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  ‘He said he was aiming for the floor just as a warning, but does my leg look like flooring? It’s not as if I was sylph-like and he’d hardly noticed my slender existence. I was the same tub I am now. Anyway, that scared the life out of his mates – and him, incidentally, and he threw the gun to the floor. We got our arrests, and I got rather a lot of sick leave and a bowl of fruit – and, of course, this slight limp when I’m knackered.’

  ‘That must have been awful.’

  ‘Not as awful as having my husband punch me on the nose because my job was the reason for his infidelity, as if you ought to apologise to him for what you put him through in just having a life. God, if I ever meet this husband of yours, I think I’ll floor him.’

  ‘You won’t get a chance. I think they’re going tonight, to spend a night in the airport hotel, and they can’t get out of my house soon enough for my liking.’

  ‘You’re very brave. I couldn’t bear it if that happened between me and Hal.’

  ‘It’s not bravery, it’s the realisation that our marriage has been fatally flawed for years now, and that, although his salary’s been useful, I’d rather not have him attached to it. It’s been a sham for so long, I can’t even remember when I got tired of being used like a sex toy every night without complaint.’

  ‘Every night?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I’m surprised you haven’t castrated him.’

  ‘I have thought of it. I’m probably the only woman in the world who looks forward to her periods, just to be left in peace for a while.’

  ‘Jesus!’

  PCs Franklin and Shuttleworth were dispatched to round up Messrs. Edwards, Stoner, Lord and Trussler, while Hardy and Groves went to the Laceys’ house to question the parents further. Although the parents had provided the police with her last school photograph, DI Hardy didn’t think this was really representative of how she may have looked on the last night of her life, particularly bearing in mind what had been found in her bedroom.

  The two officers came armed with some photographs that had been printed from those on the girl’s computer, most of them selfies or shots with groups of friends, and they needed her parents to identify the friends that she usually hung about with, and who might have either been with her or egged her on to something she might not normally do.

  It was not something that either of them looked forward to, but they were grateful to the young PC, Teri Friend, who had proved to have a real gift for breaking bad news and comforting those who were bereaved. At least they hadn’t had to do that.

  When they arrived, the door was answered by PC Friend herself, who had stayed on to keep the Laceys company in the first hours of their loss. She knew she was a sounding board, and was excellent at dealing with anything that was thrown at her – they could either talk about their lost loved one, or rant on about the unfairness of it all.

  ‘Come in,’ she invited them in a hushed tone, calling into the living room, ‘DI Hardy and DS Groves are here to speak to you, Mr and Mrs Lacey.’ Both parents were huddled together on the sofa, their arms round each other, tears still running down their faces, but they were silent in their extremity of shock and grief, and didn’t even look up when the two new arrivals entered the room.

  ‘Sir, madam, we’d like to ask you a few questions about your daughter’s friends and the day she disappeared,’ DI Hardy began.

  ‘We’ve told you everything we know. We haven’t got anything else to say,’ replied the father, looking up from his wife’s shoulder.

  ‘We’ve brought some photographs printed from your daughter’s computer, pictures of Genni with some of her friends, and we wondered if you could identify them for us, so that we might start questioning them to see if anyone was with her the day she disappeared, or if someone egged her on – maybe dared her – to do something risky and out of character. I wonder if you’d be good enough to take some time to look at them?’

  The DI handed a group of photos to Mrs Lacey, and perched on the edge of a chair, Groves following suit so that she didn’t stand out. As the bereaved mother began to sob, the sergeant got out her notebook and Hardy put a small tape recorder on the coffee table with a mumbled, ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

  As Mrs Lacey began to cry as if her heart would break, her husband said, ‘I think we can tell you who most of these girls are, but our Genni’s almost unrecognisable under all that make-up.’

  ‘We did wonder about that. She doesn’t look at all like she looked in that school photo, does she? Perhaps you would be kind enough to give us permission to use one of those we have printed, to put it out with another appeal for any information about sightings.’

  Lauren noted down three names as being those of her current best friends. ‘But you know what teenage girls are like – this week’s enemy is last week’s best friend,’ added Abi shakily through her tears. ‘There are some others here, but she’d either fallen out with them recently, or wasn’t particularly friendly with them anymore. They’re just on the periphery of her group now.’

  ’You said she was wearing a T-shirt and jeans when she went out?’

  ‘Yes, but she had her rucksack with her. After seeing what was in her bedroom, she could have had anything in there … but surely you know what she was wearing, if you’ve found her … her body.’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Lacey.’

  ‘My God, you’re not saying she was naked when she was found, are you? And had she been interfered with?’

  PC Friend went over to the couple and took the spare space on the sofa so that she could comfort Mrs Lacey, who had once again disintegrated into heartbroken sobs. ‘My poor little baby. My poor little girl.’

  ‘Thank you for these names. We’ll go to their homes and question them, and we’ll let you know if we find out anything else. Thank you very much for your co-operation in your time of loss.’ Olivia hated the platitudes that had attached themselves to loss and death, but knew that they had to be observed and paid lip service to, or she might be accused of being flint-hearted and uncaring.

  Franklin and Shuttleworth had had a bit of a game laying hands on the men who were wanted for questioning, but eventually they’d run them all to ground, Shuttleworth’s impressive build making sure that none of them tried to resist arrest. When they got their quarries back to the station, however, each of the men had insisted on having his solicitor present before they answered any questions. Having got their solicitors, however, they then said nothing more. This was still the situation when the DI and DS arrived there: the men sitting silently, with their cups of hot, stickily sweet tea, which they had been provided with courtesy of the duty officer.

  Olivia and Lauren brought the broad figure of Shuttleworth to stand in the room with them while they taped the interviews, once the ‘briefs’ had arrived, and they questioned the men for the rest of the afternoon about what they had been doing on the evening in question, when Genni had disappeared, but to no avail.

  They all told the same story: that they had been hanging around the town, popped into a couple of pubs for a drink, and then shared a takeaway. For some reason, the last bit of this group alibi seemed to amuse each one of them, but Hardy allowed that to lie for now.

  Lauren had finally got the house to herself, and Ben Hardy had been allowed home from hospital to his parents’ home. Enquiries were ongoing in all three murders, as well as into the source of the drugs that had been found in Peter Hanger’s car, but Hanger himself had lapsed into a coma again, this time not an induced one, and they would have to bide their time.

  There was a grim atmosphere in the station, with the unsolved crimes still hanging around, and even the town had taken on an air of wariness and fear, the streets being even more empty in the evenings than would usually have been expected of November. Pubs and clubs were under-attended, and parents kept a much closer eye on their teenage children for fear that whoever was out there hadn’t finished his grisly business yet.

  It was into this at
mosphere of apprehension and barely supressed horror that the news of another body arrived at the station. A local man who kept a fishing boat for pleasure had decided to take a trip to see if he could catch anything on a line. His boat had been stored inside a large unused boat shed, once part of the bustling local fishing community but now deserted and rotting. Once he’d got the boat into the main water he’d reached for the line from his metal mooring ring, and found a great resistance on the end of it. Someone had clearly tied something to the ring.

  Instead of wasting time wondering what on earth could be tied to his ring, he yanked on it hard, eventually drawing forth a sack with what looked like the remains of a human head sticking out of it; one not very fresh and terribly nibbled and chewed. After throwing up his breakfast into the river, he immediately called 999 on his mobile and asked for the police.

  There was a car at the scene inside ten minutes, and the sometime fisherman was told that a medic was on the way, along with a CSI team and CID. As they waited for reinforcements to arrive, the man, James Lister, now with a cool head since the contents of his stomach were dispensed with, said, ‘He’s gonna be a bugger to identify in that state, isn’t he? Have you not had anybody reported missing?’

  The uniformed officers shrugged off the question and waited for their superiors to arrive. Their lot was just to keep schtum and monitor the situation, making sure that the scene wasn’t tampered with.

  The pile of sodden remains on the ground was the only ugly thing in sight. It was a beautifully bright November morning, with a clear blue sky, the sun twinkling on the little wavelets of the river. The surrounding fields were covered with frost, making them shine like fields of jewels, and cobwebs appeared as delicate works of the finest filigree.

  Into this almost perfect autumnal scene marched DI Hardy and DS Groves, originally rejoicing in the perfect day, but feeling the waves of trepidation wash over them as they approached the group of men on the bank. What had turned up now? They had been told there was a body in some sort of bag, but there had been no other concrete information. They had just been given the location and told to go out there.

  Superintendent Devenish was beginning to lose his rag at the lack of progress on the investigations, and was worried about pressure from above, or – even worse – having officers brought in over the heads of his team, relieving him of the responsibility for clearing up the crimes and locking away the villains. Devenish, like Sherlock Holmes before him, had no taste for the modern equivalent of being taken over by Scotland Yard.

  It was that same night that Lauren began to get silent phone calls in the early hours, all of which had the number withheld. At first she just thought it was a wrong number, but when her sleep had been disturbed five times, she began to get worried.

  Did someone know she was newly on her own, and was trying to rattle her? Or was it someone connected with the case threatening her with their silence? When she confided in Olivia the next day, the senior officer largely shrugged it off, telling her to either change her number or get the phone company to monitor her calls. She told her sergeant that she could even make an official complaint here in the station, but Lauren didn’t want to make any more fuss than was necessary.

  INTERLUDE

  In his office in the club he owned near the sea, the man put down the telephone. He would have to step up the pressure if he was going to get everyone in line. His current tactics weren’t working at all. Maybe he’d have to call on his team again, but he’d need to rap some knuckles at the same time. Actions like that last one had not been requested and it was totally unacceptable. If he didn’t get them back under his thumb before long, he’d lose his grip, and his London contact.

  That should be sorted out, now. The phone call should deal with any loose cannons very effectively.

  CHAPTER TEN

  DI Hardy called her team together to sum up what they had so far although, if she were honest with herself, she was currently motivated more by a gut feeling than overwhelming physical evidence.

  ‘We have four strong suspects for all this mayhem in our town; everyone else who was interviewed has had independent corroboration of their whereabouts at the times of the crimes. These four provide mutual alibis for each other and it stinks. All we have to do now is prove it,’ she stated. ‘We’re waiting for Forensics, and I’ve had some of you collecting the available CCTV footage. There’s also a request for a television appeal to anyone who might have been in a pub or takeaway that evening, and who could place those four anywhere at a particular time, so we need to put their photographs out for that. A new photo of Genni Lacey has been issued, this time in trendy clothes and with lashings of make-up. The girl’s three friends have not been forthcoming with any information, so we are relying on members of the public with a good memory to help us out.

  ‘Colin, all I need now is for you to go through the CCTV stuff and see if there’s anything that might back up what we think we know so far.’

  Colin Redwood gave a deep sigh as the menial task was thrust upon him. He thought he was worth much more than that, and should be in the thick of things, wherever the thick happened to be.

  ‘It’s a very important job, Colin,’ said Hardy. ‘Don’t put it down. You could discover the vital piece of visual evidence.’ This did little to reassure him that he was a valued member of the team, but it did reinforce that he was also one of the most junior. He was, all things considered, totally pissed off. This wasn’t how he had envisaged life in the police at all. He silently vowed to sort Hardy out.

  ‘We’re waiting on some DNA evidence from the post-mortem, which could be an important breakthrough for us, and we’ll take it from there. The new body from the river will have to be identified, and I just hope that someone who could get themselves killed like that won’t turn out to be a model citizen, but will be identifiable from our national database. We’ll carry on with our routine enquiries until we get something solid on those two matters. Colin, I’ve set aside a little room for you to go through all the CCTV footage, so off you all go. We’ve got plenty to do, with lots of supposed sightings of the girl who went missing as well. Get to it. In the meantime, I’ve got a CSI team going through that boatshed with a fine tooth comb.’

  The rest of the day followed a well-established routine, without any startling developments, but full of the things that had to be done – even if only to say that they had been. There was no one of any seniority who would back a hunch and let them cut corners.

  ‘I’m still fairly sure we’ve got our men,’ Hardy confided to Lauren before they finished for the day. ‘Let’s hope we’ve got two matches from the database by tomorrow morning, so that we can push forward with our enquiries, and home in on those four slimy sods. They need locking up and the key throwing away.’

  When Lauren got home, the whole house, including the annexe, was in darkness, much to her consternation. When she unlocked the door, she flipped on a light and checked that the alarm was on, just to make sure that there were no unwelcome visitors waiting for her inside. That proven, however, she still went through every room just to make sure, checking that all the windows and exterior doors were closed and locked.

  When she got into the kitchen, she found a note from Kenneth on the kitchen table, informing her that he and Gerda had left earlier that day, because they couldn’t stand being locked into the tiny annexe while she swanned around in the whole house. Lauren was infuriated. For a start, they hadn’t been locked in, but were free to go where they pleased, certainly when she was at work. It wasn’t as if she had security cameras in place. For another, it was completely their fault that things had worked out how they did. It had nothing to do with her that Kenneth couldn’t keep it in his trousers. She hadn’t asked for the marriage to end this way, although she had to admit that it would had to have come to an end sooner or later.

  Taking a quick peek, she noticed that the lovers had left their living quarters in complete disarray, and she slammed shut the door with a deep s
igh of martyrdom. That was one way of getting back at her: to cause her inconvenience and unwelcome work, while driving home just who had caused that mess. It was petty but, in hindsight, it was typical of Kenneth.

  That evening she drank a couple of glasses of wine to relax her and went to bed with her thoughts on the children. She’d have to contact the local school soon, to get them on the roll before Christmas, which wasn’t very far away, and tell their boarding schools that they would be leaving at the end of term.

  Thinking of Christmas crystallised her thoughts. Surely the current case would be closed by then and, if it was, she had a good mind to take some leave and take the children to her parents’ house. She didn’t think she could face the festive season with Kenneth and Gerda once again in the annexe, and the bewilderment and upset that this would cause the kids.

  They were quite used to Kenneth being away and for a while, at least, she wouldn’t have to say anything about him leaving the family unit. They would just take it as normal that he wasn’t around and, even if they did question the fact that he wasn’t home for Christmas, she could explain that he wasn’t in a Christian country and, therefore, Christmas wasn’t a holiday over there. The added bonus of seeing their grandparents should bridge the gap that his absence left. If Kenneth wanted to see the children it would be on her terms.

  As she dropped off to sleep, the phone rang and woke her. It was another silent call, but she could hear breathing in the background. Instead of frightening her, it made her mad. How could anyone want to terrorise her? If it was anything to do with work, surely she wasn’t of sufficient rank to be the victim of such a campaign of silence? Surely it couldn’t be Kenneth’s idea of a joke?

  She eventually went back to sleep, only to be woken at 3.20 by the urgent beeping of the smoke alarm. As she came back to consciousness, she smelled smoke with a suspicious hint of petrol behind it, and shot out of bed, running to the top of the stairs to check on the situation.