to a halt with a slight squeal of brakes, the front tyre on the pavement. Hating the car once again. Maybe when she’d had the baby she might enjoy driving it more. Get hold of the wheel properly without her huge belly getting in the way.

She climbed out, took her gym bag from the boot, walked to the front door, humming a song she had been listening to on the radio. Let herself in. Put the keys on the table in the hall, went to the kitchen. It was symbolic of everything she had ever thought she wanted in life. A beautiful house. A great car. A childhood sweetheart who had turned into a handsome husband. Two gorgeous kids already and a third on the way. Life, she kept telling herself, couldn’t get more perfect.

She crossed to the fridge, poured herself a glass of orange juice, took it to the breakfast bar. She sat down on one of the stools, took a mouthful, and a wave of tiredness overwhelmed her.

She sighed. Exhausted again. She told herself it was just the baby, that was all. The baby. She and Graeme already had two older children, nearly teenagers. Alfie, twelve, and Vanessa, ten. What was she doing having another baby? Now? At her age?

Thirty-nine wasn’t old, she told herself. Not too old to be a mother again. Not too old to still be a desirable, attractive woman.

She took another mouthful of juice. Felt it travel all the way down her body. She shouldn’t drink it too quickly, she would want to pee again. Especially if the baby decided to lie on her kidneys. Another deep breath as she tried to find a comfortable way to sit. Her mind flashed back to lunch. The girls. All younger than her, all expecting their first baby. They were a good bunch, friendly, fun to be with. But sometimes Caroline thought she saw them looking at her not in a friendly way. Like they were laughing at her. As if she was too old. Trying to look younger, pass as one of them when she should have been past all that. Like being out with their mum.

They had never said this, but it was a feeling she got. Only sometimes.

Caroline finished the juice, put the glass in the dishwasher. As she stood up, stars danced before her eyes. She began to feel light-headed. She had moved too quickly. That started to happen now. More and more often as the baby got heavier and heavier. Natural, the doctor had said, but still bloody annoying.

She supported herself against the counter top, got her breath and her balance back. Checked her watch. Four hours until Graeme came home. She should have something prepared for dinner. She sighed again, too tired to stand upright let alone cook. Lucky she had remembered to call in at M &S. Roast shank of lamb plus prepared vegetables. Wouldn’t take too long to heat up. And if Graeme complained, she would tell him to make dinner himself.

The kitchen gleamed, all beech and granite and matching appliances. Another sigh. At least she hoped it would be four hours until Graeme arrived home. Lately he had been coming back later and later. Working longer hours, he said. Getting in the overtime before the baby came along. Because they would need the money then. Babies were expensive, had she forgotten? And when he did arrive home he was tetchy and miserable. Jumping on the slightest thing she said or did. And he never wanted sex any more. Admittedly at the moment she was too tired for it, but even in the first stages, when she was feeling really horny, he hadn’t wanted it. In fact, the last time they had made love was when she got pregnant. She would remember something like that.

And the kids were no help. Coming in straight from school, upstairs to their rooms, on the internet, watching TV. She may as well be by herself.

She sat down again on a bar stool. If this was her life and it was all so perfect, why did she feel so unhappy?

She wanted a bath. A long, lovely, luxurious soak to ease away all the aches and strains she carried round with her. But she couldn’t do that while she was in the house alone. What if she got stuck? What if someone came to the door and she couldn’t get out? No. Too risky. She would have to settle for a shower instead. Again.

She went up the stairs, one step at a time, supporting herself heavily on the banister, into the bathroom, where she ran the water, began to slowly strip away the layers of her clothes.

At least all I have to do is stand there, she thought. I don’t have to move.

She stepped into the shower. Closed her eyes.

Stood there until her legs ached. Then towelled off, went into the bedroom and changed into her pyjamas and dressing gown. She only meant to have a few minutes’ rest. Just a quick lie-down on the bed. But as soon as she closed her eyes she was gone.

Her last thought before sleep claimed her was that it would all sort itself out. When the baby was born.

15

Chrissie Burrows had, Anni thought, been very eager to help but didn’t have much to contribute. She had come across her type quite often. It was a common enough response in situations like this, to feel that you had to do everything possible to assist, even when you had exhausted your knowledge.

The woman was in her thirties, plain and round. But she had eyes that, under different circumstances, would have indicated a lively, fun companion. Not these circumstances, however.

The empty classroom they were talking in felt hot and cloying. Like the boiler was turned up too high to keep the children drowsy. Anni tried to ignore it, set to work establishing a timeline for the party.

Chrissie Burrows sat fidgeting with one paper tissue after another, dabbing her eyes, blowing her nose, reducing them to shreds with her fingers. ‘Well, I… I left early.’

‘What time would that have been?’

‘Around nine. Nine thirty at the very latest. But nearer nine, I think.’

‘Any particular reason?’

She thought, shook her head. ‘We… we were all having a good time. I’d given Claire her present, some Babygros…’ The tears threatened again. She plucked another paper tissue from the box. Anni waited for her to ride the moment out.

‘And you went home.’

She nodded. ‘Still had some work to do for today. And I have a long drive, so I only had one glass…’

‘And did you see anyone suspicious as you left? Anyone loitering outside or on the stairs?’

She shook her head. Her brow was furrowed, as if by concentrating hard enough she would be able to make the memory, or even the person, Anni wanted appear before them.

‘So who else was there, apart from yourself?’

‘Claire, Julie, Geraint… that’s it.’

‘No one from outside school?’

She shook her head.

‘Not Claire’s boyfriend? Ryan Brotherton?’

Chrissie Burrows sat up, something else in her eyes besides tears. ‘No. Not him. Claire never wanted to see him again.’

Anni kept her expression professionally blank. ‘Why not?’

‘He was a… oh.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t say it. But he was bad for Claire. Very bad. Getting rid of him was the best thing she ever did.’

‘What about Julie? Was there anyone in her background who might have wanted to harm her?’

Chrissie Burrows looked up. ‘Julie? No. No one. No one wanted to harm her. She was, she was…’ The tears started again.

Anni was beginning to see a pattern emerging.

She regarded the weeping woman intently, doubting there was anything more she could tell her. She was just a normal woman who couldn’t believe that something horribly extraordinary had invaded her life and taken away two of her friends in the most brutal way imaginable.

Anni stood up, handed her a card. ‘If you think of anything else, please call.’

Chrissie Burrows took the card without looking up.

With a uniform stepping in to take a statement from the distraught teacher, Anni went on to question Geraint Cooper. Relieved to be out of that hot room.

The police had requisitioned the nurse’s room for questioning and he was waiting for her there. At least it was slightly cooler than the classroom. Geraint Cooper was black and, she surmised, in his mid to late twenties. Neatly dressed, he sat with his hands in his lap. Anni didn’t believe in jumping to conclusions, and certainly not in stereotypes, but from his demeanour and attitude, she was sure Geraint Cooper was gay.

She sat down opposite him and introduced herself.

‘Mr Cooper, I’m DS Hepburn.’

They shook hands. She felt from his loose grip that he was shaking slightly.

‘I’ll try and make this as painless as possible,’ she said with a small smile. ‘You were at Claire Fielding’s last night along with Julie Simpson and Chrissie Burrows.’ Not a question, a statement.

He nodded.

‘What time did you leave?’

‘Around ten. Something like that.’

‘And where do you live?’

‘Dutch Quarter. Just up the road from Claire.’ His voice caught as he said her name.

‘How did you get home?’

‘Walked.’

‘And what would you say the mood was like when you left?’

He shrugged. ‘We were all having a good time. A good laugh.’ He looked straight at her. ‘Claire was enjoying herself. We all were.’

‘No arguments, nothing like that?’

He looked as if the question offended him. ‘No. Just having a laugh.’

‘And it was a baby shower?’

He nodded. ‘A baby shower. We brought our presents, opened some wine, had a laugh. God knows, she needed it.’

‘Claire? Why d’you say that?’

He sat back, his body language defensive, arms wrapped over his chest. ‘Because of him.’

‘You mean Ryan Brotherton?’

He nodded.

‘What did he do?’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard all about it by now.’

‘Tell me again.’

‘He didn’t want the baby. Wanted her to get rid of it. She wouldn’t. She dumped him.’

Anni waited. He said no more. ‘And that’s it?’

He nodded, arms still wrapped tightly round his chest.

She changed her approach. ‘When you left, at around tenish, did you see anyone suspicious hanging about?’

He said nothing, thinking.

‘Either outside the flats, in the street, or even inside, on the stairs. Anyone. Anywhere.’

He sighed. His arms dropped, his posture relaxed. ‘I’ve been thinking about this all day. Over and over in my head. Trying to think…’

‘And was there? Anyone?’

He sighed. ‘No. No one. Sorry. I wish there had been.’

‘That’s all right. And Julie Simpson was still there when you left?’

He nodded.

‘Didn’t she have to get back home?’

‘Said she’d help Claire clear up.’

Knowing the answer, she asked the next question anyway, to check that the stories matched. ‘And were you the first to leave?’

He shook his head. ‘Chrissie went first. She had the furthest to travel. Wivenhoe way.’ He looked at her pointedly. ‘She didn’t drink too much. Didn’t want to get pulled over.’

Anni smiled again. ‘I don’t care about that. I’m just trying to find who killed Claire and Julie.’

He nodded, as if accepting that. ‘Well I think we know who did that, don’t we?’

‘Do we?’ Anni leaned forward slightly. ‘Who would that be, Mr Cooper?’

Geraint Cooper looked her square in the eyes. Anni realised that he was shaking not from nerves but from anger. ‘Well it’s obvious, isn’t it? Claire’s ex. That bastard Ryan Brotherton. He killed her.’

16

DS Clayton Thompson glanced quickly round. No one about. No one following him.

He had left the station and walked down Headgate towards the town centre. The shops were thinking about closing, and with the night drawing in, the bars and restaurants in front of him along Head Street were becoming alluring. He felt their pull on him now, even on a weekday.

Clayton still liked nothing better than to hit a few bars on a night off with his mates, see what he could pull. He thought he would have had enough of it after years in uniform, clearing up on weekend nights when the town-centre pubs were swarming with squaddies from the garrison, hitting on town girls and students, hungry for anything they could get a hold of, ready to fight for it if necessary, but he hadn’t. He looked back fondly on those times; it was good, uncomplicated fun. Bash a few heads together, a few free drinks or whatever else was going.

And it wasn’t all one-way traffic with the squaddies: Clayton had seen plenty of predatory middle-aged women, their bodies squeezed into clothes designed for teenagers, desperately trying to remove the wedding rings from fattened fingers, as if that mattered, bar-hopping in the hope of attracting a young, fit squaddie for the night. In his uniform days he had been called on to break up plenty of fights as young men, having failed to get off with anyone their own age, fought over these women, the women themselves turned on at the sight, thrilled to be a trophy for the winner.

And if they failed to get off with a squaddie, he remembered, a smile crawling across his face, a copper would often do.

But alluring as that was, he had to ignore the memories, the pull of the bars. It would be so easy just to sit there, have a few beers, let it wash away. But he couldn’t. Things had become serious. He had to take action. And he needed privacy for the call he was about to make.

He took out his mobile, dialled a number from his address book. It was a number he hadn’t used for quite a while, but he hadn’t deleted it. He had thought it might come in handy some time. One way or another.

He had lied to Phil when he told him he was following up a lead. Nothing personal, but he had no choice. This was damage limitation. This was his career at stake. He hadn’t gone to look into anything. He had just been walking round the town centre trying to sort everything out, work out what to do next. Whatever he did, he had to tread carefully. Make sure any move he made left him protected.

He turned off the main road, ducked down Church Walk, all boarded-up shops and lock-ups, headed towards the church and the graveyard, ignoring the teen goths and the drinking school gathered by the rusted old gates. The trees and tombstones looked desolate against the darkening sky. It was like the backdrop for some clichéd old Hammer film.

The phone was answered.

‘It’s me,’ he said.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. He waited.

‘I knew you’d call,’ a voice said eventually.

‘Thanks for not grassin’ me up,’ he said.

‘You’re welcome,’ the voice said, in a tone Clayton could-n’t read.

‘I need your help.’

The voice laughed. ‘Course you do.’

Irritation ran through Clayton. He opened his mouth ready to spit out angry words, but stopped himself. That wouldn’t help.

‘I do.’

‘Why?’

‘To… square things. Make sure you’re protected.’

The voice laughed. ‘Make sure one of us is protected, you mean.’

Clayton felt the irritation turn to anger. Swallowed it down. ‘Don’t-’

‘Play games?’ said the voice. ‘You used to like playing games, as I remember.’

Clayton kept a grip on his temper. ‘This is important. We’ve got to talk. Tonight.’

The voice sighed. ‘When and where?’

‘You name the time and the place.’

‘Nine o’clock. The Lamb and Flag, Procter Road, New Town.You know it?’

He did.

‘And I’ll need a lift home afterwards.’

‘Right.’

He rang off. Looked round. The graveyard was fully dark by now. Ghosts and other horrors were free to lurk. He turned, walked back to the station. He didn’t need those ghosts.

He had enough of his own.

17

Anni Hepburn was still questioning Geraint Cooper.

‘So Ryan Brotherton killed Claire? Is that what you’re saying?’

Geraint Cooper nodded. ‘Not content with just Claire, he has to do Julie as well.’

‘Why d’you say that, Mr Cooper?’

‘Oh, come on. It’s got to be him. That bastard.’

‘Do you have any proof, Mr Cooper?’

He looked at her, anger abating slightly. ‘Well, no. But it must be, mustn’t it?’

‘Why must it be?’

‘Because of what he was like.’

‘What was he like?’

‘I told you.’

‘You said he didn’t want the baby and wanted Claire to get rid of it. She wouldn’t and she dumped him. Hardly sounds like grounds for murder.’

‘Well, he was a bastard. The worst kind of bloke. The kind kids leave home to avoid and spend all their lives hating.’

‘Abusive?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Was he not.’

‘To Claire?’

Geraint Cooper calmed down, nodded. His voice dropped. ‘She always goes for the same type. Big blokes, look like they can handle themselves. Real macho. I’ve told her she shouldn’t, they’re trouble, won’t do her any good, but she still does it.’ He stopped, attempted to correct himself. ‘Does… did…’ He sighed again, fighting back tears, then used his anger to regained composure. ‘Oh God… anyway. It’s him.’

‘Tell me more about him, Mr Cooper.’

He leaned forward. Anni didn’t doubt the honesty or sincerity in his eyes. ‘He was awful to her. Started out nice, but then they all do. Then a couple of months in, he changed. Little things. She was late home. Bang. She looked at someone in a pub a funny way. Bang. He didn’t like the dinner she’d cooked him. Bang.’

‘But she didn’t leave him?’

He shook his head. ‘She was unhappy, but she loved him. Kept going back to him. Every time. She would turn up at my house or Julie’s in tears with a black eye or something, saying she was going to leave him. Then she’d get better and he’d call her, promise never to do it again, and that would be it. She’d have him back.’

‘Right,’ said Anni.

Geraint Cooper looked at her, his face hard. ‘I suppose you’re saying she deserved it, aren’t you? That she brought it on herself for being so stupid? So soft? For letting him do that?’

‘Not at all, Mr Cooper,’ said Anni, her voice calm and even. ‘I’ve seen this happen a lot. Too much, to be honest. And not to soft, stupid women. They’re intelligent, sensible and mature. And often they don’t know how they’ve ended up in that state either.’

Her words seemed to calm him down.

‘So what happened next?’

‘We had what you’d call an intervention. Julie, Chrissie and me. We were her best friends. And we hated what was happening to her. Hated it. Luckily we managed to make her see sense.’

‘But the next thing, she was pregnant?’

Geraint Cooper nodded.

‘By Ryan Brotherton?’

He nodded again. ‘That’s when she finally left him.’

Anni frowned.That contradicted what Emma Nicholls had said. ‘Really?’

‘Really. He said he didn’t want a baby. At all. Under any circumstances. She did. Even his. So he decided she was going to get rid of it. And if she didn’t do it, he would. Forcibly.’

Anni swallowed hard, kept her face as straight as possible. ‘How?’ Her voice was slightly less calm than she wanted it to be.

Geraint Cooper held up his hands, clenched them hard. ‘With these.’

‘Right.’ She swallowed again. ‘And that’s when she left him.’

He nodded. ‘And that’s when he decided he wanted her back.’

‘What about the baby?’

He shrugged. ‘He wanted her more.’

‘So how did he go about that?’

‘Nice as anything. Charming, flowers, the lot. He’d changed, he was a new man, the usual.’

‘And did it work?’

‘No. Like I said, she had us with her now. We helped her be strong.’

Anni frowned again. ‘So he didn’t run out on her; she ran out on him?’

‘Right.’

‘And he didn’t like that.’

Geraint Cooper rolled his eyes. ‘He certainly didn’t.’

‘What did he do?’

‘Got nasty. Phone calls, mainly. Threatening ones. Horrible ones. What he would do to her if he got hold of her. What he would do if she didn’t come back to him. What he would do.’

‘If she didn’t come back to him.You keep saying that,’ she said. ‘I heard the story was that he left her. Is that not right?’

He shook his head, looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘Some people may have been given that impression.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we wanted them to think that. It helped Claire. The three of us there last night, we weren’t just her friends. We were her support group. We kept her going.’

Anni said nothing, knew there was more to come.

‘Think about it. Isn’t it easier to say that you’re pregnant and single because your man’s left you rather than because you’ve summoned up the courage to leave him after he threatened to kill your baby?’

‘He actually said that? Those words? That’s what the phones calls were about? He threatened to kill the baby?’

Geraint Cooper nodded. And kept nodding. And all those tears he had been holding back started to break out.

Anni closed her notebook. She had everything she needed for now.

18

‘Thanks for doing this,’ said Phil. ‘Really appreciate it.’

Nick Lines shrugged; one case was much the same as another to him. ‘Not my decision to make. Those on high deem it high priority; I just act accordingly.’

Phil had done a background check on Ryan Brotherton, and with Clayton still not back and everyone else out on jobs, he phoned Nick Lines. The cadaverous pathologist had been as good as his word, doing both post-mortems in record time. Phil had wasted no time coming straight to the mortuary at Colchester General, where he had released DC Adrian Wren to take care of other duties.

Nick Lines’ office was, in contrast to the clean, sterile, stainless-steel efficiency of the cutting room, a mixture of professional clutter and personal effects. Newspaper articles pinned up on the wall, both serious and jokey, alongside schlocky film postcards, fifties sci-fi and horror. Superhero action figures struck ridiculous poses on shelves. Surprising things, Phil thought. But then it was that kind of profession. Nick Lines was clearly a surprising man.

As they spoke, a CD played in the background. Something gothic and baroque, Phil noted, yet tuneful. He couldn’t place it.

‘What’s this we’re listening to, by the way?’ he asked.

‘The Triffids,’ said Nick, throwing a CD case across the desk, pleased that Phil had asked but hiding his pleasure. ‘Calenture. Brilliant album.’

‘Right,’ said Phil, as he listened to lyrics about sewing up eyelids and stitching up lips. He didn’t ask any more. ‘The results?’

Nick nodded, opened a yellow file, sat back in his chair, steepled his fingers before him. Like a Bond villain about to explain his plan for world domination. ‘The same blade was used on both victims,’ he said, the words drawling, as if his findings had thrilled him to the point of inactivity. ‘About seven inches long, smooth, very sharp edge. Probably a hunting knife, something like that. Quite a heavy blade judging by the size and shape of the incisions.’

‘Could this knife have been used in the previous two murders? ’ asked Phil.

‘I think so,’ said Nick, nodding. ‘Of course I’ve only made a preliminary re-examination of the other two cases at this stage, but I think it’s fair to assume.’ He went back to his explanation. ‘The knife was actually used in different ways. Julie Simpson, the first victim, was stabbed with a sharp slash to the throat. Death wouldn’t have been long in coming.’

He paused for dramatic effect. The Triffids were singing about being blinder by the hour. That just reminded Phil that time was running out.

‘The second victim was dispatched in a completely different way. Physically restrained while a drug was administered.’

‘What drug?’ asked Phil.

‘Tests aren’t back yet, but my guess is introcostrin. It’s a neuro-muscular blocking drug. Controls spontaneous muscle movement during surgical procedures, usually given in very controlled doses.’ He sounded almost regretful. ‘However, this was administered in a much larger dose.’

Phil frowned. ‘How big are we talking?’

‘Very big,’ said Nick. ‘Paralysis would have been almost instantaneous.’

‘So that was for… what? To stop her moving?’

‘Larger than that,’ the pathologist said. ‘It would have stopped her breathing.’

‘Shit,’ said Phil. ‘Can we trace the drug? How easy is it to get hold of?’

‘It’s worth a try. If it’s local, you may be able to find it. But it won’t be easy. If someone’s taken it from a hospital, they’ll have likely covered their tracks. And if they got it from the internet, a counterfeit…’ He shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

Phil made a note.

‘Was it accidental, d’you think? Giving her that much? Or did he mean to?’

Nick smiled. Like he had set a secret test and Phil had passed it. ‘That, in the rather overused and clichéd words of the Bard, is the question. My guess, and it’s only that, is that he didn’t mean to. He wanted her compliant. He then tied her to the bed. It was clear the drug had kicked in by then because there was very little abrasion on the skin against the restraints. She didn’t – or rather couldn’t – struggle. Then he got to work cutting the baby out of her. For that he used the same knife he dispatched Julie Simpson with.’

‘Could he have drugged her to keep her silent? Block of flats, people home…’

‘Very possible. Not easy to keep that kind of thing quiet.’

Phil thought for a moment. ‘How fast d’you think he worked?’ he asked.

Nick frowned.

‘Would there have been time for the drug to have spread to the baby? Would it have been removed still breathing?’

‘Speculation only, I’m afraid. There was very little finesse about the incisions. They were made quickly, which would suggest he was working towards a purpose. I’d say there’s a chance that the drug hadn’t reached the baby by then.’

‘So we can assume it’s still alive?’

Nick shrugged. ‘That would be my assumption.’

‘How skilled were they? I mean medically? Surgically trained?’

The pathologist mulled over the question. ‘Trained… no. Skilled… perhaps. They might have had a rudimentary grasp of what they were doing. They knew where to cut. But not a professional. An enthusiastic amateur.’

‘And Lord preserve us from them,’ said Phil. ‘What about DNA? Anything back yet?’

Nick shook his head. ‘Too early. Could be anything up to a week, even more.’

‘What about sex?’

Nick gave a thin-lipped smile. ‘It’s a kind offer but I’m afraid you’re not my type.’

Phil shook his head. ‘I’ll bet you’re a wow at the Christmas party.’

Nick raised an eyebrow, gave a small smile. Phil didn’t want to think about it.

‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘No evidence of sexual activity. Forced, consensual or otherwise. With either body.’

‘Thanks.’ Phil was digesting what he had heard. ‘Right. Well, if that’s it, I’ll be off.’ He moved to pick up the file.

‘Couple of things,’ said Nick. Phil stopped, waited. The pathologist slid another sheet of paper across the desk. ‘Took the liberty of speaking to a colleague in Ob/Gyn. She factored in the variables: traumatic delivery, premature by four weeks – I checked Claire Fielding’s records; she had a Caesarean booked for four weeks’ time – drug administered to the mother…’ He sighed. ‘If the baby receives fortifiers along with plenty of milk and is kept warm, it might be all right.’

‘Where would you find these fortifiers?’

‘Anywhere. That’s the good news. But if it doesn’t receive constant quality care or it develops breathing difficulties, I think we’re talking hours rather than days.’

Phil took the paper. Felt the familiar band tighten round his chest. ‘Thanks. I think.’ He ignored the pressure building inside him, made his way to the door.

‘Something else. This was all done with some force. I think that that, along with the angle at which the blade entered Julie Simpson, would rule out the possibility of it being a woman. Unless that woman was a six-foot, sixteen-stone bodybuilder.’

Phil nodded. Thought of someone who fitted that description perfectly.

‘Go get him, Phil,’ said Nick.

Phil nodded. Left as fast as he could.

19

‘Okay,’ said Phil, striding into the bar. ‘Gather and pool. What have we got?’

Everyone looked up.

‘Just briefly,’ he said, ‘before we go home.’

It didn’t look like anyone was about to go home. In fact the bar looked like his team had moved in for the duration and had no intention of leaving until the killer was caught and the baby found. Anni was writing up reports at her desk, Marina next to her. The Birdies, DC Adrian Wren and DS Jane Gosling, sat at their desks, Adrian tall and rake-thin, Jane round and squat. They looked to Phil like an old music-hall double act, but they were two dedicated coppers.

Ben Fenwick entered.

‘Come and join us,’ said Phil.

The overhead lighting compensated for the evening darkness outside, keeping the room unnaturally, even depressingly, bright. The whiteboard in front of the bar displayed grisly before-and-after shots of Claire Fielding, Julie Simpson, Lisa King and Susie Evans: one from life, one from death. Before: smiling, displaying contentment or the hope that being alive held. After: lifeless and soulless. Arrows pointing outwards from them, bloodied husks reduced to components and clues. To the right, a map of Colchester, the scenes of death highlighted. Below that, a photo of Ryan Brotherton. A marker invited anyone to fill the remaining white space with facts, supposition, hypotheses. Make links, illuminate secret, occult connections, bring order to chaos, provide answers. Next to the board was a TV on a stand with a VCR/DVD combination underneath.

‘Where’s Clayton?’ asked Anni.

‘Following something up,’ said Phil. ‘He should be with us shortly.’

‘Glory-hunter,’ said Anni, just loud enough for Phil to catch. He knew Clayton had his eye on bigger places than Colchester, higher rank than DS. This was probably the perfect case for him to move up on the back of. If they got a result.

Phil fixed her with his eyes, chastised her, but let her words go. This wasn’t the time or the place.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘it’s roughly seven hours since the bodies of Claire Fielding and Julie Simpson were discovered, and that baby’s still out there. Let’s go. Anni?’

Anni checked her notes, told the team about her findings at All Saints Primary. Chrissie Burrows, Geraint Cooper and Julie Simpson, celebrating Claire’s pregnancy. How they were more than friends, a support group for Claire Fielding. Because of Ryan Brotherton and what he had threatened. Phil stepped in.

‘Ryan Brotherton,’ he said, ‘previous for ABH, assault. Done time in Chelmsford for it, too. Domestic-abuse-related, all directed against women.’

Marina put her head down, started writing.

‘And he threatened to kill the baby if Claire didn’t have an abortion?’ asked Fenwick.

‘With his own hands,’ said Anni.

The sides of Ben Fenwick’s mouth twitched as if they wanted to smile but weren’t yet allowed and his eyes lit up. ‘Looks like we have an early front-runner,’ he said.

‘We’ll see,’ said Phil. ‘We paid him a visit.’ He told the team about the trip to the metal yard, Brotherton’s response and his new girlfriend covering up for him. ‘She was clearly lying.’

‘Do you know why?’ asked Fenwick.

Phil shook his head. ‘Habit? First response? I don’t know. I’d like to talk to them both again, separately. But I’m sure he’ll be keeping her on a short leash at the moment. I’ve got the post-mortem from Nick Lines.’

He shared it with them. The blade used, the drug, the size and build of the attacker.

‘I’m liking this Ryan Brotherton more and more,’ said Fenwick.

Phil didn’t answer him. ‘But Lines did say we have only a limited window to find the baby alive. If it’s not being looked after, it could be just hours. A day at the most.’

Silence as his team took in the words.

Phil turned. ‘Adrian, Jane. CCTV? Door-to-door follow-ups? ’

‘Nothing as yet from CCTV,’ said DS Jane Gosling, ‘but we expect the tapes from the block of flats and the streets by tomorrow morning. We’ve looked into possible sex offenders in the area, anyone known to us with any kind of deviant behaviour that might overlap with this. Nothing. There was this, though. A couple of residents in the flats reported seeing a large figure dressed in a long overcoat and hat in the area last night. No sign of them after what we assume to be the time of death.’

‘Brotherton?’ said Anni.

‘Could be,’ said Fenwick. He had a hunter’s gleam in his eye.

‘Right,’ said Phil. ‘I think we can assume that this was done to get Claire Fielding’s baby. Julie Simpson’s husband has been interviewed, and while we can’t be entirely certain, I’m pretty sure she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘Like Claire,’ said Anni.

‘Absolutely. But if it’s all about Claire, then that’s one thing. However if this is the same person who murdered Lisa King and Susie Evans, it could be the baby they’re after. Either way, that doesn’t necessarily rule out Brotherton.’

‘What d’you think, Phil?’ said Fenwick. ‘ Gut feeling. Is it him?’

Phil frowned. ‘If it had just been this one incident, these two murders, then I would have said yes. Case like this, it’s almost always the husband or boyfriend. Well, nine times out of ten. But because of the other two…’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He’s lying to us, but I think we need something more definite. We need to find a connection.’

‘We need to find the baby,’ said Anni.

‘Let’s pull him in, then,’ said Fenwick, balling and unballing his fists. ‘Get him in the box, sweat him. See what he has to say then.’

Nods all round the room.

‘Good,’ said Fenwick. He stood, impatient to be doing something. ‘That’s a plan, then. First thing in the morning, Phil, get him in. Get him talking. Get him singing.’

More nods, more assents. The team were buoyed, focused on their target. A voice cut through their thoughts.

‘There is one thing you haven’t fully considered.’

All heads turned to Marina. She was looking up from her notebook, waiting until she had all their attention.

‘What?’ said Fenwick, clearly irritated at the interruption.

‘That it isn’t him.’

20

‘Stop it, stop it, stop it…’

Hester clamped her hands over her ears and stomped round the room, angrily shaking her head. No good. The baby’s wailing still penetrated. She clamped her ears harder, opened her mouth.

‘La, la, la, I’m not listening… no, no, no, I can’t hear you…’ Shouting at the top of her voice, stomping all the harder, her eyes screwed tight shut, flinging her body round, letting all the impotent rage out.

‘La, la, la…’ Screaming now.

But it was no good. She could still hear the wailing, no matter how hard she screamed.

Hester slammed to a halt, turned to look at the baby, the thing that had promised so much happiness and contentment but which was bringing nothing but trouble. It lay in an old rusted tin bath with a none-too-clean blanket underneath it and another one covering it. The cot that Hester herself, the whole family, had used as a baby. She should have been sentimentally attached to it – after all, it was a family heirloom – but she wasn’t. Her mind didn’t work that way. Perhaps as a baby she had felt safe and secure in her cot. But she didn’t know. Couldn’t remember that far back, she told herself, had blocked it out. Those memories belonged to a different person. And she never wanted to be that person again. She couldn’t be.

She took her hands away from her ears. The baby was still making that noise. It wasn’t the same crying as earlier, strong and loud; this was more like one unending cry of pain. If anything, it was worse than the shouting. She stomped back to it, picked it out of the cot, held it under its arms, looked right into its mewling, shrieking, stupid little face.

‘Shut up!’ she screamed. ‘Shut up! I’ll… I’ll…’ She shook it hard. The movement just made the sound vibrate. It sounded funny. She would have laughed if it wasn’t so annoying. ‘Shut up! Or I’ll fling you against the wall! Yeah, that’ll keep you quiet…’

But the baby didn’t seem to understand her. It just kept on wailing. Hester looked between the wall and the cot, then, with an angry exhalation, flung the baby back down into the tin bath. It bounced on the blankets, looked startled for a few seconds, stopped wailing in surprise. She scrutinised it. Smelled that smell.

‘You stink… urgh…’

The baby was thinking about wailing again. She could tell. She had to do something quickly. Maybe that was it. Maybe it needed its nappy changing. It was still wrapped in the blankets her husband had put it in when he brought it home. Wasn’t even in a proper nappy. Not yet. That was okay; she had seen them get changed on TV. The babies always lay on their backs kicking their legs and laughing while the pretty young mums smiled and wiped their bottoms with a special cloth and put a new nappy on them. Well, that was easy. She could do that. And if she did, the baby would smile again and she could smile again. Easy.

She cleared space on the workbench by sweeping the tools out of the way with her thick, muscled arm and blew any sawdust or iron filings off the surface before hefting the baby out of the cot and placing it down. It remained silent, startled at being moved. Hester smiled. This was what a mother would do. Good. It was working.

She unwrapped the blankets one at a time, pulling them off as quickly as she could, throwing them on the floor. The silence encouraged her to speak in baby talk again, like she was supposed to. She took a nappy out of the bag and picked up a cloth to wipe the baby with.

‘Be prepared,’ she gurgled in an approximation of baby talk. ‘Mummy’s got to be prepared…’

She looked at its body. All pink and blue blotches, like its face. But there was yellow in there too. Was that right? She didn’t think so, but it was still moving so it must be. And it was cold as well. Were they supposed to be cold? She had thought they would be warm. Something else the TV and books had got wrong.

Hester smiled to herself. Maybe she should write a book on babies. Or go on TV to talk about them. Tell the truth about what they were really like. She grinned at the thought and began to undo the final blanket. What she found there wiped the smile off her face.

‘Urgh… no…’

She didn’t know what to do. She had the cloth ready but didn’t want to touch it. She wished her husband was there to help, but knew he wouldn’t do anything.

Lookin’ after babies is women’s work, he always said. Don’t mind gettin’ you one, but you’re lookin’ after it yourself after that.

And she had accepted that. So it was down to her.

She took the cloth and set to work, holding her breath all the time. She did it eventually, throwing the soiled cloth in the pile of blankets. She brought out the wipes that came alongside the nappies. When they were wiped with these, the babies smiled. She wiped it. It didn’t smile. Or laugh. But it didn’t wail. That was something. She wiped it again. That was better. Getting it clean. She threw the wipe after the cloth and the blankets. Looked at the naked baby lying there.

It had a thing sticking out. Little and wrinkled, but with quite a big bump underneath. It was a boy baby.

‘Oh.’

She reached out, got its little thing in her big fat hand. Tiny. Felt a sadness build within her. A tingling somewhere in her body to accompany it. The sadness increased.

No. That was in the past. She was what she was. She was Hester. She was a wife and a mother. She was happy. Happy.

She let go of its thing, started to put a nappy on it. It couldn’t be that difficult. She looked at the picture on the packaging, tried to copy it. While she worked, she thought. About the baby’s little thing. She hoped her husband wanted a boy. He should do. They did, didn’t they? Fathers wanted boys. Another shudder of sadness rippled through her. Most fathers. Some wanted girls. Some made them girls.

She looked again at the baby as she covered its thing up. Smiled.

‘Let’s hope he wants a son,’ she said, baby-talking again, ‘or he’ll have that thing off you quicker than you can say…’ She thought. There was a phrase she should use but she couldn’t think of it. ‘Well, quick, anyway.’

She pulled a one-piece suit on to it.

‘There. Don’t you look handsome?’

It just lay there, kicking its legs slightly. Eyes still screwed tightly shut. But at least it wasn’t screaming.

She checked her watch. Her husband had been back and gone out again. Should be back soon. She could usually feel when he was going to return. Time to feed the baby in the meantime.

She crossed to the fridge, took out a bottle of milk. She knew she couldn’t feed it from her body; that would be stupid. So she got milk from the shop. Full fat. She had read that it should be given powdered milk and something called fortifiers. But she didn’t know what they were. And the powdered milk she didn’t like the sound of. Better off with proper milk. From a cow. Full fat was good; that would have all the fortifiers and stuff in that it needed. That was being responsible, because she had read that children shouldn’t be given diet things. Coke was all right when it was older, a few months maybe, but not yet. She knew that. She wasn’t stupid.

She squirted the milk into her own mouth. Cold. Too cold. Pop it in the microwave. She did, waited for the ping, watching the baby all the while. It lay on the bench, kicking its legs again. She smiled. She liked it like that, when it was quiet. That’s how she’d imagined it would be.

The microwave pinged. She took the bottle out, squirted milk into her mouth. Bit hot. But that might be good. It was cold in here, warm the baby up a bit. Put a bit of colour in its cheeks, make it smile.

She crossed to the bench, shaking the bottle in her hand to cool it a little. She scooped the baby up in one meaty, powerful arm, held the bottle to its mouth. Looked at it, just lying there, its face twisted into a permanent scowl, like a miniature gargoyle. Not what she’d imagined at all. It looked weak, too. Weak and yellow. Like a very old and wise Chinaman in a temple from a martial arts film. She smiled, looked again. No. It just looked tired, like it wanted to sleep. Well, it could. After it was fed.

She ran the bottle along its lips, moistening them. It moved slightly. She took advantage of that, put the bottle in. It jumped.

She laughed. ‘Ooh, almost opened your eyes there.’

She jammed the bottle all the way in. Let it suck. It was good for it.

The sadness was still within her. She forced it away, along with the earlier rage. This was a time for mother and baby. A time for contentment. She had read that somewhere. She sat down in a chair. Sighed. It wasn’t like she had expected it to be. But then she had also read that it never was.

This was her new life, she told herself. She was a complete woman now. Wife. Mother.

‘This is me,’ she said out loud to the baby. ‘This is me. And look… I’m complete.’

The baby didn’t reply. Just lay there, slowly taking in milk but too weak to swallow, letting it run down its sickly yellow face.

Hester didn’t notice. Just smiled.

21

‘It’s all wrong,’ said Marina. ‘Nothing fits.’

Phil joined the others in looking at her. He knew what they would be thinking: the profiler should stick to her day job, leave the police work to the professionals. He suppressed a smile at her nerve.

She continued, ‘I know I’m running to catch up at the moment. I haven’t visited the crime scene yet or spoken to anyone concerned. All I’ve done is read the case notes this afternoon. And I still haven’t delivered a profile.’ She waited. No one interrupted. ‘But based on what I’ve read about the previous deaths and what I’ve picked up about Ryan Brotherton, he’s not the killer.’

‘Why not?’ said Fenwick, his irritation palpable.

‘Because he’s a spousal abuser, not a killer. They’re two different things.’

‘He could be both,’ said Fenwick.

‘I’ll explain,’ said Marina. ‘For a spousal abuser, it’s all about isolating their partner, keeping them locked away from the rest of the world in order to control them. He’d want to injure her, yes, but not kill her. What good would she be to him dead? He wants her alive to keep tormenting her.’

The silence in the room became very uncomfortable.

‘Now, the baby…’ Marina paused. ‘And we’re assuming here that Claire Fielding, or rather Claire Fielding’s baby, was the subject of the attack… Well, most spousal abusers wouldn’t be happy that their partner was pregnant in the first place. They’re childish and needy and want attention. A baby will take that attention away from them.’

‘Wouldn’t that make them angry?’ said Anni.

‘Not that angry. Because the baby is still part of them. They’ll be jealous that the woman is carrying it, but they won’t try to harm it. And there are another couple of things. No links with the two previous murders-’

‘That we know of,’ said Fenwick. ‘Yet.’

‘That you know of,’ Marina said. ‘But there’s the fact that he drugged her first.’

Phil understood what she meant. ‘He would have wanted her to scream,’ he said. ‘Wanted her to suffer. The drug would have taken that away from her.’

Marina looked at him, smiled. Phil couldn’t help but return it. Then straight back to business.

‘Or he didn’t want her to wake up the whole block,’ said Anni.

‘There is that,’ said Marina. ‘Now, putting aside the baby for a moment, let’s look at what actually happened.’ She pointed to the photo of Claire Fielding’s body without actually looking at it. ‘Here is Claire Fielding. Tied to the bed, spreadeagled. Why?’

‘Ritual?’ suggested Phil.

‘That was my first conclusion,’ she said, almost looking at him once more. ‘But it seems to be more about control. She’s been injected with a drug to induce paralysis. As the post-mortem report said, whoever did this is not a professional. Therefore they didn’t know exactly how much of the drug was needed. If they got the dose wrong, the victim might scream or struggle. Kick. Hence the ropes.’

‘So…’ said Phil, ‘it wasn’t ritual, it was… what? Expedience?’

Marina nodded. ‘It could well be. And her legs had to be open because…’ She took a heavy breath.

‘He enjoyed it?’ said Phil.

‘Perhaps,’ said Marina. ‘It could be as simple as that. But it’s still an aspect of control, of subjugation.’ She checked her notes again. ‘Now what were the restraints made of?’

Phil consulted his own notes. ‘Rope. Thick, heavy-duty. We’re waiting on DNA.’

‘So he came prepared,’ said Marina. ‘He brought the knife and the rope.’

‘And the drugs,’ said Phil.

‘And the drugs.’

‘Well, what about the sex aspect?’ Fenwick’s voice was rising in pitch, getting clearly agitated. He looked to Phil like someone who had been told their birthday party had been cancelled.

‘Post-mortem states there’s no evidence of sexual activity.’

‘This still doesn’t rule Brotherton out, though,’ said Fenwick. ‘If he wanted to, I don’t know, show her who’s boss, couldn’t he do it by ripping the baby out of her? Wouldn’t that show her who’s in charge?’

The attention of the room turned back to Marina. ‘Put like that, I suppose it sounds plausible, yes,’ she said.

Fenwick held his arms up as if in triumph. ‘Well then.’

‘But it doesn’t sound likely. And then there’s the fact that it might not be a man at all.’

‘What?’ said Fenwick. ‘A woman?’

‘Why not?’

That was too much for Fenwick. ‘Because a woman isn’t physically capable of doing what this person did. And someone answering Brotherton’s description was seen in the area.’

‘Look at it logically,’ said Marina. ‘Who wants babies? Not men, women.’ She paused, continued. ‘I’m generalising. But you get what I mean.’

‘So it could be a big, angry woman,’ said Anni. Behind her, Fenwick shook his head.

‘It’s possible,’ said Marina. ‘There are a few documented cases of this kind of thing happening, but mainly in the States and always with some kind of personal connection. Partner leaves, takes up with a new woman, gets her pregnant. The spurned girlfriend takes revenge by cutting out the new baby.’

The room flinched en masse.

‘Could be a man,’ said Phil, almost thinking aloud, ‘doing this for a woman. Getting a baby for her.’

‘Brotherton,’ said Fenwick. ‘Doing it for his girlfriend.’

Marina sighed. Fenwick picked up on it. ‘Something to say?’

Marina said nothing, just kept her head down.

Fenwick nodded. ‘Good.’

Marina looked up. Phil saw the redness in her cheeks, the fire in her eyes. Knew she was about to unleash her Italian temperament. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do have something to say. You asked me here to give my professional opinion and you’ve done nothing but talk over me and attempt to belittle me.’

Fenwick shrugged. ‘Yes, but a woman. I mean, please.’

‘I was brought here to provide a profile-’

‘Which you haven’t done yet.’

‘I’ve had less than a day here.’

Fenwick strode over to Marina. ‘We have a suspect.’

‘I was not brought in to rubber-stamp whatever you say.’

‘Don’t you want us to catch him?’

Marina looked him straight in the eye, didn’t back down. ‘I want you to catch the right person.’

Fenwick opened his mouth to say something else, but Phil was on his feet. ‘Sir.’

Fenwick turned.

Phil looked round to the others in the room. He didn’t want to do this but Fenwick’s actions had left him with no choice. ‘With all due respect, sir, I’m running this investigation and your comments aren’t helpful.’

Fenwick stared at Phil as if he wanted to punch him, but managed to control himself. He put his hand on Phil’s shoulder, steered him towards the door. ‘Come with me.’

The two men walked out into the corridor, leaving the rest of the team staring after them.

Once outside, Fenwick turned to Phil. ‘I brought her in to provide a profile, to help us catch a killer, which she hasn’t done yet. Instead she comes out with all that, trying to undermine the investigation.’

‘She’s got a valid point. I’m listening to her.’

‘We’ve got a suspect ready to bring in and she’s trying to talk you out of it.’

‘We should listen to what she’s got to say.’

Fenwick gave an ugly snort, all vestiges of the training course designed to produce politically correct modern policemen gone. ‘Oh yeah. She can say what she likes to you, get away with anything. Twist you round her little finger. And we all know why, don’t we?’

Phil felt his hands ball into fists. His breathing came harsh and fast; his turn to struggle for control.

He managed it. ‘Like I said. This is my investigation, sir. And I’ll conduct it the way I see fit. Your comments aren’t helpful. In fact, you’re way out of order, superior or not.’

Fenwick said nothing.

‘I’m going back inside,’ said Phil, ‘to continue the meeting. Will you be joining us?’

Fenwick held Phil’s stare for a second or two before turning and walking away.

Phil watched him go, then, taking a deep breath and expelling it slowly, walked back into the bar.

22

‘I’m afraid DCI Fenwick won’t be rejoining us for the moment,’ said Phil, his voice as light as possible. ‘So let’s finish up here and we can go home. Shall we continue?’

His team looked at him, eyes wide. He knew what they were thinking – had he punched out a senior officer? Had a senior officer had a go at him? Whatever, it would be round the station in minutes.

‘Marina?’ said Phil. ‘You were saying?’

Marina looked at him, her face unreadable. Was that admiration he saw? Irritation? She looked down at her notes, began scanning.

‘Erm… Yes. Here. What was I saying? Yes. Right. Escalation. Look at all these women. Lisa King, Susie Evans, Claire Fielding… with the unfortunate exception of Julie Simpson, you see a clear escalation.’

‘Trial runs or unsuccessful attempts,’ said Phil, getting back into the rhythm as quickly as possible. ‘Technique refining.’

Marina nodded, picking up speed as she did so. ‘This person wants a baby. A live one. And if that’s the case, to the killer, these women are just breeders. Surrogates.’

‘Why not just snatch one from somewhere? A maternity ward or outside Mothercare?’ said Phil.

‘Perhaps the risks are too great. I don’t know, they think that a baby taken from the womb will be easier to bond with. Now,’ Marina said, pointing to the map, ‘the geographical aspect might be worth looking at. Usually you can put together a profile of the perpetrator from the area in which they’ve operated. Fix their position, their home, from where they’ve committed their crimes. But looking at the map, I can’t find any kind of pattern.’

‘Where does Brotherton live?’ asked Anni.

Both Phil and Marina looked at her.

She blushed. ‘I’m only asking.’

Phil checked his notes. ‘Highwoods,’ he said.

‘Right in the middle of it,’ said Anni, looking at the map. ‘Well, almost.’

‘Yes,’ said Marina, ‘that’s true. But these women have different backgrounds, social classes, they come from different areas. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of geographical overlap in terms of Brotherton meeting them.’

‘Perhaps he bought a house,’ said Phil. ‘Used Lisa King’s estate agency. Might be worth a look.’ Jane Gosling made a note.

‘Maybe he used prostitutes,’ said Anni. ‘Met Susie Evans in New Town.’

Jane made another note.

‘I don’t think we should rule Brotherton out,’ said Phil. ‘Let’s investigate him further. See if we can find a connection between him and the earlier victims. And we’ll get his phone records checked too. But he shouldn’t be the only avenue we explore.’

‘What if he’s not living or working where he targets and kills?’ said Anni. ‘How’s he picking his targets? Hospitals, antenatal clinics, that sort of thing. Could he have access to a database with pregnant women on it?’

‘It’s being looked into,’ said Jane Gosling.

‘And also,’ said Phil, ‘we still need full background checks on both Julie Simpson and Claire Fielding. They’re both as important as the other. I want their last weeks traced, where they went, who with, who they spoke to, everything. Nothing is unimportant. If someone has asked them the time in the street, find out who. Find out when. Jane, can you do that?’

Jane Gosling, scribbling, nodded without looking up.

‘D’you mind if I take a look at the murder scene?’ said Marina. ‘Might help.’

‘I’ll run you over there when we finish.’

He watched her nod; their eyes caught once more, then away.

‘Right,’ said Phil, ‘that seems to be as much as we can do for now. Uniforms will continue to collate the door-to-door and CCTV stuff, Ben Fenwick can talk to the media again, give them an update. In the meantime, those who are going home get some rest. We’ll need it.’

‘Before we go, can I just ask,’ said Adrian Wren, ‘this serial killer-’

Marina cut him off. ‘Please don’t use that term. As soon as you say the words “serial killer”, everyone goes all FBI and CSI. It’s not helpful.’

‘So, this person who kills more than one person sequentially, ’ Adrian Wren said, and got a few polite smiles as a response. ‘Don’t that sort usually try to communicate with us, or to leave clues to show off how clever they are? Taunt us? Or is that just in films and books?’

‘No, in real life too, sometimes,’ said Marina. ‘Killers of that nature are often of low self-esteem and want to parade their intelligence. Sometimes it’s a cry for help. They actually want, subconsciously, to be caught. That’s one kind of serial killer, yes. But I don’t believe we’re dealing with that kind here. This one seems to be fixated on a very specific goal.’

‘The abduction of the baby?’ said Phil.

She nodded. ‘To the exclusion of everything else. And the end, in their mind, justifies the means.’

‘Well, if they’ve got the baby now,’ said Anni, ‘and it’s alive, that might be a good thing. They’ve got what they wanted.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Marina.

‘Why perhaps?’ said Anni.

‘Because we’re assuming this baby’s alive,’ said Phil. ‘And being well cared for.’

‘Precisely,’ said Marina. ‘What if, God forbid, this baby dies and they need a replacement? Or even worse, what if they get a taste for what they’ve done and want to continue?’

‘Start a family,’ said Phil.

Marina looked right at him and he at her. They held their look. Connection made. ‘Exactly.’

‘Jesus,’ said Anni.

The whole room sat in silence for a few seconds, taking that information in.

The silence stretched on. Outside the window, people were making their way home from work, coming out for the evening. Life was going on in that other, separate world.

The door to the bar opened. Fenwick walked in, a look of triumph on his face.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Been on the phone to Chelmsford. They’ve sanctioned twenty-four-hour surveillance on Ryan Brotherton. Overtime in place. I’ll leave you to draw up a rota for the uniforms, Phil.’

Phil stared at him.

‘I said, and the Detective Super at Chelmsford agreed with me, that Brotherton should be brought in for questioning tomorrow.’ He turned to Marina. ‘Of course, I think you should be there to take a look at him from the observation room. See what impression you get.’ He looked round, gestured to Phil. ‘All yours.’ Then he strode out.

The silence his absence created was louder than a bomb.

The door opened again. They all turned.

‘So,’ said Clayton, ‘what have I missed?’

23

DS Clayton Thompson drove slowly down the narrow New Town road, cars parked on both sides allowing only one vehicle at a time. The rows of dark, dirty red-brick terraced houses just added to the closed-in, claustrophobic feeling. The only people around in New Town after dark either lived there, or were trying to get out of there. Or had business there. It wasn’t somewhere most people went by choice.

Colchester might have been Britain’s oldest recorded town, the capital of England during Roman times. It had the wall round the town centre and the grid-like road system to prove it. It also had an old castle, a theatre, open spaces and parks, lots of old buildings. The University of Essex was based there. It had boutique shops, good restaurants and bars. As big as a small city with the feel of a market town. No concrete tower blocks or sink estates to spoil the view.

But a town didn’t need tower blocks to have their associated problems. It still had areas where poverty and deprivation gave way to rage and criminal activity. New Town was an area of warren-like Edwardian terraces running from North Hill at the fag end of the town centre down to the river’s edge at the Hythe. Where Clayton was headed was bad enough, but there were parts of it that even he wouldn’t visit after dark. At least not without back-up. And people here he never wanted to meet again, at least not without bars between them. Developers had recently tried to smarten the place up, building expensive gated apartment blocks in amongst the terraces. The locals had responded well, giving these new developments the highest rates of burglary, theft and criminal damage in the whole town.

Clayton parked the car in front of the street-corner pub, amazed that there was a parking space, but worried because he had to leave his ride unattended. He loved his 5-series BMW. Expensive to run and maintain, not to mention the monthly payments he made on it. But that was okay. He just compromised on other stuff. It was worth it.

He had been brought up in a house of women. A mother and two sisters, his father dying when he was six years old. His mother had wanted him to work in a bank, an office, do something with money, something steady. Much as he loved his mother and wanted her to be proud of him, he hadn’t wanted that.

Whatever sense of masculinity he had came from films, TV, games. If the man had the car, he got the woman. The fact that he was well dressed and handsome didn’t hurt either. So the police force had been natural for Clayton. And then the car.

He had planned it for years. Spent days fantasising about what he would do when he could eventually afford it. Lower the chassis; what rims and exhaust to fit, what sound system to give it, the whole nine-yards pimp job. All those teenage years spent devouring car magazines, especially Max Power. His favourite. That presented him with the lifestyle he wanted, showed him which cars to idolise and which girls too, come to that. And which girls would go for which car. Now, at twenty-nine, when he could actually afford the ride he wanted, he discovered that it didn’t need any extra pimping. It was perfect as it was. That upset him slightly – he felt that a part of his childhood, and with it his adolescent fantasy, had died. But something stronger had been put in place. The mature, confident young man. The one who was actually able to live out that life, to make that fantasy a reality. A DS at twenty-nine; he was going places. And his mother was proud of him. Nothing would hold him back, no one. He would make sure of that.

He sat there a moment, engine idling, hip-hop on the stereo. The Game. Cool, hard stuff. Gave him the right kind of swagger. He pulled down the sun visor, checked his eyes in the mirror. This meeting was important. Thing had to be said. But more importantly, things had to be kept quiet. He had to be full-on for this; no doubt, no insecurity. Took a deep breath, then another. He wasn’t going to lose his car, his lifestyle and most importantly his career over this. No way. So. Keep it firm, keep it strong. And if that failed, use any means necessary. Another deep breath. Another. Checked his eyes again. Flipped the visor back into place, took the key from the ignition, got out.

He opened the door to the pub, stepped inside, letting it swing closed behind him. The interior looked as bleak and depressing as the exterior. Tired red faux leather ran the length of one wall, old, scarred tables and battered wooden chairs before it. A carpet whose pattern had surrendered to age and various kinds of darkness covered the floor. A TV was mounted above the bar, the brightness and colour showing the few drinkers what they were missing elsewhere in the world.The bar was a semicircle curved round the centre of the pub. A lone barman stood at one end, chatting to an old man who might not have lived there but who certainly belonged there. Clayton saw a couple of men sitting at a corner table. He knew them. Brothers, supposedly builders, they were in fact behind most of the criminal activity in the area. Drugs, prostitution; they probably took a percentage of whatever was taken from the posh cars parked in front of the new flats. Clayton stared.They looked away. He did the same. A mutual thing: they wouldn’t bother him if he didn’t bother them.

He saw who he wanted, sitting at a table, alone. A glass of something clear, half drunk, before them, bag by the chair leg, workout gear sticking out. They saw him. Waited. He sat down opposite. Found a smile.

She flicked a smile in return. Sharp, practised. ‘Hello, stranger.’

‘Hello, Sophie,’ he said.

Before he could answer, the smile was dropped. She looked quickly round, checking no one was listening or watching. ‘You took your time,’ she said.

‘Briefing,’ he said. ‘And traffic.’

‘Yeah. Well I haven’t got time to sit around here all night, have I?’

Clayton smiled at her. ‘Sorry.’ She didn’t respond. ‘Anyone bothered you in here?’

She shook her head. ‘Told them I was waiting for someone. Told them in a way that made them leave me alone.’

‘Right.’ He ran his eyes up and down her body. She had changed out of her working clothes. Jeans, trainers and a pale, tight, translucent blouse, her dark, lacy bra clearly visible through it, a generous amount of cleavage on display. Her hair was down, accenting her heart-shaped, make-up-caked face. ‘You’re looking good.’

‘Not good enough, apparently. Haven’t heard from you in ages. Years.’ She leaned forward. He couldn’t help but stare down her cleavage. ‘But you only call when you want something. And I expected you to call after today.’

‘Bit of a shocker, that,’ he said. ‘Didn’t expect to find you there.’

She shrugged. ‘And what was all that fuckin’ DVD crap? What did you come out with that for?’

‘Just doin’ my job.’

‘Yeah. Well I know what that involves, don’t I?’

His smile disappeared. He felt edgy, uneasy. She was gaining the upper hand. He had to stop it. ‘Yeah, well. That’s in the past. And it’s going to stay there. It’s the present I want to talk about.’

She allowed herself a smile, adjusted her top. ‘I’m sure.’

Clayton stared at her, his features hardening. He felt his control slipping. Wouldn’t allow it to happen. ‘And you do too, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Would you?’

Uncertainty flickered across her eyes. He tried not to smile. He had her. Yes, she could make things difficult for him, but he could do the same for her too.

‘I must admit, I was surprised to see you when you came into the yard.You did a good job of not letting on you knew me. Really good. Should be an actor, you know.’

‘You hid it well too,’ he said.

She gave a sharp laugh. ‘Nothing wrong with my acting skills.’ Her turn to look him up and down now. ‘You dress better than you used to. On more money?’

‘More money, new job.’ He swallowed hard. ‘New me.’

Another laugh. ‘Doubt it,’ she said. ‘Leopards and all that.’

He leaned forward. ‘Listen, Sophie… do I have to call you that?’

‘It’s my name. Sophie Gale.’

‘You used to have a different one.’

‘Only for professional purposes. And anything that went on between us was always strictly professional.’

‘Yeah, but that was after. I knew you before all that, remember? When you used your real name. Gail Johnson. When I busted you in that New Town brothel raid. You’ve grown up since then. Done all right.’

‘And I suppose I’ve got you to thank for that, have I?’

‘Amongst others.’

‘Yeah. Well I think I’ve thanked you enough times.’

‘Listen.’ Clayton’s voice dropped to a low, harsh hiss. ‘I still remember when we dragged you in. Just a poor little teenage prossie runaway, terrified. Who would do anything not to go to prison.’ His voice dropped further. ‘Anything. So we made a deal, didn’t we? You said you had intel on all the major drugs gangs operating in the area.You would provide us with that intel. As long as we looked the other way and kept you out of trouble.You were happy for our help then.’

‘Yeah. And I gave you plenty of stuff. It put people away. But that wasn’t enough, was it? You wanted something more.’

‘So I took a few freebies.’

Her eyes hardened. ‘You took more than that.’

He stared at her. Tried not to let her words scare him. Got himself under control. ‘You want me to tell your new boyfriend all about it? About your old life?’

‘Fuck off.’ There was real anger behind Sophie’s hissed words. Then she sat back. Smiled. ‘Wonder if your new boss would be interested to hear about what you used to get up to? What you used to do to me instead of paying me the money you owed? What I had to do for you?’

Clayton’s eyes hardened. Fear gave way to the promise of violence. ‘Don’t.’

‘Then don’t fuck me about, either. Just as long as we both know where we stand.’

They sat there in silence, staring at each other.

‘What made you pick this place?’ said Clayton eventually. ‘Old times’ sake? Didn’t figure you for the sentimental type.’

Her eyes flashed with a dark fire. ‘You don’t know anything about me at all.’

Another silence. Sophie looked at her watch.

‘Can’t sit here all night,’ she said. ‘Got to go home soon.’

‘Bet he doesn’t like you being out on your own. Seems like the controlling type.’

Sophie said nothing. Clayton knew he had hit a nerve. He pressed on. ‘Right. We’ve been doing some diggin’. Want to know what we found?’

Sophie shrugged.

He struggled to conceal his excitement at what he was about to say. Back in control again. ‘I found out that when you used to be on the game, working for us, you knew someone we’re interested in.’

‘Who?’

‘Susie Evans.’

Sophie shrugged again. ‘So? Lots of working girls knew Susie Evans. I didn’t know her very well. She was low rent. I always aimed higher.’ She adjusted her top. ‘Besides, I’m out of the life now.’

‘So is she. She was murdered, remember? Course you do.

It was in all the papers.’

Sophie looked away, not wanting to match her eyes with his.

‘And there are similarities between her murder and Claire Fielding’s.Your boyfriend’s ex. Coincidence?’

‘Yeah,’ said Sophie. ‘Ryan never knew her.’

Clayton sat back. ‘How long have you been with Ryan?’

‘Couple of months. Went for a job at his firm.’

‘Really? Strange career progression. Why’d you do that?’

‘Had this boyfriend who was a metal merchant. Told me there was a vacancy. Put me up for it. Got the job, met Ryan, the boyfriend got the push.’

Clayton said nothing. The boyfriend was probably a client. He doubted Sophie was totally out of the game. ‘So you get the job and this boyfriend of yours gets an inside eye into another firm’s dealings.’

‘Except I started seeing Ryan and dumped him.’

‘The old boyfriend mustn’t have been very happy. What did he do? Go back to his wife?’

‘He never left her.’

Clayton allowed himself a small smile of triumph.

‘So now you’re with Ryan. And his girlfriend-’

‘Ex-girlfriend.’

‘All right. Ex-girlfriend, then. She winds up murdered. Same way as an old mate of yours.Your new boyfriend has a history of violence towards women, and with you in the middle there’s a connection between the two.’

Sophie said nothing.

‘Not only that…’ Clayton leaned forward, ready to play his ace. ‘You lied for him. He was out when the murder happened, wasn’t he? And you lied to us and told us you were with him.’

Sophie again said nothing.

Clayton sat back, pleased with himself, but slightly put out that she hadn’t responded. ‘So where was he?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

Clayton studied her face. She wasn’t just holding out on him; there was something else. ‘You’re scared of him, aren’t you?’

He thought she would sit in silence again, but eventually she nodded.

‘You know what he’s done to other women and you’re scared he’ll do that to you.’

She nodded again. ‘Yes.’

Clayton’s voice carried a greater degree of warmth and concern than was perhaps professionally necessary. ‘Then why are you with him?’

‘He’s… a good bloke. Looks after me. Never want for anything.You know.’

Clayton knew.

‘And he’s… he’s not that bad. I know all that stuff with Claire, that got him down. But he’s over it now.’

Her voice sounded thin, her words hollow. ‘No he’s not, Sophie. And you don’t believe that either. You’re worried. I’m guessin’ he’s still obsessed with her. He was out when she was being murdered. And he won’t tell you where. Is that it?’

Another nod.

‘And that’s why you agreed to see me.’

‘Yes.’ She sighed.

‘So what happened? Where do you think he was?’

Sophie leaned forward. Clayton got a great view of her cleavage, but he wasn’t interested now. This was more important. This was work.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He went out saying he had to meet someone. That it was business. When he got back, I was in bed. I heard the shower, then he came and joined me.’

‘Does he often go out on business?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘That late at night?’

She said nothing.

‘And does he always need a shower when he comes back?’ Silence.

‘And that’s what he said when you asked him about it? That it was business?’

She nodded. ‘I thought it was Claire at first. Because he’s…’ She sighed. ‘He’s not over her. The baby and everything. ’

‘He wanted her to get rid of it.’

‘So he said. But… I think it just scared him. The whole thing.’

‘He didn’t say anything else? About the baby? Give you… give you anything to go on?’

She frowned. ‘What d’you mean?’

He didn’t know whether to tell her. The fact of the baby’s disappearance had been kept out of the media. And she didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. He decided to leave it at that.

‘So you thought that’s where he was?’ he said, continuing with the questioning. ‘With Claire?’

‘I didn’t want to think that.’

‘Course not. What d’you think now?’

She didn’t answer. Instead she looked at her watch. ‘Shit, I’ve got to go. Take me home. We’ve got to go now.’ She stood up, grabbed her bag. Clayton stood also, placed a restraining hand on her arm.

‘Look, you don’t have to go. We can help you. Keep you safe if anythin’ happens.’

Sophie shook her head. ‘Yeah, heard that one before. Thanks.’

‘We can.’

‘Just take me home. And keep my past out of this.’

‘I’ll try, but-’

She turned to him, eyes alight with angry fire. ‘You’ll fuckin’ do it. If I’m keepin’ you out of this, you can do the same for me.’

Clayton sighed. ‘All right. I will.’

‘Good. Come on.’

She led him to the door. The barman watched them leave, eyes on her buttocks, lewd imagination written all over his face. Outside, the air had turned cold. Clayton pointed out his BMW to her.

‘Nice,’ she said. ‘Always thought you’d do well for yourself. ’

Clayton smiled, got in, Sophie beside him. He drove off as fast as he could.

24

‘Mind where you walk,’ Phil said.

Marina didn’t need to be told. The blood in Claire Fielding’s apartment had dried to various shades of dark brown and black, but it was still unmistakably blood. And the carpet and walls of the hall were still covered in it. The earlier smell of dirty copper and spoiled meat had dissipated somewhat. But that didn’t make the scene any less horrific.

‘Oh God…’

Phil noticed Marina touch her stomach as she spoke.

There had been a tense silence in the car on the drive across town, the air thick with unspoken emotion. This was the first time they had been alone together since they had met again. They had nothing to say to each other, yet everything to say to each other. Not to mention the scene in the bar.

‘So,’ Phil had said to break the silence, ‘Fenwick hasn’t changed much, has he?’

Marina managed a small smile. ‘Wanker.’

‘Still, at least he made you feel welcome.’

Marina didn’t reply. Another silence, then: ‘Did you hit him? When you took him outside?’

Phil smiled. ‘You like that, do you? The thought of two men beating each other to a pulp over you?’

‘Defending my honour. And my professional integrity, of course.’

‘Of course I didn’t hit him. I took him away for his own protection. That famous Italian temper of yours was about to make its presence felt.’

She laughed. ‘And he would have deserved it. I felt like walking out.’

Phil kept his eyes on the road. ‘Glad you didn’t.’

The rest of the journey had taken place in silence.

‘You okay?’ Phil asked, back in the flat.

Marina didn’t turn round. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Your… stomach. Is it hurting?’

She still didn’t turn, but he saw her shoulders tense. Her hand dropped from her stomach. ‘No. Everything’s fine.’

‘This isn’t upsetting you?’

‘I’m hardcore.’

‘Well, as I remember-’

‘Shut it, Brennan. Concentrate.’ She looked at the blood. ‘So this was… Julie Simpson.’

‘Yeah,’ said Phil, glad to be able to focus on the case. ‘She must have answered the door. Judging by the way we found her and the wounds inflicted, he killed her straight away.’

Marina nodded, looked at the wall. She pointed. ‘Intercom,’ she said. ‘Videophone?’

Phil nodded.

‘If she knew them, she would have buzzed them up.’

‘Does that rule out or rule in Brotherton?’

Marina frowned. ‘I don’t know. Can’t see her letting him up.’

‘No,’ said Phil. ‘But perhaps the intercom didn’t go. Perhaps he was already in.’

‘Someone let him in and he was waiting? Planned, premeditated. It would fit.’

‘So there’s a knock at the door, say. Julie Simpson goes to answer it. Next thing…’

Marina nodded. She examined the walls in more detail, traced the arcs of dried blood with her finger. ‘Very decisive. She opens the door…’ She positioned herself in the doorway, taking the place of the attacker. ‘He looks at her, knows she’s not the one he wants – probably because she’s not pregnant – then…’ She scythed her arm in an arc, ending abruptly, sharply. ‘Cuts her. Gets rid of her.’ She looked at Phil. ‘What does that tell you? What does that say?’

Phil didn’t know if he was supposed to reply, or whether she was just using him as a sounding board. He ventured an answer. ‘Well, he… Julie Simpson wasn’t the primary target. So get her out of the way, move on.’

‘Exactly what I think. Get her out of the way. He didn’t knock her out, tie her up, anything like that. He didn’t paralyse her with his needle. He killed her. Straight away. No hesitation.’

‘So… she was just an obstacle,’ Phil said.

‘Just something between him and his goal.’

‘Claire Fielding.’

‘Claire Fielding’s baby,’ Marina corrected him. ‘If I’m right.’

‘If you’re right.’

‘So.’ She again took the position of the intruder, mimed the actions. ‘He slits her throat, drops her to the floor. Does he wait to see that she’s dead? No. It doesn’t matter. She can’t move, can’t call out. If she’s not dead yet, she’s as good as dead.’ Marina moved down the hallway. ‘Then he comes along here.’

‘Just a minute,’ said Phil. ‘Slits her throat and drops her… doesn’t see her as a person…’ Something was coming to him. Connections were being made. ‘Knife… Could this person work with animals?’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Well, a farmer. Not a vet, obviously. Or someone used to slaughtering livestock? In an abattoir, maybe?’

Marina smiled in admiration. ‘It’s a possibility. Well done. We’ll make a decent copper out of you yet.’

Phil couldn’t help returning the smile. ‘Right then. Off you go, and leave us professionals to get on with it.’

‘My work here is done.’

They both stood there, smiling, not speaking. Unspoken emotions again humming between them like high-tension wires.

Marina broke the silence. ‘Where was Claire Fielding?’ She walked to the end of the hallway, her voice once again businesslike, focused.

‘Here, we think,’ said Phil, picking up the lead from her voice, following her. He stopped at the end of the hallway, pointed to scuff marks on the wall. ‘Signs of a struggle here.’ There was a potted plant lying on its side. ‘Maybe he attacked her, knocked her into this.’ He examined the wall. ‘Not much damage, though.’

Marina joined him. ‘There wouldn’t be. If it’s the baby he was after, he wouldn’t want her harmed. Well, not too much.’ She looked round. ‘Then what?’

‘We found her in the bedroom. Tied to the bed and… well, you know the rest.’

Marina stopped walking, looked round again. ‘This is the living room, yes?’ she said, pointing towards the room on her right.

‘Yeah.’

‘So…’ She looked round again, examined every surface with her eyes, stretched out fingers.

‘It’s fine,’ Phil said. ‘Touch what you like. The lab boys have finished here.’

Marina nodded. ‘Is this room how you found it?’

‘More or less. Presents on the coffee table, not much disturbed. ’

‘So the living room wasn’t touched. He either knows the layout of this flat, or he’s supremely confident about what he wants and single-minded about how he’s going to achieve it.’

‘Which is it?’

She gave a small smile. ‘I don’t know, Phil. I’m not Derek Acorah.’

He laughed. ‘You’re better-looking, for a start.’

She closed her eyes, shook her head. ‘Stop it,’ she said. She looked irritated by his interruption, but a smile played round her lips. ‘Now concentrate. He must have had some contact with her. She wasn’t chosen at random. She was targeted, picked out for a purpose.’ She rubbed her hand across her mouth. It was something she did unconsciously when she was thinking. Phil smiled inwardly at the memory. It was an endearing trait, he thought. ‘But…’ She took her hand away. ‘That doesn’t necessarily mean she was intimate with him.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, most killings like this are sexual in nature. And I don’t get a sexual feeling from this.’

Phil couldn’t stop himself smiling. ‘That’s reassuring.’

Marina blushed. ‘You know what I mean,’ she said, trying to cover her reddening face. Eventually she smiled too.

‘Right. So it’s not Brotherton, then?’

‘I don’t think so.’ She shook her head. ‘He doesn’t feel right. But… you never know. I may be wrong. It has been known.’

‘Not in my experience.’

‘Charmer.’

She looked at him once more and there was that connection again. She smiled, and as she did so, her features relaxed, tension leached from her body and her eyes became lit not just by warmth but by an inner light. It was a light Phil hadn’t seen for a long time. He moved towards her, smiling also.

‘Marina, I’ve…’

Suddenly the light was extinguished.The tension returned, like an invisible barrier had once again been erected.

‘Please, Phil,’ she said, her voice strong but not harsh. ‘Please. Don’t.’

‘But-’

‘Just don’t. Please.’

Phil felt exasperation build within him. He had to say something, whether she wanted to hear it or not. Whether she had given him permission to speak or not. ‘Listen, Marina. It’s been months now.You just-’

‘Phil, don’t. I can’t talk about it now. Please.’

‘But-’

‘No. We can’t – I can’t have this discussion now.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because…’ She pulled her coat around herself once more. Another barrier, thought Phil. Another shield. ‘I just can’t. Not at the moment.’

‘When, then?’

‘We will talk,’ she said. ‘But not yet.You’ll have to wait.’

‘For what?’

‘Until I’m ready.’

He just looked at her. She was irritating, she was a control freak, she was mouthy, she was arrogant. He sighed. She was beautiful, she was warm, she was witty, she was brilliant. He knew how he felt about her. It had never changed. He said nothing. Just nodded. He couldn’t blame her.

To take his mind off Marina, he looked once more round the flat. ‘Murder scenes always make me feel lonely,’ he said.

She looked at him, frowning, bemused.

The words surprised him. He didn’t know he had been thinking them and certainly wasn’t aware he was going to articulate them. Unsure as to why he was talking, he continued. ‘Yeah.’ He nodded, looking round. ‘Lonely. Depressing. I mean, beyond the obvious, you know.’

Marina seemed grateful for the change in subject and jumped on his words. ‘In what way?’

‘Well…’ He felt suddenly shy talking about it. But if there was anyone he could share an intimacy with, even a verbal one, it was Marina. Wherever they were at with each other. ‘It’s like… office buildings at night when the workers have left for the day. Or… theatres when the play’s finished and everyone’s gone home.’

‘When do you go to the theatre?’

He blushed. ‘You don’t know everything about me, you know.’

‘Clearly.’

‘But it is,’ he said, warming to his theme now. ‘You know in the theatre when they turn the stage lights off after a show and put the working ones on. To reset the stage and stuff. It’s really bleak. Depressing. Like the thing that gave the place life, the play, the actors, the audience, whatever, has gone. And you’re still there. And you shouldn’t be, you should have gone with them. But you are there, on your own, and you’ve got to keep going.’

She looked at him, frowning. Gave a small nod of her head. ‘I know what you mean,’ she said.

He nodded also, wondering if she did know what he meant. Wondering also whether he had still been talking about crime scenes.

‘I think I’ve seen everything for tonight,’ she said. ‘D’you mind giving me a lift home, or should I call a cab?’

‘I’ll take you home.’

He turned the lights off and they left the flat.

Dark and empty. A stage set with no actors.

25

H e was hunting again.

He didn’t really need to. Not yet. But it was good to plan ahead. In fact, it was essential. And he had to keep working at it. Hone his skills. Improve all the time. Never too old to learn something new. Plus he was good at it. And he enjoyed doing things he was good at.

The animal had no idea he was watching her. And he liked that feeling. Just planning something that his prey had no idea about, sitting there watching her, that made him feel good. He drew power from that. Enormous power. He could feel his erection stirring at the thought. A feral lust.

This one was tricky. But that didn’t bother him too much.They all presented problems; all he had to do was work out the best way round them. They were obstacles in the path to his goal. And obstacles could be overcome.

This one was about vantage point. The housing estate was open. If he sat watching from the side of the street he would be seen. He knew the type of people they were round here. Anything – anyone – that didn’t look like it fitted in, and they called the police. So he had to be careful. Cunning.

He had parked before the entrance to the estate and walked in. From there it had been easy to go to the house opposite and find a shadow to crouch in. Simple. They all had huge plastic wheeled bins and large cars parked out front. Some of them even had skips and rubbish from home improvements. Plenty of places. Anyone looking at the street would see a normal housing estate. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to be scared about. No one would ever notice him.

He watched the house. She was moving from room to room like she couldn’t settle. Like if she left a room for too long she would forget what was in it. And she had been alone all night. Her husband was coming back later and later. Like he didn’t want to be with her. Didn’t matter. Soon he wouldn’t be with her at all.

She would be his. Or the part of her he wanted would be his.

Lights at the end of the street. Sweeping round. A car coming into the turning.

He stayed completely still. Head down, so the beams couldn’t even catch his eyes, waiting until it had gone past. It slowed, stopped.Turned in to the house opposite.

The husband coming home.

The husband turned off the engine, the lights.Took his briefcase from the passenger seat, got out.Walked towards the house. Slowly, like he didn’t want to go in. Closed the door behind him.

He stood up, slipped out of the shadows and down the road. He had seen enough for the night.Time to head back now.Things to do. Duties to perform.

But he would be back.

Very soon.

26

‘Not here. Round the corner. He might see.’

Clayton put his foot automatically on the brake, then eased it off again. He drove the car past the house Sophie shared with Brotherton and parked around the corner. He turned the lights off. Highwoods was an area consisting entirely of housing estates with a huge Tesco at the centre of it. Most of the houses were large and fronted by laurel hedges but crammed so close together it made them seem smaller than they were.

Clayton looked at Sophie, her face lit by the overhead light in the car. ‘How do you usually get home from the gym?’ he said.

‘Taxi. Sometimes I take the car. But sometimes I’ll meet a girlfriend and have a drink.’

‘Bet he doesn’t like that.’

She gave a smile Clayton couldn’t read. ‘He would prefer it if I brought them back here for a drink.’

‘Then he could keep an eye on you.’

Sophie nodded, gave a grim smile. ‘Yeah. He does that all right. That’s why most of my girlfriends want to meet me in town now.’

Clayton said nothing.

‘I’m not saying I don’t enjoy it; it’s just… I like to pick and choose, you know?’

‘You like to be in control.’

This smile wasn’t grim but teasing. ‘Sometimes…’ She leaned across the seat towards him, whispered in his ear. ‘But sometimes I do like to do what I’m told. If it’s the right person telling me…’

Clayton could feel his erection springing up immediately. She moved in closer to him, licking the side of his neck. Goosebumps ran over his skin. He couldn’t sit comfortably. Her hand was on his chest now, smoothing down the front of his shirt, heading down towards his belt buckle…

‘No…’ It sounded like someone else had borrowed his voice and was doing a bad, timid impression of him.

‘That’s not what your body’s saying.’

He gasped as she found his erection. ‘I can’t…’

‘Sshh… I won’t tell anyone.’ She eased his zip down. ‘And neither will you, will you?’

‘Wh-what?’ He thought she had said something important but he didn’t know what it was. There was also something else he should be thinking about, something important. but he couldn’t remember. He could only concentrate on one thing at a time.

‘I said,’ said Sophie, working her hand into his trousers, ‘you won’t tell anyone, will you? About meeting me, about anything I’ve told you… You’ll keep my name out of it, won’t you?’

He felt her hand gripping him tight, working him up and down. She began to lower her head into his lap.

‘Will you?’ she said, looking up, eyes staring directly into his.

There was no love in those eyes. No warmth. Just calculated professionalism. His lust mirrored.

‘No,’ he said between gasps. ‘No…’

She lowered her head. He closed his eyes.

Anni Hepburn was cold. She had taken over from the Birdies over half an hour ago, having asked for the job specifically. Sometimes she got so hyped about a case that Phil gave in to her, let her put her energy to use.

But despite remembering to wrap up warm, she was still cold. She couldn’t put the car heater on in case it ran the battery down. The same with the radio. She knew they all did it, but if she needed to get away quickly and the battery was dead, the whole investigation could collapse and she would be in trouble. And she didn’t want that. So she sat there, several layers of clothing wrapped tightly round her, staring at the house.

Scrap metal must pay, she thought. Nice house. Not her style, and bigger than she would be able to afford. Unless she married a scrap metal merchant, obviously. Though if they were all like Ryan Brotherton, she wouldn’t bother.

She was just wondering how she was going to entertain herself for the next few hours to stop herself from falling asleep when a car approached. She sat up immediately, watching. The car came to an abrupt halt, then continued round the corner, away from the house. She sat back again. Probably nothing, she thought. But she would keep watching, just in case.

The lights on the car were turned off, but no one emerged. Strange, she thought. Maybe another car had been sent on surveillance. Not a BMW, though. Hardly a pool car.

She watched, waited. There were two people in there; she could make that out from the silhouettes. Then there was movement, the silhouettes rearranging themselves, one moving to the other side.

Oh God, she thought. Doggers.

She shook her head, tried not to watch as the woman’s head disappeared under the dashboard and the man threw his back in ecstasy. If she had been feeling difficult she could have walked over, tapped on the window, flashed the warrant card and put the fear of God into them. But she was on surveillance. Still, it was tempting. Not because of the law-breaking aspect, but because it was so long since she had been in a relationship or had any real excitement along those lines and she was jealous.

She and Clayton had almost been an item. A work attraction, that kind of thing.They had gone for a drink a few nights ago. Just to see whether the fact that they got on so well was because they were friends who worked together, or if there was something more. Jesus, was it only a couple of nights ago? Felt like ages. And yes, she had gone back to his flat. And yes, they had had sex. Or something approaching sex. It wasn’t very good. And afterwards they both knew it was something they had done more out of a sense of duty to each other than from anything approaching burning passion. The next day had been surprisingly easy and they had laughed it off as a bad idea. And that was that. The question had been answered. They were friends who worked together. Nothing more. She didn’t want it to develop any further. Besides, she knew what he was like, knew his reputation. She didn’t want to be just another conquest of his. Someone else to show off to the lads about down the pub. Just leave it at that.

As she watched, the silhouettes separated. The one in the passenger seat made some adjustments and rearrangements and got out. Anni reached for the binoculars. A thrill ran through her. The woman she was watching matched the description of Ryan Brotherton’s girlfriend, Sophie.

‘You two-timing bitch,’ she said to herself, laughing.

She watched as Sophie walked to the front gates, let herself in, walked up the driveway and into the house.

She turned her attention to the car. The headlights came back on and it turned round, ready to come past her and drive away. She raised the binoculars to her eyes, tried to get a look at the driver as it went.

‘Oh my God…’

Clayton. Unmistakably Clayton.

Her mind was racing. She reached quickly for her phone, ready to make a call. Who to, she didn’t know. Phil? Clayton himself? And say what? Ask what was going on?

She sighed, put the phone down. No. She would wait until the morning, have a word with him.

She sat there, still watching the house, not expecting anything more to happen. Her mind was racing. She was no longer cold. She was hot.

And angry.

Clayton was with another woman so soon after her. The fact that there was nothing between the pair of them wasn’t important. It showed a lack of respect. And it wasn’t just that – the woman he was with was involved in a murder inquiry. And that was serious.

There would be no sleep now.

She sat there watching. Planning.

27

W hat you doin’ standin’ here in the dark?

Hester jumped at the voice, opened her eyes.

‘I’m…’ She didn’t know. What was she doing standing there in the dark? She looked down. The baby was in its cot where she had left it. She was standing over it. ‘I’m lookin’ at the baby.’

In the dark?

She blinked. Unaware of how long she had been standing there. She must have blacked out again. ‘It… wasn’t dark when I started lookin’ at it.’

Her husband grunted. You made my dinner?

‘It’s…’ She looked again at the baby. It wasn’t moving, its breathing shallow. But it was peaceful.

Well?

She looked at the kitchen area. ‘I’ll get it for you.’

Disorientated from her blackout, she pulled the blanket up to the baby’s chin, being careful not to wake it, and ignited the Calor Gas heater. Then she switched on the light over the baby’s head. She had rigged up one of the electrician’s work lamps at the side of the cot, clamping it to the bedhead so she could see the baby from wherever she was in the house. The lamp threw down hard light and heat. It illuminated the baby all right, but she could also see the condensation on the bare brick and stone, glistening and running above the heater. The house would soon be warm enough, she thought. The baby was wrapped well enough.

She must have been staring at the still baby for a long time. She did that sometimes, stood still, not moving from the spot she was in. Losing all track of time. This time she hadn’t noticed the day slip away, to be replaced by night. And she hadn’t heard her husband enter. But that wasn’t so strange. Usually she just heard him as a voice in her head, a presence, and she knew straight away that he was there.

She looked at the baby one more time and, satisfied that it was all right, crossed over to the kitchen area. Her husband had built it for her. He had put up plasterboard walls to divide it from the open space, built shelves and cupboards from what he had salvaged on his travels. He had even painted the bare stone and brick walls in the kitchen area white. She liked that. Thought it made the place look more homely. And that was important, now they were a proper family.

She stood in the kitchen area. She hadn’t prepared anything. She looked round to see what she could make quickly. There were two skinned rabbits on the counter top, some root vegetables in a basket. That would do.

‘How… how about rabbit stew?’ she said, closing her eyes, hoping her husband wouldn’t see her lack of preparation.

He grunted again. I’m hungry. Now. Whatever you do, you’d better make it quick.

She nodded and, as fast as she could, lit the stove, put on a pan of water to heat up. She looked round. The baby was lying still in the cot, making no sound. Good. Knowing no harm could come to it, she made their evening meal.

Later, after she and her husband had eaten and she had washed up and cleared away, she returned to the baby. She couldn’t keep away. She had been getting up and checking on it all through dinner. She had heard her husband give a few exasperated growls, but he had said nothing. She had smiled inwardly at that. Perhaps he was an understanding man after all.

While she was staring at the baby, her husband slipped away again, leaving her alone with the infant once more.

It hadn’t wailed for ages. Once she had changed and fed it, it had kept quiet, slipping into what she thought was sleep as she rocked it in her arms. She remembered, before she blacked out, studying it as it lay breathing shallowly but raggedly in her arms, its eyelids just about closed, leaving only a sliver of milky white showing through as its eyeballs rolled into the back of its sockets. It was so small, so helpless. She could have done anything to it. Cuddled it, kept it warm, squeezed it tight. Or put her fingers round its throat, choked the air out of its tiny, frail body. Anything. She felt a rush of adrenalin as that realisation sped through her. She had the power of life and death. She could play God.

Power. For the first time in her life. She had smiled at the thought. No wonder people went to such lengths to have babies.

Hester looked down at it now, deliberating what to do. She wanted to pick it up. After all, that was what mothers did. But it looked so peaceful lying there, hardly moving, hardly breathing.

That was when she thought something might be wrong.

She leaned in closer, angled the lamp over to see it better. The pink blotches on its face seemed to be lessening in number. Its skin now had a blue tinge all over and the yellow was increasing. Hester didn’t think that was right. It most definitely wasn’t what they looked like on TV. Something was wrong.

‘Oh God, oh God…’

She looked round, panic welling inside her, willing her husband to turn up, but he was nowhere to be seen. She would have to cope on her own.

‘Oh God… oh God…’

What to do, what to do… She looked down at the sleeping child. She couldn’t take it to the doctor, she knew that. She hated doctors, had had a bad time with them all her life. So what, then? Did it need feeding? She checked her watch. No. Changing? She couldn’t smell anything. Should she pick it up? Yes. That seemed like a good idea. Then what? Hold it. Why? Because that was what mothers did, she reminded herself. Because doing that would make it better.

She reached down, picked the still infant from the cot. She stroked its cheek. It felt cold to the touch, its skin clammy. Just like stroking the walls behind it.

She held it to her. Warmth. That was what it needed. She got into bed, holding the baby to her chest. Eventually her arms began to cramp up from keeping them in the same position for so long, so she put the baby back in its cot with an extra blanket on top of it. The tin cot was right beside her bed. She lay on her side, looking at the baby.

And that was how she lay well into the night. Staring at the baby, keeping vigil for signs of a worsening condition. Trying to keep awake but dropping off occasionally. At some point during the night, she woke to find her husband was back.

‘The baby’s not well,’ she said.

He grunted. So?

She looked at the baby once again. For the first time she voiced the fear and doubt that had built within her. ‘I don’t… I don’t think it’s goin’ to get better. Not on its own.’

It’ll have to, her husband said.

‘Can’t we just…’

No.We can’t. Don’t be fuckin’ stupid, woman.

She nodded. She knew that.

You’ll just have to hope it gets better on its own.

‘Right.’

If it lasts the night, it’ll be all right.

‘What if it doesn’t?’

Then it doesn’t. Go to sleep.You’ve still got jobs to do in the mornin’. Baby or no baby.

And he was gone again.

She took his advice, tried to get some sleep, but couldn’t. Instead she lay there, watching the baby. At some point she plucked it from the cot, held it to her. She could feel something happening inside herself and she didn’t know what it was. An unfamiliar feeling, like it was tearing a hole in her. She didn’t like the feeling but she wouldn’t have wanted to be without it somehow. Not now.

So she held the baby. Waited for morning.

28

Caroline Eades couldn’t sleep. Her husband, lying on his back, mouth open and snoring like an angry lion growling, had no such problem.

She just couldn’t get comfortable. Every time she did, moving her body around to a position that could accommodate her stomach and the rest of her, somewhere the baby wasn’t lying on anything that would cause her discomfort, it would kick, or stretch, or shift about, and she was back to square one again.

But she didn’t think it was the baby’s fault. Not entirely. Graeme had come in after nine o’clock, put his briefcase down and announced he was going for a shower. He didn’t want any dinner, which was a good thing, since the M &S lamb shank was ruined by then; said he had eaten on the way home. Then, following his shower, he had downed a can of lager and gone to bed. He didn’t ask how she was, how her day had been, nothing. He barely acknowledged the children, who were putting themselves to bed. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was having an affair.

He had been her childhood sweetheart. Proper Romeo and Juliet stuff. At least she’d thought so until she read the play and saw what happened to them. She vowed that would never happen to Graeme and her. She would make it work, whatever. Give them a happy ending.

And she had. In the early days, when he was building up his business, she had put her career plans aside, been there to help him. In fact, the majority of the work involved in drawing up the business plans was down to her. But falling pregnant had stopped all that. Then she’d become a stay-at-home mum, let Graeme go out to work. His business had prospered, selling his recruitment agency to a national company while still being allowed to run the local arm. This had led to the new house, the two big cars, the private schools.

And now the new baby.

Unplanned but welcomed, at least by Caroline. Because if she was honest – and lying in the dark awake when the rest of the world was asleep was the time for honesty – she had nothing else. No friends since the move, apart from the other young mothers. Her two kids treated her as their personal servant. Her husband ignored her. So yes, this baby was welcome.

She looked at Graeme again. The man she had given all her dreams and wishes to. Her heart and soul. Her one-time Romeo, now snoring and drooling from the side of his mouth.

He had better not be having an affair. That would mean the baby was all she had to look forward to. Please, let him not be…

The baby kicked again. She shifted, tried to get comfortable.

Sighed. It was going to be one of those nights.

29

Phil sat on the sofa in his living room, took a mouthful of beer. Held it in his mouth, rolled it round, swallowed. Head back, eyes closed. The remains of an Indian takeaway on the coffee table in front of him, Elbow playing on the stereo, ‘The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver’. He sighed, listening to the song, Guy Garvey singing about there being a long way to fall.

He had come in from work thinking about the case, particularly Fenwick’s behaviour. But a quick weights session on his home gym had worked that out of his mind. Now, when he should have been formulating approaches, strategies for tomorrow, he found himself thinking of Marina. Only Marina.

When she had walked out of his life she had broken his heart and he had been bereft. And the way she had done it, cutting him out completely, after all they had meant to each other. No phone call, text, email, nothing. Like he was dead to her.

His bursting emotions had gone through several recognisable stages. Firstly incomprehension at her actions. A creeping guilt that she blamed him for Martin Fletcher. Then anger when she wouldn’t allow him to explain why he was innocent of her imagined charge. That anger upped to rage as he tried to hate her out of his system, telling himself she was no good for him and failing massively. Finally a numb emptiness as he realised he would be facing the rest of his life without her. All the while playing and replaying conversations with her, inventing and imagining new ones that they might possibly share, different scenarios and possible outcomes.

His reverie was cut short by the phone ringing.

He jumped to answer it, thinking at first that it might be Marina, but then in a more professional frame of mind realising it might be someone from the station with an update about the case. Or even another murder.

God, don’t make it that. Please don’t make it that…

It was neither.

‘Hello, son.’

Phil relaxed. It was Eileen Brennan. The nearest thing he had to a mother.

‘Hi, Eileen.’ He flicked the remote, muted the sound. ‘All right?’

‘Very well, Phil. And Don sends his love too.’

Phil had forgotten. He always made a Wednesday-night call to Eileen. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was going to call you.’

‘It’s all right. Doesn’t matter.’ She sighed. ‘We saw the news. Those girls… terrible. I said to Don, that’ll be our Phil working on that.’

Phil heard the pride in her voice. Smiled. ‘Yeah, that’s me.’

‘And that’s why you had to stand poor Lynn Lawrence’s daughter up.’

‘Oh, please…’

‘Couldn’t you even have met her later? Gone for something to eat?’

‘I don’t think I’d have been much company.’

‘I know, Phil.’ She sighed. ‘Terrible. We live in a terrible world.’

‘Not all of it,’ said Phil.

‘Don wants to know all about it. I said you couldn’t tell him. He knows that but it doesn’t stop him asking. So how’s…’

And she was off. Phil relaxed, took another couple of mouthfuls of beer while he talked to her. Hearing Eileen’s tales of friends he barely knew and Don’s troubles with how to work their new DVD recorder was just what he needed to hear after the day he had had. It told him that, contrary to what Eileen might have said, the world wasn’t the terrible place he saw all too frequently, but a place where people went about their normal, everyday lives. He heard some of his colleagues talk about parents and responsibilities as if it was something boring that they hated doing. Not Phil. He loved these phone calls with Eileen.

She was coming to the end now, building up to her familiar sign-off. ‘I wish you could meet a nice girl, Phil. Settle down.You deserve someone nice. Someone to give you a bit of happiness.’

He responded in kind. ‘I know, Eileen. But I never get the chance, do I? Never meet any women through work.’ Only dead ones, he thought, but thankfully didn’t add.

‘Well, I did try. But you’re a grown man, you can look after yourself. Anyway, Don wants to know if you’re still coming over on Sunday. I think he just wants someone to go to the pub with and watch the football. Don’t know why he wants to do that, either. We’ve got Sky here.’

Phil could imagine her sitting in the armchair of their big detached 1950s house in Mile End, just beside the mainline station. Mock Tudor, beamed inside and out. Tastefully decorated, torn apart by generations of foster children and lovingly repaired again. He loved that house. A noisy and energetic environment but also a warm, comforting one. It seemed empty now since they had both retired from foster care and there was just the two of them. But Phil still loved visiting. It made his Sundays special.

‘I’m still coming. And I’m looking forward to it.’

They said their goodbyes, Eileen rang off and Phil was alone once more.

He sighed. Her words had hit a nerve. He looked around the living room of his own home. It was well furnished, with books on shelves, CDs and DVDs. Prints on the walls. It told of an interesting life. A full one. He was happy with his own company. He had been on his own for most of his life. But sometimes, he thought, sometimes he would enjoy having someone to share it with. Someone to come home to.

He laughed out loud at how self-pitying he sounded.

‘Maybe I’ll get a dog,’ he said, to no one in particular.

He took another mouthful of beer, pointed the remote at the stereo. Elbow started playing again and his mind was immediately cast back to Marina. He had been listening to the album when they first got together. Each track reminded him of some aspect of her, but one in particular stood out. He knew that was coming soon, looked forward to it with both longing and trepidation, knew it would bring back memories he found almost too powerful to cope with, but memories that he wanted to be reminded of nonetheless.

They had met through work. The Gemma Hardy case. And the attraction had been instantaneous. He had looked up from his desk that day as Fenwick had escorted her across the office and done a double-take that verged on the comedic. She was so beautiful. In an office full of hard-bitten, badly dressed, sweating, cynical police officers, even more so. It looked like she had arrived from another planet, a more cultured and enlightened place. He couldn’t help but stare.

He vividly remembered their first meeting at the briefing, even down to what she was wearing. He recalled it now. A black velvet dress that accentuated her trim figure and flared out around her legs, plus high-heeled knee-length black leather boots that made her appear taller than she actually was. Thick black curly hair, pushed back at one side, held in place with a glittering hair slide that matched her necklace and earrings. Round, expressive hazel eyes. Full red lips. His first thought: he had never seen a woman that looked so perfect.

And his second: don’t even think it – she’s way out of your league.

But she’d soon proved him wrong.

They had been teamed up together in the case, her psychological expertise matching his experience as a detective. They had been left alone to work. At first he found it difficult to speak to her. When he tried to discuss the case he would catch her eye fleetingly, because he couldn’t hold it too long, and find her smiling at him, those beautiful hazel eyes wide and shining. It was unnerving; he felt she was teasing him. The educated university lecturer laughing at the poor, plodding copper. He tried to ignore it, not let it get to him, just concentrate on finding the girl’s stalker.

But she kept smiling at him. And he kept focusing on the case.

Then they touched. Accidentally, both standing over a desk, looking down at a spread of reports and photos. As she went to point at something, her hand came down on top of his. It was like an electric current passed through him. Like it jolted him awake, alive. Made him feel truly connected to another human being for the first time in his life. He looked at her as if shocked. And in that moment, that look, he knew: she felt the same way. She was still smiling at him, but he understood the smile now. She wasn’t laughing at him, mocking him. There was affection there. And something more.

‘Listen,’ he had said, ignoring the reports and looking directly at her, her hand sliding slowly off his as if reluctant to move, ‘I was just wondering, d’you fancy a drink or something some time?’

Phil had felt himself blush then, massively. What was he doing asking her out? What had possessed him to say that? He worked hard within the force to be seen as a man’s man when he had to be and a thief-taker by trade. He had shrugged off death threats from criminals that other officers would be seriously concerned by. But with women, he was all but clueless.

His mouth was open, ready to attempt to take his words back, when she said yes, that would be lovely.

‘Why did you say yes?’ he had asked her on their first proper date, in the Olive Tree restaurant in Colchester’s town centre. It was relaxed and comfortable with good, if slightly pricey, food. The kind of place professionals came to eat. But not usually police officers of his rank. He figured it for a safe place not to be seen.

They had made small talk on shared interests, discussed the case, whereabouts they both lived. Then Phil decided to move things on.

And her response was that smile again. Her wine glass at her lips, the deep reds matching, the candlelight dancing in her hazel eyes. ‘Why not?’ she said, taking a slow mouthful of wine. Phil watched as her lips lifted from the glass, glistening. ‘You’re handsome. You’re intelligent. You look like you can handle yourself if you need to, but you’re sensitive too.’

Phil laughed. ‘Is that a professional opinion?’

She nodded. ‘A personal one. But it’s true. I can see it in your eyes.’

He didn’t know what to say.

She laughed. ‘Are you happy being a detective?’

Phil was surprised by the question. ‘Yeah. Are you happy being a psychologist?’

Marina smiled. ‘They say all psychologists are damaged and are just trying to find their way home.’

‘They say all police are racist, violent thugs.’

‘Not the ones with sensitive eyes.’

Phil was feeling uncomfortable but exhilarated by her honesty. ‘So is that the case with you? Are you trying to find your way home?’

She shrugged. ‘I’m on the right path.’

She asked what appealed to him about police work. He was going to give her something boring and mundane: the hours were good, the pension scheme, something like that. But seeing her eyes, feeling the way they bored into him, and after the answer she had given him, he couldn’t just do that. She needed something more, something honest.

‘Well, it’s like this. You get a case. You get called out. Something’s happened. A robbery, a murder. Whatever. It’s a mess. There’s usually someone in tears, a house torn up, lives in pieces. Something like that. And they don’t know what to do next.’ He shrugged. ‘And it’s up to me to find out what’s going on. See what’s gone wrong and help repair it. Make sense of it.’ She was still looking at him. He felt suddenly self-conscious. This woman was unlike any he had ever met before. He picked up his wine glass to hide behind. ‘That’s it, really.’

She slowly nodded. ‘Did you go to university?’

He shook his head.

‘Did you want to?’

Another shrug. ‘Maybe. Wasn’t an option at the time.’

She toyed with the stem of her glass, frowning slightly. It left a lovely little crease in her forehead. ‘You like reading, I bet.’ A statement, not a question. ‘But you don’t tell anyone at work in case they have a go at you about it.’

He thought of the bookshelves in his flat. Filled with all sorts of stuff. Everything from philosophy and poetry to literature, biography and airport thrillers. He had a thirst for knowledge, for understanding, the roots of which he was sure lay in his childhood. He hadn’t found what he was looking for, though. The only thing that gave him real satisfaction was police work.

He shrugged again, growing even more uncomfortable with her questions.

‘You had a bad childhood, didn’t you? Lot of hurt there. Damage.’

The exhilaration was gone. Phil felt only discomfort. ‘Sorry. Off limits.’

‘No, I’m sorry,’ said Marina, looking down at her plate. ‘I only mentioned it because I sensed it, that’s all. Because…’ She paused. ‘I recognised it. ’ She looked up, eye to eye. ‘There’s something in you that reminds me of me. I’m sorry if I’ve got that wrong.’

Phil looked at her, said nothing. She slid her hand across the table. They touched. Electricity sparked again. As if the touch confirmed that they understood each other instinctively.

‘D’you want to know about me? I don’t mind,’ she said. She opened up then, told him of her home life, how her alcoholic, abusive father had walked out on her mother and two brothers when she was only seven years old, coming back occasionally into the lives only to cause anguish and upset.

‘He was a bastard: a pathological liar, a bully, a cheat, a wife-beater,’ she said, her eyes clouding over with unpleasant memories.

‘And those were his good points,’ Phil had said, trying to turn her from the dark emotional path her words were sending her down.

She smiled. Continued.Told him how she was encouraged at school, how they praised her intelligence, cajoled her to push herself and her studies. She had willingly responded, eager to get away from her background.

‘So you’re not from round here? I didn’t think you had an accent.’

‘I’m from Birmingham originally,’ she said. ‘And that’s an accent you don’t want to carry round with you.’ She continued, telling him how she had been awarded a scholarship to Cambridge and chosen psychology.

‘I suppose I chose it because of my dad. I wanted to understand what made him the way he was. Why he did what he did.’

‘And did you?’

‘Yeah. But I didn’t need a degree in psychology to work out that he’s just a vicious, lazy bastard.’

Her mother had died soon afterwards of cancer, robbing her of the chance to see her only daughter graduate. ‘And I feel bad about that. I wanted her to be proud of me.’

‘I’m sure she is.’

Marina nodded, her eyes averted.

‘And what about your brothers?’

A shadow passed across her eyes as she spoke. ‘Let’s just say they grew up to resemble their father. I’m sure your colleagues in the Midlands have more to do with them than I do.’

Phil raised an eyebrow, didn’t push it.

‘So, you’re from Colchester?’ she said. ‘Lived here all your life?’

‘Not yet,’ he said, hoping she would laugh. She did. Politely. ‘And you’re not married,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘Is there… anyone?’

A curious look crossed her face. ‘I’m living with someone. ’

Phil’s heart sank. ‘Oh.’

Marina shrugged. ‘It’s… we’ve been together a long time.’

‘I see.’

‘He’s… I was his student. He was my lecturer.’ She shrugged. ‘At least we waited until I’d finished the course. Well, more or less. He was…’

‘A father figure?’

‘I suppose so.’ Before Phil could say anything more, she went on. ‘Maybe it’s time I… Sometimes I feel more like his…’ She looked at her drink, swirling it round in the glass. ‘I don’t know. So that’s me. What about you?’

Because Marina had been honest with him, Phil felt that honesty should now be reciprocated. He spoke. And Marina listened attentively.

He told her of the pain of being abandoned, of growing up in various children’s homes and foster homes until Don and Eileen Brennan took him in.

‘They gave me everything I’d been lacking. A home. A sense of belonging, I don’t know… a purpose.’ He smiled, took a drink of wine. ‘Sorry. I’m not very good at talking about all this. It’s… I can’t express myself well.’

Her hand was on his again. She smiled. ‘You’ve told me everything.’

Their eyes locked once more. Different colours but the same in every sense that mattered. They went straight back to his flat.

He hadn’t had time to fully take in her body before they began making love. The connection continued. Nerves evaporated as they quickly fell into rhythm with each other, complementing and second-guessing what the other enjoyed, linked almost by a carnal telepathy. It was hot, physical, intense. Connected by more than just bodily sensations.

At one point, her legs wrapped round him, pulling him into her as deeply as he could go, he had opened his eyes to see her staring up at him. She had smiled. He had returned it. And in that moment he knew there was something between them stronger than lust or physical attraction. It was stronger than any bond he had ever experienced. It thrilled him beyond description.

It scared him beyond imagining.

He came.

Later, lying spent and exhausted, their bodies intertwined, Phil tried to work out what had just happened. It was more than just a physical release. He glanced across at Marina. Knew without asking that she was experiencing the same thing. It was the biggest thing that had ever happened to him. Again he was thrilled. Again he was terrified.

Early-morning sunlight eased round the curtains. They had barely slept. Phil pointed the remote at the CD; Elbow played gently in the background: ‘One Day Like This’. The euphoric love song establishing and nourishing the mood.

‘Aren’t you going to be in trouble when you get home?’

Her face was half in shadow. ‘Leave that to me.’

‘Okay.’

‘I don’t do this normally, you know,’ said Marina.

‘What, you do it abnormally?’

She gave him a shove. ‘You’re hysterical. I meant that. Jumping into bed with people.’

‘People? You want a threesome now? Foursome?’

Another shove. ‘You know what I mean.’

Phil laughed. ‘I know. Then why did you do it?’

Their eyes connected. ‘Why did you ask me out?’

Phil couldn’t bear to look at her; the intimacy was too naked, too knowing. ‘Felt right.’

‘More than right,’ she said.

Phil couldn’t reply. He just held her tighter. Felt the damage and uncertainty slip away, to be replaced by the beautiful, terrible peace of a love that reached down to his soul.

Held Marina like she was about to stop being real, turn into smoke. Knew she was experiencing similar emotions.

Knew that, whatever happened, his life would never be the same again.

Phil pointed the remote at the stereo, silencing Elbow before the album reached the track that reminded him of Marina. It wasn’t healthy: like picking a wound, stopping it from healing.

He drained his bottle, put it down. Looked at the half-eaten takeaway before him. He couldn’t eat. There was another bottle in the fridge if he needed it. He felt the start of a headache. Forced it away. He couldn’t indulge himself. He had to work.

Trying to push Marina out of his mind, he made himself re-examine the day he had just gone through. Close up his heart to her, compartmentalise his life and concentrate on finding a killer. And a baby.

He played back the events of the day, starting with the discovery of Claire Fielding’s body. Went over everything once again, looking for something they might have missed, attempting to make hidden connections.

Ignored the loneliness in his flat, his life.

Focused on his job.

Unaware that the song was still on his lips.

30

Marina stood at the window, glass of sparkling apple juice in hand, wishing it was something stronger. In front of her was a path, and beyond that the River Colne moved slowly past. Her house, a painted brick cottage with clematis climbing round the porch, was on the front at Wivenhoe, a quaint old fishing village now colonised primarily by academics working at the nearby university. The whole village had a relaxed, cultured ambience. A homely, safe place. But, putting the glass to her lips, Marina was feeling neither of those things.

Tony was cooking a late dinner. Nothing special, pasta arrabiata. It should have been Marina’s turn but he had taken one look at her as she entered and, handing her a glass of juice and kissing her forehead, declared he would do it. She had made a half-hearted attempt to refuse.

‘No,’ he had said, fussing around her, his reading glasses still perched on the end of his nose, ‘my last seminar finished at five, and since then I’ve done nothing but read and drink wine, so…’ He sat her down in an armchair as if she was an invalid and handed her a newspaper, then, pleased with himself for being so solicitous, retreated into the kitchen. She had smiled at him, accepted it. He was good to her, she told herself.

She had looked round the living room of their cottage, filled as it was with books, interesting one-off pieces of furniture, subdued lighting, unexpected pictures, plants and wall hangings. They had done that to show visitors and themselves that they were interesting people leading a full, rich life. The opposite of the house she had grown up in. But crossing to the window and looking out at the slow-moving, sluggish, dark river, Marina felt as if it all belonged to someone else and not her.

Music wafted from the kitchen – some chilled Brazilian beats Tony had picked up somewhere – along with delicious cooking odours that any other night would have had her stomach rumbling in anticipation. But not tonight. She took a sip of her drink, grimaced, disappointed in herself that she had expected something that wasn’t there.

She saw Claire Fielding’s dead body. Julie Simpson’s too. The other two women. Phil had been right about the murder scene. It felt like they shouldn’t have been there. Like life had passed on.

Phil. She had planned what she was going to say to him the next time she saw him. Several times. But as the weeks had passed and life had ground on without him, she had resigned herself to never seeing him again. And perhaps, she had thought, that was for the best. She was back with Tony, pregnant, with a fledgling private practice. Her life had moved on. Or at least back. Back into her safety zone.

But here they were, together again. And she hadn’t been able to say anything to him. Because every time she thought of him, she saw Martin Fletcher’s face. The locked door. She felt the cold fear bubble and boil inside her once more, and then she thought of Phil. And it all rendered her speechless.

She hadn’t realised how much of a rut she had fallen into before the police called her in on the Gemma Hardy case. Routine had turned to drudgery without her noticing. Her safe job, her pension. And Tony, her safe man.

But then she hadn’t wanted an exciting man. Before she met Tony she had been attracted to the kinds of men who reminded her of her father. She knew it was wrong, not to mention unhealthy, but nevertheless she kept going back, kept seeking them out. Until one day she had looked in the mirror and seriously questioned what she was doing. And found that she couldn’t do it any more.

Tony had been there. A good man, solid, dependable. Thoughtful, pleasant, companionable. Old enough to be her father, but his diametric opposite in every other respect. He didn’t thrill her or excite her, but he made her feel comfortable. Safe. He was kind to her. And those, she told herself, were admirable qualities. He asked her out, she accepted. And that was that. He wanted her to move in with him, out of her town-centre flat, into his cottage in Wivenhoe. She had done so. And felt comfortable. Content. Or so she thought.

By the time of the Gemma Hardy case she was ready for a new challenge. And she got one. It taxed her, stretched her. Being forced to turn something she only dealt with theoretically into a practical application, with a young woman’s life potentially at stake, terrified her. But it also pushed her, confronted her. And when she helped provide the team with a positive result, it gave her a thrill teaching never had. Never could.

Not only that, but she met Phil.

She knew as soon as she saw him. There was something about him, an immediate connection. At first she tried to deny it, claim it was a symptom of the case she was working on, confusing adrenalin and lust for something stronger and more profound, but the more time she spent with him, talked to him, the more she became convinced she was right and they connected on a much deeper level. A soul deep level. She recognised something in him. Something she had never encountered in anyone else in quite the same way. Something she had only ever seen in herself. She knew that if there was a man who could understand her – totally – it was him.

So when he asked her out, she couldn’t say no. Despite having Tony. She slept with Phil. Repeatedly. And surprised herself: rather than feeling guilty about betraying Tony, she began to feel increasingly that her future lay with Phil.

And then came Martin Fletcher.

The Gemma Hardy case was finished. Martin Fletcher had been caught, the team had celebrated. Marina included. Her first foray into police work had been a resounding success. She had put her name forward for more. Everything was looking good for her.

She had gone back to university after the case had concluded, and was in her office one evening, straightening out some of the paperwork that had accrued in her absence. She was meeting Phil later, happy to work until that time. He had arranged to pick her up from her office, said he wanted to see where she worked. She was pleased about that, looking forward to showing the place off to him. No qualms about being seen on campus with another man, because she had decided to tell Tony it was all over. Consequently, her mobile was switched off in case he phoned her.

There was a knock on the door. Hesitant at first, then more self-assured. She shouted for the person to come in. He did. As she looked up, her heart seemed to stop. Her pen fell from her grasp. Martin Fletcher was standing in her office.

‘What… what d’you want?’

He gazed around, as if searching for the answer to the question on the shelves of her office. Then looked directly at her.

‘You,’ he said. ‘You.’

Marina was terrified. She glanced to the door, calculated the distance, the obstacles in her way. Fletcher must have had the same idea. He turned, and before she could even rise from her chair, he had locked it and put his back against it.

‘Don’t scream,’ he said, menace in his voice. ‘Don’t.’

She swallowed. It felt like there was a stone in her throat. ‘There’s someone… someone coming here in a minute. Very soon.’

‘No there’s not. They’ve all gone home.’

‘Yes, yes there is.’ She was breathing so hard, her heart felt like it was going to burst. ‘Phil… Phil Brennan. Detective Inspector. He’s meeting me here.’

A wave of fear passed across Fletcher’s features at the mention of the police. Despite being terrified, Marina was thinking like a psychologist. He’s scared of the police but not of me. He’s angry but can’t take it out on them, so I’m the target. The thought was less than comforting.

‘What are you doing out?’ she asked. ‘I thought you were on remand.’

He smiled then. It was eerie, like he was listening to a joke told by a ghost on a distant radio. ‘They let me go. On bail. Technicality.’ Then the anger returned. ‘You.You ruined my life.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Yes you did.’ He was starting to get angry now. He moved away from the door, started coming towards her. ‘You took away my life. Turned Gemma against me.You did that.’

Marina looked round for a weapon, something she could use. Could see nothing. Phil, she thought, hurry up…

She had to keep him talking, try to reason with him. ‘No, Martin, you’re wrong. I didn’t ruin your life.’

‘Yes you did!’

She flinched at his anger. Forced herself to keep calm. Breathed deeply. ‘No. No I didn’t. And Gemma was never your girlfriend. That was Louisa, Gemma’s flatmate.’

‘No…’ He put his hands to his head, started hitting his temples. ‘No, no…’

‘Yes she was, Martin. Louisa was your girlfriend. Not Gemma.’

‘No, no…’

‘Gemma was her friend. But not your girlfriend. Let it go, Martin, you’ve got to let it go…’

His next words were inaudible, just a shriek of pain as he kept hitting himself, eyes tight shut, seemingly trying to knock her words out of his head.

Marina looked round once again for a weapon, anything. There was no time to turn her mobile on. She saw the phone on the table. If she could get to that, quickly make a call…

She looked at Martin Fletcher, eyes closed, still hitting himself, then back to the phone. She could do it. Just reach out, grab it…

As her hand wrapped round the receiver, he opened his eyes and, with a scream, lunged forward. She tried to punch in the numbers but he was on her, his hand over hers, pulling the receiver from her, wrenching the phone from the wall, flinging it on the floor.

‘Bitch! You’re going to pay…’

She made a lunge for the door, knowing that she probably wouldn’t reach it. She was right. He was on her straight away, pulling her back by her hair. She put her hands up to her head, tried to prise his fingers away, but to no avail. He flung her to the floor. She felt hair being pulled out by the roots, thought parts of her scalp could have gone too.

She landed hard and curled up into a ball, instinctively trying to protect herself while she got her breath back. She knew blows were coming and closed her eyes, placed her hands over her head and face.

‘Please, don’t hurt me… don’t hurt me…’

He knelt on her, his weight pushing her down, making it hard for her to catch her breath, clamped a hand roughly over her mouth. ‘Shut up. Don’t say anything. Don’t scream, don’t… just don’t…’

She kept her eyes screwed tightly shut. Said the same words over and over again like a prayer, a mantra: Phil will be here soon, Phil will be here soon…

Then the slapping started. More startling than painful. She felt him attacking her around her face. She quickly moved her hands to ward off the stinging blows.

‘Bitch… bitch…’

He was using the words to build himself up. The slaps were getting harder, more forceful. Then she felt a punch to her chest. She grunted. That hurt. Then another one. Then another.

She had to do something, try to stop him before he lost control completely.

She opened her eyes, squinting at the expected blow. She looked up, saw Fletcher, his face twisted ugly with anger and hatred, his eyes almost closed. She glanced to the side. Saw the phone lying there. That would have to do.

She could move her left arm; he didn’t have any weight on that. Good. She snaked it out, groped for the phone. Found it. Flinching from the slaps and punches, she gripped it, hefted it in her hand and brought her arm round as fast and as hard as she could.

The phone connected with the side of Martin Fletcher’s head.

Not trusting to luck, she did it again.

He opened his eyes, looked at her. The anger had gone, replaced by shock. She didn’t have time to think about his reaction now; she just had to capitalise on it. So for a third time, roaring as she did so, she hefted the phone, putting all her strength behind it, feeling it crunch once more against the side of his head.

Martin Fletcher sat back, stunned. Marina used his confusion to wriggle her body free of his. She dashed to the door, tried to undo the lock, but her hands were shaking so much she couldn’t get a grip on it. Instead she started banging.

‘Help! Help me! Somebody help me! Help!’

‘No… don’t… don’t do that… please…’ Martin Fletcher’s voice was small and fragile. He stayed where he was on the floor, rubbing his head where the phone had connected, from where blood was beginning to trickle.

Marina ignored him, kept shouting.

‘No, please don’t…’

His anger was completely gone now; just that tremulous, fearful voice in its place. She turned to him, the psychologist in her ascendant once more.

‘Your power’s gone, Martin. I’m not scared of you any more…’

He shuffled away from her, squashed himself into the corner of the room. Covered his head with his hands.

Then came the sound of banging on the door.

‘Phil!’ Marina shouted. ‘I’m in here!’

There was more than one voice, muffled by the heavy wood. Marina took strength from the voices, managed to turn the lock. The door opened. There were two overseas students standing there, along with a maintenance worker. But no Phil.

She turned back to Martin Fletcher. He had stood up and was trying to get out of the window.

She rushed forward but he shouted, stopping her.

‘Stay back or I’ll jump!’

She stayed where she was. ‘Come on, Martin, don’t be stupid. You’ll break your neck if you jump from here. Kill yourself.’

‘I shouldn’t have come here…’ Martin Fletcher was crying. ‘It’s my fault. All my fault. I shouldn’t have come here…’

‘It’s not that bad, Martin, come on. Let’s talk about it…’ She tried to edge closer to him.

He moved further out on to the ledge. ‘I said stay back!’

Marina stayed where she was.

‘There’s nothing for me. Not now. Just prison, with the nonces and the paedos…’

‘Martin…’

‘Tell Gemma, tell Gemma… I loved her…’

‘Martin, no!’

But her words fell on empty air. He had jumped.

‘Be about another five minutes.’

Tony’s words called Marina back to the present. She gave a grunted reply, took another drink.

And that had been that. Martin Fletcher had jumped, killing himself in the process. And Phil hadn’t been there to help her. To save her. He had tried to contact her afterwards, when he had heard what happened. But she wouldn’t take his calls. She also discovered that he had tried to contact her when her phone was switched off. He’d wanted to tell her that at best he would be late, and at worst he wouldn’t be able to make it. There had been a murder and he had been called out to attend.

That didn’t make it better. None of it made it better. She had needed him to be there for her and he had failed. That was all there was to it.

She couldn’t help feeling like that. It was the Italian in her, and she couldn’t escape her ancestry. If a man said he would be there, he would be there. No question, no argument. And if he didn’t, if he let her down, then she had every right to be mad at him.

For over a week she awoke screaming during the night, Martin Fletcher’s face the final thing she would see before waking. Tony had been there for her every time. Safe, dependable Tony. A good man who looked after her when she needed it.

But she couldn’t face the university again. Not after what had happened. So she had left and set up on her own.

Then she discovered she was pregnant. Tony was fine about it. Happy, even. She might have thought that the pram in the hall meant the death of romance, but Tony had never been the most romantic of people to begin with. It didn’t even mean the death of his personal freedom, because he never went anywhere.

He was the one who insisted she drank only soft drinks. He had even talked about redecorating the upstairs study for the baby, suggested colour schemes, murals. He had gone so far as to pick up a Mothercare catalogue and ask her opinion of baby buggies. He was enjoying her new pregnancy and she wished she could join him. As it was it just scared her, sometimes even depressed her.

She did see Phil once more. He was waiting for her when she came out of work on one of her final days at the university. She saw him loitering behind a pillar and immediately turned the other way. He chased after her.

‘Please, Marina, please…’

She hurried away from him.

‘Please…’

She just kept walking, didn’t even acknowledge him. Eventually he realised that his words were having no impact and that she wasn’t going to slow down. He stopped, let her walk away. Out of his life.

She turned another corner, found herself in part of the campus that was almost deserted. She flattened herself against the rough concrete wall and cried her heart out.

Eventually she returned home. Tony had been watching Question Time on TV. She had walked past him, straight up the stairs, and gone to bed. And that was the end of Phil.

Until Ben Fenwick’s call.

She looked out of the window once more.

‘I’m dishing up,’ Tony called from the kitchen.

Marina called back that that would be fine. She looked again at the slow-moving river. She thought of the dead women, the missing baby. And Phil. She tried to keep him out of her mind, but there he was. His eyes staring into hers.

‘Have I got time for a shower?’ she said.

‘Well it’s ready now…’ Tony came into the living room, glanced at her. Saw how tired and careworn she looked. Smiled. ‘Go on. Get your shower. I’ll keep it warm.’

She managed to return the smile, then made her way up the stairs.

Trying to ignore the conflicting emotions running through her.

Her arm across her stomach all the time.

31

H e held the hen down forcibly on the square block of wood. Its eyes were wide and staring. Its beak was open but it was too terrified to make any sound. It couldn’t call for help or raise an alarm. It just lay there, a heavy hand, callused, rough and dirty, not allowing it to move.

Cross-hatched with blade indentations, the wood was ingrained and stained from dried blood and matter that had seeped into it through years of use.

The hen looked up, made one last attempt to escape and then gave up, mutely accepting its fate. The blade of the axe arced through the cold morning air. Landed with a thud in the wood, slicing through bone, feathers, flesh and skin. Blood spurted upwards and outwards, a gory ejaculation. The hen’s head lay there, staring sightlessly upwards. Its body twitched and jerked like a carnival sideshow geek, held firmly in place by the hand until its gyrations and spasms came to a halt.

He wiped his hands down the sides of his long overcoat. Left long streaks of blood and gore, dark against the dark material. Glistening. Soon the marks would sink into the fabric. Join the other old stains that made up the texture of the coat.

He straightened up, looked round.The house was on the edge of the river, just up from the muddy sands. The river moved slowly towards the sea, flat and oily in the weak early-morning light.The surrounding area was flat and bleak, the marshland stretching to the sands, away to the river, the sea. The trees bare and spindly, late autumn naked, like bone sculptures painted with dried, dark blood.

He put the axe down, closed his eyes.Things were different this morning. Because Hester was no longer a mother.

She had lain awake most of the night, staring at the baby. She found it fascinating. Its little chest moving up and down. Its fingers clasping and unclasping, grasping at invisible creatures. Angels or demons, Hester thought. Its face contorting, mouth twisting and chewing. It was like a little creature from a Disney cartoon. Not a real, dying baby, just a pretend special effect.

Gradually it weakened until it could move no more. Its breathing became so shallow it eventually stopped. Its face and hands stopped twisting. Still fascinated, Hester put her head on one side, leaned in close, tried to hear the last trail of air leave its body. Its final sigh. She missed it. But it changed nothing. The baby was dead.

It lay in the cot, still and lifeless. Like it needed its batteries replacing. Hester poked it, prodded it. It didn’t move. She prodded again, harder this time. It still didn’t move. She leaned in closer, used both hands this time. It rocked slightly but returned to its original position when she took her hands away.

So that was that. The baby was gone. Hester was no longer a mother.

She felt something then, an ache inside, like something had been taken from her and could never be replaced. That feeling sparked another one. An older but similar feeling of something being taken from her body. Cut from her. She had tried not to remember it, fought against it returning to mind. Failed. She had tried to keep it from her head for years because when it arrived it was so painful she couldn’t cope and it spun her into a deep depression that could last for days, weeks even. She would just mope around the house, get no work done, make no food, just cry for what she had lost. And there was no cure. She had to ride it out.

She fought against it again. Pushed her hands between her legs, clamped down hard with her thighs.

‘No… no… Don’t come back, it’s fine. It’s going to be fine…’

Rocking backwards and forwards in the bed while she did it.

It was no good. The memory, long suppressed, was already there. Once again she could feel the guilt lance through her, the hurt and humiliation. Crawling naked along the floor, blood and other bodily secretions oozing from her, those cruel, hateful words still ringing in her ears. And all that pain, working through her body, pounding in her head. More than one person could stand. Certainly more than the person she used to be could stand.

Once again she remembered how that hurt and humiliation had driven her to the kitchen. Told her to open the drawer. In her mind’s eye she could barely see what she was doing, tears had been streaming so hard down her face.

‘Stop it… stop it…’ Rocking in the bed, curled up in a foetal ball, hands still pushed firmly between her thighs. But sparked by the dead child lying next to her, those long-suppressed memories just kept coming. They wouldn’t stop.

‘Oh God… no…’

She was seeing her own hand once again open the drawer, reach for the knife…

‘No…’

She clamped down harder, screwed her eyes tight shut.

‘Make it stop… no… I don’t want to…’

Take the knife, place it against her skin… Feel how cold and sharp the blade was against the soft flesh of her lower stomach. Push – tentatively at first – to see what it felt like, to see if it was a pain she could stand…

No words now, just muffled, inarticulate sobs.

But what was one more kind of pain against the rest that were swirling around inside her? She pushed, harder again. Felt blood trickle down her skin from underneath the path of the blade. It tickled, felt like it was nothing at all. She couldn’t call it pain. Not really. Not compared to the rest of her.

She felt once again her hand grasping herself between the legs, pulling out the skin and gristle, stretching it out…

More sobs, more rocking, more shaking.

Pulling, stretching as far as it would go… willing this to be an end, hoping and praying that the pain would stop when she had done it…

Just get it over with…

And then, with the realisation that whatever she did couldn’t be worse than what she was at present, she took the knife in her other hand and brought the blade swiftly down.

It didn’t go as planned. It was harder than she had imagined, tougher to cut through. But she managed, sawing backwards and forwards. The pain was so much more intense than she had thought it would be. And the blood, so much blood…

She felt she might black out. But she didn’t, she couldn’t. Looking down, she saw the job half finished, that hateful piece of gristle hanging off her body, bloodied and mangled. With a surge of rage she plunged the blade in once again and, in a fresh bout of arterial spray, resumed cutting.

And then, eventually, it was off.

She held it in her hand, that offending piece of flesh now looking so small and harmless. Shrivelled and lifeless.

Hester had smiled then, out of relief or respite from the pain she couldn’t remember. But she knew she had smiled.

Before she collapsed.

32

When Hester opened her eyes, she was standing in front of the cot, looking at the baby. Her memories receding, waiting for her husband to arrive.

What the fuck’s the matter with you now, woman? What you standin’ there like that for?

He was there. She quickly wiped her eyes, willed the last smoky trails of her memory to be gone. She didn’t want him to know she was thinking of that again. Anything but that.

‘The… the baby…’

What about it?

‘It…’ She knew she had to deflect her attention away from her memories. She took her hands from between her legs and pointed at the cot. ‘It died…’

‘It’s dead,’ she said again when he didn’t respond.

I can see that.

‘What… what should we do?’

Bury it.

So she did. As soon as it was time to get up, she climbed out of bed and took the now cold and stiffening body from the cot. She carried it outside and picked up a shovel. It was difficult. The cold, hard earth proved unyielding to anything less than her pickaxe. So she swung it down, over and over, until she had loosened enough ground to dig a shallow grave.

And there she stood, looking down at the empty patch of earth, the weak early-morning light casting a deep, spidery shadow into it. Hester and her husband were the only people around along the bleak, deserted coastline. She put the pickaxe down and picked up the tiny body in one hand. The sky was grey and oppressive, like it was pressing down on her, trying to squash her into the ground too. She took the blanket from the baby, knelt down and placed the body in the hole.

She stood up, looked down at it. And felt something. Again there was that emptiness, that strange aching feeling inside her. It seemed to well up inside her, building in her chest. She opened her mouth, put her head back. And out came a wail, as surprising to her as it was plaintive and heartfelt. It sounded like a wounded, cornered animal that could fight no more and knew it was about to die. The sound had a pained inevitability to it. She kept howling and screaming, her head back, her eyes closed. Just howling and screaming.

She didn’t know how long she stood there. Time for Hester became elastic and stretched, then fluid and flowed away. Then finally solid once more as she opened her eyes. Her voice was silent, her throat raw. She felt empty, spent. She looked round. The baby’s body was still lying in the grave. She picked up the shovel, began to heap earth on to it. Each spadeful fell with a flat, spattering crash until eventually the body was covered. She tamped and smoothed down the earth, stood upright once more.

The emptiness she had thought she felt wasn’t there. The pain inside her that had caused her to wail was. It had returned when the baby had become obscured by dirt. In fact, it was growing stronger. Her earlier memories of shame and rage were now totally forgotten, or at least suppressed once more. This was a more immediate pain. This called for a direct resolution.

She was holding the dead, headless chicken.

Here, said her husband.You’ll know what to do with that.

She couldn’t take her eyes off the patch of smooth earth. ‘The baby’s gone…’ she said once more. The words, she knew, were unnecessary, but she felt she had to say something. Fill in the gap between the earth and the sky.

‘We were goin’ to be a family,’ she said.

Her husband was silent. She continued.

‘The baby was goin’ to make us a family.’

We’ll get another one.

Hester smiled, eyes shining. ‘Can we? Because that’s what couples do when things like this happen. It’s what makes them families.’

There’s more on the list.

Another smile played across Hester’s features. ‘Have you got one in mind? Have you been out hunting again?’

I’ve got one in mind.

Hester could have kissed him, she was so happy.

‘When can we get it?’

Soon. Now take that hen inside and get to work. I’m gettin’ hungry.

Hester went inside. She gave barely a backward glance to the flattened mound of earth. She didn’t need to now. That was in the past. Water under the bridge and all that. This was the present.

She had something to look forward to. She was going to have a baby. She was going to be a mother again.

She was going to be complete.