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Copyright
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Mel Sherratt 2019
Cover design © Henry Steadman 2019
Cover photographs © Henry Steadman 2019
Mel Sherratt asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008271077
Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008271084
Version: 2020-02-13
Praise for Mel Sherratt:
‘An absolute masterpiece. Twisty, turny and full of surprises!’
Angela Marsons
‘Mel Sherratt’s books are as smart and edgy as her heroines’
Cara Hunter
‘Mel Sherratt is the new queen of gritty police procedurals’
C.L. Taylor
‘Twists and turns and delivers a satisfying shot of tension’
Rachel Abbott
‘Heart-stoppingly tense. I love Mel Sherratt’s writing’
Angela Clarke
‘Gripped me from the first page and didn’t let go until the heart-stopping conclusion!’
Robert Bryndza
‘A writer to watch out for’
Mandasue Heller
‘Uncompromising, powerful and very real – an important new voice’
David Mark
‘Mel’s vivid imagination really brings her characters to life’
Kerry Wilkinson
‘Mel Sherratt is a unique voice in detective fiction’
Mail on Sunday
Contents
Cover
Title page
Copyright
Praise for Mel Sherratt
2014
Chapter One: Five Years Later
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Chapter Eighty
Chapter Eighty-One
Author Note
A Letter from Mel
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
The Grace Allendale Series
About the Publisher
2014
Melissa Wyatt ran along the lane, down towards the field she would cut across for the next part of her journey. She was in training for the London Marathon, only a few days away now. It was her first attempt, the furthest she’d ever run, but she knew she had the strength inside her to complete it.
She was now a firm believer that she could do anything once she put her mind to it. Even two years ago when she’d become a mum at thirty-one, she would never have thought it possible that she could run three miles, let alone twenty-six.
She’d started off slowly, a ruse to lose the baby fat. At first every session had been torture, but eventually her puffing and panting had ceased, and she’d begun to get into an even rhythm. It had only taken three months before she’d been hooked. Now there was no stopping her, because as well as keeping her fit, it had given her a new lease of life. It had lowered her stress levels, giving her a sense of peace.
When she was running, her mind could switch off from all the daily hassles. She could be herself again. Her son, Joshua, wouldn’t be throwing a tantrum because his TV programme had finished and there wasn’t time to watch another. Her husband Lloyd wouldn’t nag her because he couldn’t find something that he’d lost after putting it down somewhere ‘safe’. She wasn’t at the beck and call of staff and clients ready to interrupt her in a flash, unlike her day-to-day life as a customer services manager at the local building society. She was plain and simply Melissa.
At the bottom of the lane, she climbed over the stile at the side of the gate and ran into a small wooded area. She loved going through here. It was dark and somewhat eerie at this time in the morning.
As she clambered up the man-made steps and out into the open field, she wondered what to cook for tea. Maybe shepherd’s pie, if she remembered to get some mince out of the freezer. There would be no time to nip into the butcher’s to buy some fresh. It was going to be a late evening because she had staff training for an hour once the branch closed at five.
She was now coming into a hilly field, empty except for her. It was early; most people were still asleep. Melissa much preferred to run in the mornings than the evenings. There were fewer people about, and fewer cars too, which was good because the lanes were narrow. A creature of habit, she covered the same route for a few months before switching up to ensure her body became challenged.
At the top of the hill, she took a moment to catch her breath. Up here, she could see for miles. High-rise flats, factories intermingled with the odd strip of green, but mostly built up row upon row of houses. Manchester was a place she’d always call home.
After a minute’s rest, she began to run again. With a bit of luck, she’d be home before anyone in her household was awake. Oh, to have a coffee in peace before Josh was out of bed.
She was nearly at the other side of the field when she heard someone. Turning slightly as she ran, she saw a man running behind her. She slowed and stepped to one side to let him pass, and he drew level on the worn-down grass pathway.
When he threw a punch at her, she was taken by surprise. She gasped as he hit her again, stumbling backwards with the force and landing heavily on the ground.
Almost immediately the man was straddling her and his hands were around her neck.
She tried to push him off, but he was too strong.
She scratched at his hands, but he only squeezed harder. Struggling was useless, but she had to try. He seemed possessed, his face creased with rage.
As the light began to fade from the world, she wondered why she’d been singled out. What had she done to deserve death? Because he was killing her, wasn’t he? And she could do nothing about it.
ONE
Five Years Later
Tuesday
‘What makes you think he likes you?’ Courtney Piggott asked her friend Lauren Ansell as they walked across the field behind their school. ‘Just because he looked at you a certain way doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Of course it does!’ Lauren replied. ‘And I’ve fancied him for ages, so that look means he’s mine for the taking.’
‘You’re so weird,’ Courtney’s twin sister, Caitlin, said. ‘If you believe that, then—’
‘Girls!’
The three of them froze as they heard their PE teacher, Mr Carmichael, shouting to them.
‘I wish you’d exercise your feet as much as your mouths,’ he continued. ‘Hurry up now. Get a move on!’
The girls picked up their pace, jogging a few feet across the field until the teacher turned away from them again.
‘I hate cross-country.’ Caitlin came to a halt with a groan. ‘There should be laws against making us do this. It’s not cool – at all.’
Lauren tripped over her shoelace as they walked, almost falling but managing to right herself in time. ‘I’ll catch you up in a minute,’ she said, shooing her friends away before bending down to tie the laces again.
The twins continued through the gap in the hedge and out onto the lane.
‘I wish there was a short cut back to the school,’ Caitlin said as they walked.
In front of them were the rest of the class, in twos and threes, only the odd pupil running alone. They were the last of the group by a good minute or so, but neither of them was bothered about hurrying to catch up. Instead, they dawdled as they waited for Lauren.
‘Or a magic portal. If there was, we could sneak back and watch everyone else coming in.’ Courtney laughed.
‘Or Doctor Who’s TARDIS!’ Caitlin laughed back.
In front of them, their teacher beckoned them to hurry up as he disappeared around a corner, but still they went at their own pace. They had run this lane many times during their five years at Dunwood Academy. There was nothing to see but a high hedge either side, a space for one car to drive past at a time, which was why it was safe for students to run down, as not many drivers used it.
Ahead of them the twins could see the roof of the school buildings, the railings around it coming into view opposite a row of council bungalows for the elderly.
‘Where’s Lauren?’ Courtney shivered as a gust of wind came up the lane. ‘We’ll be in trouble if we’re not back soon.’
‘I thought she was behind us.’ Caitlin swivelled round, but they were on their own.
‘She can’t have got very far, Cait,’ Courtney told her sister. ‘I bet she’s found a quicker way back and has left us.’
‘She’d better let us in on it if she has.’
They carried on for a few more steps and then Courtney stopped again.
‘We should go back for her.’
‘But we’ll get into trouble if we don’t finish soon.’
‘She should have caught up by now. It will only take a minute.’
With a heavy sigh, Caitlin followed her sister back into the field. They ran towards where they’d last seen Lauren, across the field and around the corner of trees.
Not noticing that her sister had stopped, Caitlin almost bumped into the back of her.
Courtney was pointing at a figure lying in the grass. ‘There’s something wrong.’
‘What do you mean?’
Caitlin followed behind her as they ran to their friend. The wind picking up across the open ground was the only thing they could hear. They drew level, their eyes widening with fear. Lauren was lying on her back, her blonde hair fanned out around her head.
‘She’s having us on, isn’t she?’ Caitlin said.
‘I don’t know,’ Courtney whispered. ‘Lauren?’
She prodded Lauren’s leg gently with her toes. Maybe that would make Lauren giggle if she was winding them up. But she didn’t move.
‘Lauren?’ Caitlin dropped to her knees. ‘Are you okay?’
It was then she noticed the glazed look in her friend’s eyes.
TWO
Leaving her home in Manchester hadn’t been as gut-wrenching as DS Grace Allendale had thought it was going to be. It had been more of a relief as she’d closed the door for the final time and handed the keys in at the estate agent’s. The house had begun to depress her. It never seemed to remind her of what she’d had, only of what she had lost. Starting afresh was what she’d needed.
Moving back to her hometown of Stoke-on-Trent had turned out in her favour, too. Despite her first case being personal, she’d settled into life at Bethesda Police Station. She was getting to know everyone eight months on, as well as the good and the bad of the area.
Stoke-on-Trent was a city of two halves in every meaning of the term. There were beautiful areas of vast countryside alongside barren inner-city areas that had been set for regeneration and then forgotten about. Abandoned factories of years gone by close to others that flourished, staying in the game by welcoming visitors and embracing social media coverage. It had several large housing estates owned by the city council and lanes with affluent property owners, their gardens stretching to acres. Empty shops in local towns sat next to family firms that had been in business for decades. Rough alongside smooth: wealth alongside poverty.
Grace never went with the adage that the wealthy were any better than the ones scraping around for pennies. She firmly believed there were shades of polite and ugly in every level of society. She’d seen compassion from a drug user at the lowest ebb of his life; she’d seen injuries of domestic abuse caused by a high-ranking politician. So much went on behind closed doors regardless of class.
Arriving back from a meeting with Allie Shenton, a colleague who oversaw six local community intelligence teams, she felt a buzz of activity as soon as she opened the door to the office where her team was located. Her phone went off and she slipped a hand inside her jacket pocket to retrieve it. It was her boss, DI Nick Carter.
Grace could see him sitting in his office. She raised her hand to show him she was here as she walked across to him. Something must have come in while she’d been out. Adrenaline began to pump through her, as had become natural.
‘We’ve had a call of a suspicious death at Dunwood Academy, over in Norton,’ Nick told her. ‘Female, sixteen years of age. Out on a cross-country run, got left behind. First thoughts were she’d had some kind of seizure. Two pupils found her; one ran to get help. By the time their teacher got to her, bruising had started to appear around her neck.’
Grace pulled a face. ‘Do they suspect foul play from anyone there? The teachers, or the pupils?’
‘I’m not sure. Can you task someone with getting everything ready here and then we can go in five?’
‘Will do.’ She headed back to her desk.
Perry Wright, one of two detective constables on her team, was sitting opposite her.
‘I’ve grabbed a pool car, Sarge,’ he said as she approached.
Grace nodded her appreciation. ‘Sam, are you okay setting up the incident room for us, please?’
‘Sure thing.’ DC Sam Markham nodded.
Since she’d first arrived at the station, Grace had learned that the staff in her team had jobs they preferred. Wanting to be in the thick of it all, it was usually Perry who came out to the enquiries with her. Grace liked that she had someone solid by her side. Although, while Perry was fit and bulky to Sam’s small and nimble, Sam could still pull a suspect down in a rugby tackle whenever necessary. At thirty-eight, she was two years older than Grace, and she came into her own as office manager: sorting things out, getting the details down, doing the minute things that could make or break a case. It worked, and Grace hadn’t felt a need to change things.
‘Tell me about the school,’ Grace said to Perry as he drove them north to the scene of the crime. She relied on her team for their local knowledge, even though she was learning the different patches and area.
‘Dunwood Academy? A bit of a dive before government intervention. Certain kids were always getting into trouble and the school was underperforming on grades. But it’s doing much better at the moment. Plus, it’s on the edge of the Bennett Estate.’
‘Ah.’ Grace nodded. Perry didn’t need to say any more.
The Bennett Estate was the second largest estate in Stoke-on-Trent. Like a lot of social housing, it had a reputation for trouble and unruly tenants but, more often than not, Grace found that rumours were just that. This area, however, did live up to its status as a sink estate. She wasn’t being unkind when she reckoned 90 per cent of its residents didn’t work, 70 per cent were single parents and most of them were probably bringing up the next generation of crooks.
The school was on the edge of the city, meaning that it backed onto a considerable amount of countryside. But driving up to the block itself, you wouldn’t have reason to believe that. It was a deftly overpopulated area with homes on every available piece of land. Built in the mid-1940s, the estate was past its sell-by date in terms of today’s standards. Cars were parked everywhere owing to lack of space, on already narrow roads, which were a rat run for car chases.
Grace and Perry pulled into the already crowded car park. As they stepped out of the vehicle, there seemed to be orderly chaos everywhere Grace looked. Teachers were herding pupils into a main hallway. Parents had started to turn up, no doubt having been rung by frantic children wondering what was going on.
They passed a woman she assumed to be a member of staff trying to explain to a man that he needed to wait until his child’s name was crossed off her list and then someone would go and fetch him; Grace presumed this was to ensure they had a record of who was on the premises. Another woman was trying to stop a worried parent from barging through.
A uniformed officer was marking down names of people who were going into the school as part of their investigation. Grace knew they could contain the crime scene as it was away from the school site, but it would be handy in the days to come to show who had been where and doing what here as well.
Nick caught up with Grace and Perry after parking next to them.
‘I think we’ll go and see her first,’ he said. ‘Then we can speak to the girls who found her, the teachers who took the class and the headmaster. Eyes are on us.’
Grace nodded. A small crowd was gathering across the road from the entrance gate, a row of bungalows behind them. Already, there were a few either speaking into or tapping away at their phones.
Nick pointed to a lane at the side of the school. It had been blocked by a marked vehicle parked horizontally across the tarmac, its lights flashing.
‘She’s a five-minute walk from here,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
THREE
Grace, Nick and Perry presented their warrant cards to another uniformed officer with a clipboard and, once he’d noted them down, began the sombre walk to the body. The school was at the end of a road that led to a single access lane. With hedges on both sides, and knowing what she was about to look at, Grace couldn’t help feeling claustrophobic. It was eerily quiet too, once they’d left behind the noise of the school. Grace shivered, even though the April day was mild.
After a steep incline, the entrance to the field loomed at them. There was another police car parked, its tailgate open. Inside were the items they were required to put on before going to the crime scene, to avoid contamination and help them catch only their killer’s DNA and vital evidence – forensic white suits and shoe covers, latex gloves and masks to cover their mouths.
They each dressed in the appropriate gear and turned off the lane, through a gap in the hedge. Grace looked in front of her; there were a few bushes scattered across the grassy landscape and a large hedge around the perimeter. To her left, she had a clear view across some of the city, seeing rows of houses and gardens, and a large football playing field with a changing hut.
If this death was suspicious, Grace mused, it would be the second murder investigation in Stoke-on-Trent since she’d arrived. Back in September, she had helped to catch a serial killer. The timing couldn’t have been more poignant, but then again, the killer was someone she had known, so it was no coincidence that their rampage coincided with her return to her birth town.
Since then, the city had been fairly quiet. There had been the usual assaults, domestics and some low-level crime, but nothing as big as her first case with her team.
They reached the tent. In the far distance, Grace could see a row of gardens from properties that backed onto the field. She doubted any surveillance would scope this far, but made a mental note to send someone to contact their owners anyway. Then she took a deep breath before following Nick.
It was unprofessional, she knew, but she couldn’t stop the tears welling in her eyes as she took in the young girl at her feet. She had long blonde hair and a heavy fringe. Her head was partly facing away from them, her eyes open and thankfully looking in the opposite direction.
The bruising around her neck was prominent now, popping up from above the collar of her sweatshirt. The uniform of leggings and long sleeves was different from the one Grace remembered from her school days: T-shirts and short skirts, and the mottled legs that weren’t a nice look when it was cold.
She seemed a pretty girl. Grace wondered if she had been popular at school.
‘She would have been so full of life until this morning.’ Her voice was low. ‘Why would anyone take that away from her?’
‘Are you okay?’ Nick asked.
‘Something in my eye.’ Grace blinked profusely, not caring who saw her in distress. ‘Although if I didn’t have any emotion, I couldn’t do this job.’
‘Whereas I have to switch mine off to do it,’ Dave Barnett, the senior crime scene investigating officer said, acknowledging them at the same time. ‘I wouldn’t survive a week if I didn’t.’
‘I think it’s good to have feelings,’ Grace said. ‘What happened to her, Dave?’
‘On first thoughts, she’s been asphyxiated.’ Dave pointed to the bruising on the victim’s neck. ‘But it could be a case of a murder not quite there. Either someone cocked up and didn’t finish the job, or they knew what they were looking for and left her to die.’
‘I don’t follow,’ Grace said.
‘You can strangle someone until they stop breathing altogether, or if you press on the carotid artery in the right place, the heart will slow down and a victim will lose consciousness quite quickly, usually in seconds. If left that way without being revived, it takes no more than five minutes to die, depending on the age and health of the victim.’
‘So you suspect she was still alive when the girls ran for help?’ Grace swallowed.
‘I think our killer either panicked or ran out of time.’ Dave nodded.
‘Based on several statements, it would seem it was a time issue. And everyone thought she’d had a seizure at first, until the bruises started to appear,’ Nick explained.
‘How did she get singled out?’ Perry questioned. ‘She would have been in a class of, what, thirty?’
‘It could be someone who is close to our victim, who knows her routine,’ Grace suggested.
‘Any sexual assault?’ Nick asked Dave.
Grace found herself holding her breath as she waited for an answer.
‘It’s not looking likely,’ Dave said. ‘Maybe your killer was disturbed when the other girls came back to look for her. Poor kids will be traumatised, no doubt.’
‘If they had nothing to do with it.’ Grace nodded, knowing they’d be talking to their witnesses very soon.
‘We need to check out any known offenders in the area, regardless,’ Nick continued.
Grace moved closer to the victim. ‘Are we looking at an opportunist?’ she asked. ‘We’re in the middle of a field. Our killer might have seen the pupils out on a run, else how would someone have known she’d fall behind? And there would only have been a matter of minutes to pounce.’
‘It’s a tricky one.’ Nick paused. ‘We’ll inform the parents after talking to the headmaster. And we’ll have to be quick as I bet it’s already broken out on social media.’
‘But she was ID’d by her teacher,’ Perry said, ‘as well as the girls who found her.’
Grace finally stepped out of the tent and breathed in heavily. It always got to her when she first saw a victim’s body – the heaviness, the sadness, the sheer callousness of these acts. She wondered how Dave coped with it all the time.
Alongside Nick and Perry, she removed her forensic clothing and placed everything carefully into evidence bags. Then they began the walk back to the school. All around her was that feeling of bleakness, a sense of desolation. Glancing back, she reflected again on the pointless loss of life.
Once on the lane, she took out her phone. She wanted to see who was saying what about their dead girl. Like most cops, Grace had a love-hate relationship with social media. Sometimes it was great for their intelligence, getting to the root of things, because some people are more likely to be honest online than to the police. Other times, it was macabre, reporting on real-time crimes before victims’ families had been notified.
She clicked onto Twitter and typed in the girl’s name. Nothing there yet, thankfully, but she saw the hashtag #deadgirlatDunwood was trending in the local area. Next, she tracked down Lauren Ansell on Facebook, the image of the girl startling her as she popped up so full of life on her page. Despite her age, Lauren didn’t have a closed profile, so it was all over that feed.
Posts were coming through, even though her status hadn’t been updated since nine thirty the night before, which could mean that some of the pupils’ parents would know by now as the rumour mill exploded.
Are you okay?
I’ve heard something’s happened at your school. Message me!
This can’t be true. Not Lauren. This is a wind-up!
‘It’s all over Twitter and Facebook that something’s going on at the school.’ Grace showed Nick the screen. ‘Some are already sensationalising it. I do hope we can get to her next of kin in time.’
‘I just pray she isn’t friends with her own parents,’ Nick added. ‘We’d better get over there as soon as we can.’
FOUR
Dunwood Academy was an L-shaped two-storey building. It had been rebuilt on the grounds of a previous high school and then given a different name as well as a complete makeover. Everything about it was modern and new, markings still fresh outside on the tarmac and painted white walls inside with hardly a scuff. But today it had an eerie sense of shock, an undertone of fear that made it seem duller than it was.
As Nick went back to his car to make some calls, a man at the entrance gave them directions to the headmaster’s office, checking first via his phone that the head was there. Grace walked by Perry’s side, along two empty corridors and up a flight of stairs. The school secretary’s office was the first on the left. Nathan Stiller was in there waiting for them.
Nathan was in his early forties. Grace couldn’t help feeling she was stereotyping him, but he was fashion model material. Discreetly, she clocked his choppy dark hair, short but tidy beard and navy-blue suit with slim-fit trousers and waistcoat. His black brogues were shiny, his shirt the proverbial crisp white. Not at all what you’d expect from a schoolteacher.
But his demeanour was forlorn. All this would come down on him, Grace assumed. He would most likely blame himself too, as much as the teacher who had taken the PE lesson.
After introducing themselves, Grace and Perry were shown into his office. Grace glanced around before they all sat down. On the wall were certificates for qualifications Stiller had taken, an award for the school itself and a few photos of pupils gathered together. One she spotted was a clip from Stoke News. Several pupils were holding up a giant cheque for £2,000 for local charity Douglas Macmillan Hospice.
‘I can’t believe this has happened,’ Nathan said. ‘It’s such a shock. I’ve been the head at this school for five years, so I’ve known Lauren since she first came here in Year 7.’
‘Obviously, we need to contact her parents as a matter of urgency, Mr Stiller,’ Grace said.
‘Please, call me Nathan. They’re divorced. I wasn’t sure whether to contact her mother or not until I’d spoken to you – she lives locally. In the end, I felt I had to ask her to come to the school. But her phone went to voicemail. I left a message about half an hour ago.’
‘Do you have any other details?’ Grace asked. ‘Does she work? What about Lauren’s father?’
‘Yes. I’ve got them up onscreen.’ Nathan sat down at his desk and wiggled the mouse to wake up his computer. ‘Mrs Ansell remarried and is named Gillespie now. She works at Mintons Solicitors in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Her ex-husband lives in Derby.’
‘Does the class take cross-country every week at the same time?’ she asked.
‘No.’ Nathan wrote down details before looking up again. ‘It’s as and when the weather permits and never more than once a month. Robert sorts it out so that each year has a lesson.’
‘Robert?’ Perry queried.
‘Robert Carmichael. He’s the PE teacher. The classes get very competitive and it gives the pupils a good workout in the fresh air.’
‘Who owns the field where Lauren was found?’ Grace questioned.
‘Arthur Barrett and his family – a local farming generation. The school have been using it with their permission for over twenty years.’ Nathan shook his head in disbelief. ‘I hope I don’t have to suspend Robert for not watching them all.’
‘He can’t have eyes in the back of his head,’ Perry said.
‘I guess. But it only takes one person to blame him. And me.’ Nathan ran a hand through his hair and swallowed. ‘Although, according to some of the pupils, he shouted at them to hurry up a few times.’
‘We need a list of the pupils who took his class, too,’ Grace said. ‘We’ll have to speak to them all over the course of the next day or two. If there aren’t enough teachers spare to sit with the pupils, or if any parents or guardians specifically want to be with their children when we speak to them, we’ll arrange appointments. Whatever happens, everything will be dealt with in a sensitive manner.’
Nathan nodded his understanding.
‘What’s the school like?’ she asked next. ‘Any problems you’re aware of?’
‘Dunwood Academy is doing well this year.’ Grace heard pride in his voice as he continued. ‘There used to be two high schools until we joined forces, covering a wider area. There was initially concern about the number of its pupils, and special measures being in place at one of the two previous schools. It could have gone either way. One could have brought the other down to their level, but it didn’t. The academy’s performing well now.’
‘There was never any tension between the students from each school?’ she asked.
‘There was, but not for a long time.’
‘We’ll require a register of both staff and pupils – who is present and also who is absent today, please,’ Grace said. ‘Likewise, we have your CCTV to check, especially with the lack of surveillance equipment and witnesses in the lane.’
‘I’ve already arranged for that to be done.’ Nathan gave a loud sigh. ‘I only found out when Robert called me after he’d requested an ambulance. When I saw Lauren, that was when I called the police.’
‘What’s Robert like?’ Grace asked.
‘He’s a good man. I’ve known him for five years, since I started here.’ Nathan lowered his voice. ‘And there was no … sexual assault?’
‘It’s too early to say.’ Perry was non-committal. ‘But we’ll keep you informed.’
Nathan’s face paled as his thoughts went into overdrive.
‘It’s highly unlikely, seeing as the whole incident could have only lasted a few minutes according to the timeline of the Piggott twins,’ Grace said, hoping to pacify him. ‘We like to keep an open mind until we have forensic evidence, though.’
Grace thought back to her last case. She’d kept an open mind then but had been totally shocked at the end result. Relocating to Stoke after the murder of her estranged father earlier that year had left her vulnerable. The shock of her first murder case being on her family’s grounds was immense, and after her half-sister had been apprehended as the killer, things could have turned out worse for Grace, but her team had stood by her. She wouldn’t take any chances or make any assumptions this time.
Jade Steele was in prison now, awaiting trial for murdering four people and assaulting her brother Leon. It would stay with Grace for the rest of her life what Jade had been capable of, but she also believed it was only because of Jade’s upbringing. Jade had been abused for most of her life by their father and his friends, and she was taking revenge on a group of men who had been grooming young women. It had been hard to police – Grace herself got away from the man when she was twelve. Could she have gone down a similar path if she hadn’t? But it had also been thrilling when she’d been involved in solving the case.
‘Well, you have my full cooperation to do whatever’s necessary,’ Nathan said. ‘Also, if there’s anything you require while you’re here, be sure to let me know.’
‘We’ll need to set up a mobile police unit in your car park,’ Grace said, ‘and we could do with somewhere to use to speak to people.’
‘I’ve made the decision to close the school for lessons. It won’t be popular with everyone, but I thought it was the right thing to do. We can arrange counselling sessions from tomorrow. Most pupils will be collected as soon as possible, but we do have some who will need to stay here until parents can pick them up at the end of the day. You can use any of the classrooms.’ Nathan paused as if he were gathering his emotions. ‘We’ll look after everyone as best we can. I’ll assemble them in the large hall. It serves as a school canteen during lunch break. We can hand out drinks and food where necessary. I think it will do the students good to sit together.’
‘Yes, it’s going to affect a lot of them,’ Grace replied.
When there were no more questions, Grace turned to Nathan. ‘Can you see if Courtney and Caitlin are still here, please?’ she said. ‘We need to have a chat with them.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Nathan nodded. ‘I’ll get in touch with their form teachers.’ His phone went off and he quickly read the message. ‘Robert’s in the medical room when you need him. He was feeling sick, well, after seeing the body.’
Grace nodded. ‘Can you bring him to us?’
‘Yes. You can use my classroom, too.’
FIVE
Grace was startled by all the images on the walls when they were shown into the classroom. It seemed as if she had walked into a set from Game of Thrones. She assumed they were in a history room and, even though the novels were fantasy, Nathan Stiller was using the popular series to encourage the pupils to learn about darker times.
She tried not to stare at an almost life-size image of the actor Sean Bean at the back of the room, looking all caveman rough-and-ready. To her right, fictional character Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons, was looking just as tempting. It was quite some show, as were the books themselves. Grace had been bereft when the seventh series had finished on a cliff-hanger after binge-watching all of them. Grace had been bereft when the seventh series had finished on a cliff-hanger after binge-watching all of them. She looked forward to watching the final season, if she ever had time.
Robert Carmichael was sitting at the desk at the front of the room. He was of average build with dark brown hair. His face was as white as chalk, the smell of vomit lingering around him. He wore grey tracksuit trousers and a black T-shirt that was in need of an iron, obviously a spare. Grace knew that he would have changed out of his clothes regardless. Forensics would have bagged them up after he left the crime scene.
After introductions, Grace asked him to run through what had happened that morning.
‘It was another lesson, nothing out of the ordinary,’ Robert began. ‘Most of the pupils were in front of me, with only the lane to run. There was a supply teacher helping me out at the front.’
‘Name of?’ she asked.
‘Sarah Flynn. She’s only been with us a few weeks at the most.’
Grace wrote down the woman’s name for future reference.
‘There were a few girls at the back of the group who I’d had to cajole to finish,’ Robert added.
‘How many are in the class?’ Perry asked.
‘Thirty-one.’
‘So twenty-eight on the lane and three left in the field?’
Robert nodded. He held a hand over his mouth as he swallowed quickly a few times.
‘Are you okay?’ Grace asked, wondering if he was going to be sick. ‘Would you like a glass of water?’
Robert shook his head, faltering before speaking again. ‘I should have kept an eye on them.’ Tears welled in his eyes. ‘But when I looked behind me, I could see them on the lane, so I kept on going. I now realise there must have been only two of them. I was almost back at the school when Courtney came running down to fetch me.’
‘Courtney’s one of the girls who found her?’ Grace queried.
‘Yes, Courtney Piggott. She said that Lauren had collapsed in the field and that Courtney’s sister, Caitlin, was with her. She said I needed to hurry, as she didn’t think Lauren was breathing. I told her to go back to the school and let the headmaster know what had happened, but she was hysterical, so I rang Nathan on my phone while I ran back up the lane. When I got to Lauren, I realised that Courtney had followed me. The rest of the class had gone back inside the school, luckily.’
‘Did you notice anyone else around?’ she asked.
‘Not that I recall, but then I was worried about Lauren.’ He took a deep breath before looking at them. ‘When I got to her, I could see she wasn’t breathing, so I called for an ambulance. I know basic first aid, so I tried to resuscitate her. All the while the twins were crying by my side.’ He swallowed. ‘I tried for such a long time, but in the end, I knew I’d lost her. That’s when I noticed the marks coming out around her neck.’
Grace noted he was pointing at the floor, as if the body were at their feet. She couldn’t help but feel for the teacher. He was doing his job and this would probably scar him for the rest of his life. People would look at him differently, despite him doing nothing wrong.
Lots of people had regrets after things like this happened. It only took a second or two for something drastic to occur, for lives to be ruined: the child who wriggled out of its father’s grip and ran out into a busy road; the woman who decided to walk through a dark alley rather than the long way around; someone driving too fast because they were late for an appointment. While they weren’t in the right, Grace had sympathy.
‘I waited until Nathan arrived and he confirmed what I knew. The paramedics came quickly after, and they worked on her too, but we all knew she was dead. Then the police arrived and declared it a crime scene.’ Robert put his head in his hands and wept unashamedly. ‘It was my fault. I should have checked again to see there was no one lagging behind.’
Once Robert had gathered himself, he left the room. Grace turned to Perry and sighed loudly.
‘That poor man’s going to be haunted by this. He’s going to torture himself for not being there, for having his eye on most of the class rather than all of them; though how he was supposed to do that is beyond me. He’s going to think he could have stopped her death if he was behind them.’
‘He can’t see everything.’
‘Try telling him that when he wakes up covered in sweat after a nightmare in which he sees Lauren running and then being grabbed, and there’s nothing he can do about it.’
‘That’s a bit dramatic,’ Perry added.
‘I’ll bet it’s what happens. Carmichael didn’t do anything wrong and yet we both know he’s going to be made into a scapegoat until we catch the killer.’ Grace checked her phone for messages. ‘We need to move fast on questioning the twins,’ she confirmed. ‘First up on our list will be to find out if Lauren had a boyfriend.’
‘You think she might have been killed by another pupil?’ Perry frowned. ‘I mean, I’m not ruling it out. It could have happened, but really?’
‘Assuming that Lauren knew her killer, I’d say we need to rule out jealous peers first.’ Grace shrugged. ‘Maybe Caitlin or Courtney Piggott had a grudge to bear. Twins might cover up for each other, too.’
Perry pulled a face. ‘It’s a possibility – gruesome though.’
Although she’d seen some similarly awful things in the past, Grace shuddered at the thought.
‘I’d say anything is game at the moment, with no witnesses or camera footage to go on.’ Grace’s phone beeped and she retrieved the message that had been sent. ‘Nick’s after me. He wants you to speak to the Piggott twins while I go with him to inform Lauren’s mum and dad.’
SIX
After talking to Perry about what to say to the Piggott sisters, Grace rejoined Nick and they left the school. She then spent an uncomfortable few minutes speaking to Lauren Ansell’s father on the phone.
‘That wasn’t nice,’ she said after disconnecting the call. ‘The local police had already informed him. I could hear him crying, taking deep breaths to calm himself.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He passed the phone to a police sergeant. A Mick Attwood – he told me Mr Ansell was in a meeting at the time of the attack and for most of the morning, too. So we can rule him out; although living so far away, he’d hardly be a suspect anyway. What a way to learn your only child’s been murdered.’
‘I’m glad Nathan Stiller’s phone call to our victim’s mother went through to her voicemail,’ Grace added as they travelled along the D road towards Newcastle. ‘I hate the thought of an accident happening as relatives rush to wherever they need to be in a state of disbelief. I’ve seen it too many times, and I get that they’re questioning what they’ve been told because they want it to be untrue, but even so.’
‘I’ll need to get ready for the press conference,’ Nick said. ‘I’ll be giving a statement at four p.m. to camera. I’m not sure whether to do it outside the school gates or up in the quiet of the lane.’
‘I think you know the answer to that one.’ Grace knew that press wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the lane, even if the field was a good five-minute walk from the general public. ‘Although for the viewing figures, they’ll want the cameras accessing as much as they can. Funny how they say that’s so the general public might be of more use, spot more, give us a lead. It’s always for their advantage, really.’
‘I hope some of them don’t try to go in to the field via the other entrance.’
‘All covered,’ Grace told him. ‘The search team are there, too. No one will get through. It does seem a bit audacious, though.’
‘Go on.’ Nick kept his eyes on the road.
‘Well, most murders are associated with dark alleys late at night. There’s something sinister about how out in the open this one is. It was bold, daring, and it had to be quick with so many chances of being caught.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning we may not have a lot to go on unless anyone saw it happen. Which is both likely given the crime took place in broad daylight, but unlikely given how big the space is.’
Nick nodded his reply.
Twenty minutes later, he drew into the tiny car park at the front of a row of new-build offices. Mintons Solicitors was in the second shop from the right, alongside a hairdresser’s, a sandwich bar and several vacant spaces.
‘I hope she hasn’t had time to answer her calls yet,’ Grace said as they walked into an airy reception room and across to a desk with two women behind it. ‘Even though I dislike doing this, it’s much better for the family.’
The receptionist made a phone call and less than a minute later, a woman came out of a side door. Grace and Nick glanced at each other surreptitiously. She had the same looks and build as their victim.
It was clear from the laughter following her that she didn’t know what had happened. The smile dropped from her face as Nick held up his warrant card. Grace followed suit.
‘Mrs Emma Gillespie? I’m DI Carter and this is DS Allendale. May we speak to you for a moment, somewhere in private?’
‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’ Emma’s hand clutched her chest at the same time as she moved aside for them to pass. ‘Is it Alan? Lauren? Are they okay?’
She opened the door to a vacant side office and they all went inside. Grace steered her towards a chair, pointedly looking at it until Emma sat down.
‘Is this your daughter, Lauren?’ Nick showed Mrs Gillespie a photo that had been printed off from the school computer.
‘Yes.’ Worried blue eyes flicked from one to the other.
Grace pulled a chair over and took Mrs Gillespie’s hands in her own as Nick began to speak.
‘I’m afraid we have some very bad news,’ he started. ‘This morning, the body of a young girl was found on a field near to Dunwood Academy. We have reason to believe that person is Lauren. I’m so sorry to tell you that she’s been killed.’
‘Lauren?’ Emma shook her head. ‘No, she’s at school. I dropped her there myself this morning.’ She looked at Nick for confirmation. ‘There must be a mistake. It can’t be her.’
‘I know there’s a lot to take in, Mrs Gillespie. We’ll ask you to make a formal identification of the body, later this evening or tomorrow, if you’re able.’
‘No, this can’t be right.’ Emma shook her head in denial. ‘What happened to her?’
‘We’re treating Lauren’s death as suspicious,’ Nick said. ‘We believe the injuries she’d sustained were caused by someone else.’
‘What do you mean?’
Grace watched as the first few tears began to trickle down Mrs Gillespie’s face, the news finally beginning to sink in. When she turned towards Grace, willing her to say that Nick had got it all wrong, it almost broke Grace’s heart.
Emma crumpled and began wailing loudly. ‘Where is she?’ she managed between gasps.
‘She’s still at the crime scene. We have officers—’
‘The field!’ Emma’s voice grew hard. ‘You’ve left my daughter lying dead in a field!’
Grace could see she needed someone to blame, but Nick explained what he could of the situation amid her gasps of disbelief.
‘I dropped her off at school! She should have been safe.’ Emma stood up. ‘I want to see her.’
‘You can.’ Nick nodded. ‘Once she’s away from the crime scene.’
‘No, I want to see her now.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Nick’s tone was insistent.
Emma gasped. ‘Please tell me she wasn’t raped.’
‘We don’t think so.’ As she began to cry again, Nick continued, ‘Is there anyone we can call for you? You mentioned Alan.’
‘He’s my husband. Lauren’s father Richard needs to know, too. We’re divorced.’ She looked at Grace.
‘We informed him on our way to see you,’ she said. ‘We’re here to do as much as we can. Later, there will be a family liaison officer to help.’
Emma gave another loud sob. ‘Please. It can’t be her,’ she cried. ‘Not my Lauren.’
As Grace left the room to inform Mrs Gillespie’s colleagues that she’d be leaving with them, she wondered how she would have coped if it were her daughter. Lauren was an only child. It meant their family had been wiped out in one hit. It was beyond cruel. But then when had a murderer ever been bothered with that?
As she explained what had happened to the receptionist, watching her go to pieces too, Grace realised that keeping this under wraps was going to be hard. There were already so many people who knew what had happened. But even if there had been no official identification, everyone knew they had the right person.
Lauren Ansell had been strangled and Grace was going to find out who had done it.
SEVEN
She stood in her tiny kitchen looking out of the window. There were three boys playing football on the green down in front of her, two jumpers on the grass to mark the goal. Their shouts didn’t bother her, but she’d only give them a few more minutes before someone came out and moved them on. She remembered that feeling well – a sense of no one wanting you around, not fitting in anywhere but having nowhere else to go.
The flat she was in was her fifth rental since she’d left home at sixteen, and it felt right. It was a maisonette really, upstairs in a block of four. Two up and two down, with tiny shared gardens back and front, and her own front door at the side. This had been one of the better places she’d stayed in over the years. The wallpaper wasn’t peeling from the walls. The carpets didn’t stick to her feet – hell, even having carpets had been a bonus. The furnishing wasn’t too old-fashioned and there was no scratching as a result of bed bugs in the mattress.
The tenant downstairs was Arnie Jerold. He was in his eighties and apart from having his TV on full blast most evenings, she had no complaints. Arnie also looked after the garden and didn’t mind sharing it with her.
Last summer, she’d drunk many a glass of something cold with him as well, to pass the time. She liked him and the tales he told her of his family. He didn’t have many visitors, but his two sons came once a fortnight and for that he was grateful. They took him out for Sunday lunch with the family. It was enough, he’d tell her.
He’d asked about her life and she’d told him all of it, knowing he wouldn’t believe her. He’d smirked and she’d laughed, and then she’d told him a whole bunch of lies about a happier, made-up life. Arnie seemed to like her but he only saw the woman that she wanted him to see and not who she really was.
After the boys on the green had scored five goals, she poured another glass of wine, congratulating herself on fooling people again. She was so good at it now – a player, she liked to call herself. So far, everything was working out to plan – even better, actually. She’d chosen him well and he was like putty in her hands. He was turning into a great disciple. It had taken time to find him, but after several aborted attempts she had found the right one.
She remembered a few of the men she had tried to lure into her game. Trevor Wilde had lived up to his name, been willing to do a lot with her sexually, but after she’d tried to asphyxiate him once, she’d never seen him again. He’d turned white and practically ran out of the flat, even though she had told him what she was about to do and he’d agreed.
Then there was Lester Baker. Now, he was really weird and she hadn’t liked him at all, but had gone through with everything in case he was the one. In the end, he’d turned out not to be.
But this one? He had stayed the test of time. She’d been able to mould him, manipulate him into what she wanted. So far, so good. And her man had been pleased, too.
She logged onto the website with anticipation. She had found ‘All Talk’ three years ago and it had been perfect for her to recruit from. It was a website for people who wanted more sex in their lives by fantasising and talking about it online.
She’d lurked in the background while she got to know who to concentrate on. She’d read comments before joining in with the better conversations. Then after a while she’d been invited into some of the secret forums and message boards, where eventually she’d been able to plant seeds of her own.
She wondered if it was too late in the day to chat to WildWoman73. And she doubted NightRider24 would be online now. Timing was out for both of them.
But there would be others online, she was sure.
EIGHT
Perry made his way to the headmaster’s office. The quiet corridor reminded him of how many times he’d done that as a teenager in between lessons. He’d often been a nuisance at school, wanting to be one of the popular kids and mixing with the troublemakers. Luckily for him, he’d left them all behind at the gates on his leaving day and had gone to college.
Although he’d never told anyone back then, he’d been caught with a stolen bicycle and received a caution from a man who’d inspired him to do something with his life before it was too late. From that moment on, he’d wanted to join the police. The job suited him, even if he did have to investigate and see some dark things. At least he had a chance to make a difference. Lots of his school friends were either out of work or in prison.
In the headmaster’s office, Perry asked Stiller where he would find the girls.
‘I’ll fetch them for you. You can use my office. My classroom’s being used by some of your officers now.’
Perry nodded his thanks. As he waited, he looked around. There was a small table that they could sit at. Perry was glad: at least it wouldn’t feel as formal as sitting across the headmaster’s desk.
Nathan led the girls into the room, looks of fear shooting between them. They had clearly been crying, both of them bunching tissues in their hands. As soon as Perry looked at them, one of them started again. The other wrapped her arms around her sister for comfort.
Procedurally, he wasn’t supposed to interview them together. He needed to speak to them one by one. They were the last people to see their victim alive. For all he knew, it could have been one of them and the other was covering. It was hard to imagine, but not impossible.
As well, he knew the longer they stayed together, the more they could get their story straight if they were lying. However, he could also see how upset they were and it probably would be more distressing to split them up right now.
As this was a preliminary talk before they were questioned with their parents present, he decided to keep them together and play good cop. Only time would tell if his plan would work but, similarly, he was sure he’d know if they were lying. He decided to chance it and continue.
‘Girls, I’m sorry for your loss.’ Perry pointed to the table. ‘But as you know, it’s important that we get as many details as possible about what happened this morning.’
Everyone sat down; Nathan next to him, the girls opposite. Perry smiled, hoping he looked approachable. Both girls would feed off each other and he wanted them to open up.
‘I’m DC Wright – you can call me Perry, if you like.’ His tone was soft. ‘Mr Stiller will stay with us throughout the conversation, so I hope that puts you at ease. Now, I know everything going on around you is a terrible shock, but I wanted to ask you some questions. Is that okay?’
Both girls nodded, one wiping away tears that had fallen.
‘Before we start, do you want to ask me anything?’ Perry smiled again. ‘Actually, first you’d better tell me who is who.’
‘I’m Caitlin,’ the girl on the right said. She pointed to her sister. ‘She’s Courtney.’
The twins were both thin and had long blonde hair, straightened, with a block fringe. Their faces were red and blotchy, black smudges around their eyes from the make-up he presumed they shouldn’t be wearing to school. Both had wide brown eyes and high cheekbones.
Perry started his questioning.
‘Can either of you remember seeing anyone hanging around when you were finishing your run?’
Both girls shook their heads in unison.
‘Not anyone in the distance?’
Heads shook again.
‘Okay,’ Perry said. ‘Sometimes we remember things better at the time of impact, but often we can recall details at a later date. If that does happen, you can always let your teacher or Mr Stiller know and they will contact me. Okay?’
It was getting tedious as they nodded again. But Perry reasoned they’d had a terrible shock, losing a friend. The whole class would be affected, let alone those closest to Lauren Ansell. Some of them would be feeling guilty because they’d got away.
‘Is there anything you can tell me about Lauren?’ Perry said next. ‘Something you might want to talk to me about. Or ask me?’
Silence greeted him again. Perry kept his eyes on them, hoping they would talk to him, but neither of them obliged.
‘Does she have a boyfriend?’ he tried.
‘She’s been seeing Thomas Riley,’ Caitlin told him.
Perry made a note in his pad before looking up again. What he saw were two terrified faces.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I have to find out as much as I can about Lauren. If there are any rumours about her, we need to know. I’ll be speaking to Thomas later, but is there anything else? Was she having problems with anyone?’
‘She didn’t like her step-dad much,’ Caitlin said.
‘Did she tell you this?’ Perry asked.
Caitlin nodded. ‘She was always saying he was rude to her, begrudged her being around as he wanted to spend time with her mum on his own.’
‘Did you visit Lauren at home?’
They both nodded.
‘Did you get the feeling he didn’t like her?’
Caitlin shrugged. ‘I’m not sure I noticed either way.’
‘Could Lauren have been hiding something? Perhaps feeling people wouldn’t believe her.’
‘We always believed Lauren,’ Courtney spoke this time. ‘And she’d tell us, wouldn’t she, Cait? If anything was bothering her.’
Caitlin nodded fervently.
Perry held in a sigh, annoyed with himself for insinuating that Lauren was keeping something from them. Perhaps he would have been better waiting for their parents to arrive. As silence filled the room again, he sat forwards in readiness to stand.
‘If there’s anything you can think of—’
‘She liked chatting to Jason at the youth club,’ Courtney blurted out.
‘Courtney!’ Caitlin cried. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’
‘Well, he flirts with us all.’ Courtney looked at the table for a moment before her eyes came up again. ‘He could easily have run up the lane after us and been hiding.’
‘He wouldn’t do that!’ Caitlin insisted.
Perry raised his hand as they began to babble, but Nathan, who’d stayed quiet until this point, piped in.
‘By Jason, do you mean Mr Tranter?’ When Caitlin nodded, he turned to Perry. ‘Mr Tranter is a teacher here.’
Perry instantly thought back to the previous murder case they had worked on. One of the murdered men had been a lecturer at Staffordshire College and had groomed several of his female students for sex. He hoped this wasn’t going to be a repeat of that. Trying to hide a frown, he made a note to look into Tranter further after the meeting.
‘He gets on well with you all?’ he asked the girls.
Courtney nodded, but she wouldn’t look at Perry. By now, it was clear to him which twin had the most influence over the other.
‘Was Jason friendly with anyone else?’ he asked.
‘He’s friendly with everyone,’ Caitlin said, folding her arms.
Perry paused for a moment. ‘Do you think Lauren had a crush on him?’
‘She was going out with Thomas!’ Courtney cried. ‘She’s not a tart.’
‘And Jason’s lovely,’ Caitlin insisted. ‘He’s supportive and looks out for us all.’
‘Looks out for you, you mean,’ Courtney muttered.
‘No, he looks out for everyone!’ Caitlin repeated.
‘Well, you can’t take your eyes off him and you knew Lauren liked him!’
‘Girls, please!’ Nathan held up a hand.
Perry threw the headmaster a faint smile. These were tactics to stop the twins talking about their friend; perhaps they would be worried about getting into trouble regardless of if they had or hadn’t been involved. It was human nature to stress.
He stood up. He hadn’t come out of the conversation any the wiser and they needed to question them more diligently with another adult besides Nathan. He’d wait to speak to them individually when their parents arrived.
As he left the room, he spotted Simon Cole in the car park. Simon was the senior crime reporter on the local newspaper and, more recently, he and Grace had become an item. He wandered over to him. Perhaps Simon could put something in tonight’s edition of the Stoke News that could warn everyone to stay vigilant for now, but not enough to alarm.
What a thin line to tread.
NINE
Grace was back in Nick’s car. Emma Gillespie had left hers at work and he was driving them to the family home. Grace tried to drown out the sobs of the woman sitting behind her.
In the picturesque village of Stanley, they turned into Puddy Lane. Nick slowed down to pass two riders on horses and then pulled into the garden of a cottage-style dormer bungalow that seemed to have undergone a huge renovation. Benefitting from cream rendering and sage-coloured windows, it looked a quirky place to call home. A terrace at the front overlooked fields, sheep frolicking in the one next to them making Grace envious. She wanted to marvel and say what a lovely place to live, but it wasn’t the time.
A man she assumed to be Alan Gillespie was waiting in the doorway. He ran out of the house as soon as they arrived. Emma fell into his arms and sobbed.
Grace found herself looking away for a moment. Things like this still upset her, making her think of her own loss. As well as losing her mother in 2017, she had been a widow for two years when she’d arrived in Stoke-on-Trent. Her husband, Matt, had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in 2013, and although nearly three years had passed since his death in 2016, she was still getting over it. She was still grieving for him, but with her new partner’s help, she’d been healing the gap left behind.
Nick and Grace gave the couple time to comfort each other and then followed them inside. Emma had dropped to her knees at the foot of the stairs. In her arms, she clutched a hooded jumper that had been hanging on a coat hook.
‘She was my baby,’ she sobbed. ‘Why would anyone do that to her?’
‘Let’s get you seated in the living room,’ Alan said, wiping his cheeks. ‘We need to be strong now, give the police as much information as they need to catch the bastard that …’ His voice broke as he helped Emma to her feet.
Once everyone was seated, Nick began to question them.
‘Are you aware of anyone who might have wanted to harm your daughter?’ he asked. ‘Was she having any problems? Maybe her friends, or a boyfriend?’
Emma shook her head. ‘She seemed happy. I don’t think anything was bothering her.’
‘Did she get on with her father?’
‘Yes. She visited him every other Friday and stayed over until Saturday evening. We had quite an amicable split. We’d just grown apart. He’s a good man.’
‘Could we have a look around her room?’ Nick asked eventually after covering everything necessary.
‘She isn’t hiding anything,’ Emma told him. ‘She hasn’t even experimented with drugs, nor had a cigarette.’
‘To our knowledge,’ Alan admitted. ‘She’s a good girl, but like any of us at that age, she could be telling us one thing but doing something completely different.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ said Emma.
‘Nothing.’ Alan looked sheepish. ‘I’m trying to understand what’s happened. Lauren went to school. She should have been safe there! I want to see the headmaster, demand an enquiry.’
‘All in good time,’ Grace tried to appease him. ‘You need someone to blame – I understand that. But please, you also need to stay strong for each other.’
‘What do you know?’ Emma snapped. ‘You can’t even tell us who killed her!’
‘We’re gathering evidence as quickly as possible.’ Nick nodded at Grace, who took it as her cue to stand up.
‘Her room, Mrs Gillespie?’
‘It’s the second door on the right upstairs,’ she replied. ‘I … I don’t want to go in there just yet.’
Grace shook her head. ‘You don’t have to. I promise I will be careful.’
Lauren Ansell’s bedroom was fitted out in silver, white and purple. Lilac curtains were half open, as if she’d left in a rush that morning, the duvet on the bed pulled back haphazardly. There was a pile of clothes on a chair underneath the window and a stack of shoes by the skirting board. The air was full of the scent of deodorant and perfume.
A lilac laptop stood open on a small desk in front of the window. Slipping on latex gloves, Grace tapped a key to see if the screen would wake up, but it was switched off. She’d take it with her to see if there was anything on there. Social media platforms – Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram – might tell them what they needed. So, too, would Lauren’s phone, which had been found in her school bag. She would set Sam on them both once they were all back at the station.
Next, she went over to a set of drawers. Gently pushing aside the clothing, she rummaged around, checking the tops and bottoms to see if anything had been taped down, but there was nothing.
She skimmed her eyes over the dressing table, inside the make-up bag. She flicked through a pile of magazines and several books, but nothing dropped out.
Across the room, the wardrobe was crammed with clothes fighting for space. Grace rifled through pockets, but there was nothing hidden away there, either.
The final place she looked was under the mattress, for a diary. She’d left it until last because it was the obvious place and as a teenager, she’d hidden hers everywhere but there. Always less risk of someone else discovering it.
There was nothing.
‘What happened to you?’ she whispered.
Standing in the middle of the room, she had a sense that Lauren was a loved and happy teenager. She bet she had the odd row with her parents about pushing boundary lines, but there seemed no obvious signs of neglect. Lauren had a lot of the latest fashion in clothes and accessories; she didn’t seem to want for anything. Grace had a feeling she’d be missed dearly.
Spotting photos around the dressing table mirror, Grace leaned forwards to see. They were mostly of Lauren. A few with her in a group of girls, all of them with long blonde hair. And there was one of Lauren with twins. Grace frowned as she looked closer.
‘She was a popular girl,’ a voice said behind her. ‘I’ve known her since she was six.’
Grace turned to see Alan Gillespie.
‘They were always making a lot of noise.’ He pointed to the photo. ‘They used to come here often. I think Emma let her have a bit more freedom than was necessary.’
‘Indoors?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think that’s much better than giving her freedom outdoors,’ Grace acknowledged. ‘It means she was at least safe, even if you did have to tell her to pipe down every now and then. Do you know the names of these girls?’
He took the photo from her. ‘The twins are Courtney and Caitlin Piggott, although I never know which one is which.’ He pointed to another girl. ‘Sophie – Sophie Bishop. The one at the end is Teagan Cole.’
Grace had already recognised Teagan and knew she was going to be upset. Come to think of it, she might have met Lauren herself, albeit briefly, when she’d given her and Teagan a lift back to Teagan’s house with her father, Simon. Losing a friend at such a young age would leave a gap.
She spotted another photo of Lauren with a boy. She pulled it towards her and the sticky tape on the back of it gave way. Looking closer, she saw he was about the same age as Lauren and wondered if he went to Dunwood Academy, too.
She turned to ask Alan, but he was no longer there. When she could find nothing else, she took the laptop and the photos downstairs.
‘Who’s this with Lauren?’ She held it up so that both parents could see it.
‘Dylan Corden,’ Emma told them. ‘He was a boy she met on holiday in Greece last year. He lives in Leeds.’
‘Was Lauren in contact with him?’
‘Only online. We haven’t seen him or his family since. As far as I know, it was a holiday romance.’
‘Did she still talk about him?’
Alan shook his head. ‘Not since she started dating Tom.’
‘Tom?’
‘Thomas Riley. I haven’t heard her mention Dylan in a long time.’
‘Does Thomas attend Dunwood Academy, too?’
Alan nodded. ‘He’s been here a few times as well. Seemed okay to me – even though you worry about them at that age.’
Grace made a note of his name to check with Perry.
‘May we take these photos?’ she asked. ‘I promise you they will be returned as soon as we’re able.’
‘Take anything you need,’ Emma replied.
‘Do you have a recent one of Lauren, too?’
Grace could see Alan was holding back tears as Emma rummaged around in the sideboard. When she turned back and handed them a photo, her shoulders shook as she cried again.
‘I don’t know who would want to hurt her.’ Emma looked at them both in turn. ‘You have to find out who it was – and why!’
‘We will do everything we can,’ Nick promised.
Once outside the family home and on the way back to the school, Grace turned to Nick.
‘I need to tell you something. There’s a photo of five girls on Lauren’s mirror. One of them is Simon’s daughter, Teagan. I’m letting you know because in no way do I want this brought up later. This won’t be another conflict of interest.’
‘Hey, lighten up,’ Nick replied. ‘It would only become that if she was in a group that had either attacked Lauren or had been injured.’
‘Well, I just wanted to—’
‘Grace, sometimes I’m rather impulsive and I pushed you too far on Operation Wedgwood last year. I did it for my own purposes, as I really wanted to break up the Steele family. I was wrong to put it all on you.’
Grace was shocked. It had taken him six months to say that, and their working relationship had soured because of it. Her predecessor, Allie Shenton, had said Nick was one of the good guys, but until now he had yet to prove it to her. He had pushed her too far, even though they’d caught and charged the killer.
‘I get that you’re worried,’ Nick continued, ‘but I’d say what was more important is that if Lauren is part of a group, then perhaps we need to warn them all to be vigilant. This might be an isolated incident but until we gather more evidence everyone is a suspect, even those twin girls for now. You’re staying on the case, understood?’
‘Understood.’ Grace nodded, glad that was cleared up. She’d wanted to come clean, but there was no way she was going to be under the threat of being removed again.
TEN
In an empty classroom, Perry was sitting across from sixteen-year-old Thomas Riley. Thomas was in the same year as their victim but in a different set of classes.
Nathan Stiller sat next to him. At Perry’s suggestion, he’d placed three chairs in a triangle without a table between them. Although everything he said would be written down, Perry didn’t want Thomas to think he was being interviewed. Thomas could be placed in a chemistry lesson with his fellow pupils and teacher at the time the murder took place, so the less stress Perry caused the better.
‘Do you know what’s happened, Thomas?’ Perry started, knowing that rumours were bound to be going around the school.
‘It’s Tom,’ the boy replied. ‘Is it true that Lauren’s dead?’
‘We believe so,’ Perry replied.
‘You believe so?’ Tom looked confused. ‘Don’t you know?’
‘There has to be an official identification of the body, but we think it’s her.’
Tom’s face became stern as he bit his bottom lip. Perry could see he was wrestling with his emotions, trying to keep his grief hidden.
‘I can’t go into detail, but I do need to ask you a few questions, Tom.’ Perry rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands together as he leaned forwards. ‘You’re not in any trouble. Can you tell me when you last saw Lauren?’
‘This morning, a few minutes before classes started.’
‘Did you meet at school or before?’
‘At school. She lives in the opposite direction to me and gets a lift in. Her mum drops her off.’
Perry noted he was still speaking of Lauren in the present tense. ‘And was she okay?’
‘She seemed fine.’ Tom nodded fervently. ‘She came rushing over like her usual self. She was always late, so we never got a lot of time together in the mornings. It was just to say hello, you know?’
Perry smiled: he could recall a few times he’d had illicit kisses before the bell went off for lessons to start.
‘Do you know if she’d fallen out with any of her friends? Had there been any arguments lately?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Had she many close friends?’
‘She was always with the twins – Courtney and Caitlin.’
‘Piggott,’ Nathan added.
Thomas nodded. ‘Teagan Cole and Sophie Bishop, too.’
Perry wondered if Grace knew about Teagan. He made a mental note to check.
‘We were talking about going to the cinema this weekend, what we wanted to watch,’ Thomas continued. ‘That was the last thing we spoke about.’
‘So you don’t know of anything that had been troubling her?’ Perry asked one last time. ‘She hadn’t mentioned any problems at home, or at school?’
‘She didn’t like her step-dad much, but he seemed okay to me.’
‘What did she say about him?’
‘Just that he was always watching her.’
‘Was she worried?’ Perry’s senses went on to alert.
‘I don’t think so, but she said he was a bit strict. I think she missed her dad. She kept saying he didn’t tell her what to do all the time like Alan did.’
Perry relaxed a little then. ‘How long had you been seeing each other?’
‘About three months.’
‘Did you visit each other’s homes?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you didn’t see anything to worry about?’
Thomas shook his head.
‘Okay, Tom, that’s all for now.’ Perry backed off, seeing the lad’s hands had started to shake.
The door opened and a man marched into the room. He was in his mid-forties, with the demeanour of a warrior ready to battle.
Tom got to his feet and rushed into his arms. ‘Dad, she’s dead.’ He burst into tears. ‘Lauren’s dead.’
‘It’s true?’ The man glared at Perry over his son’s head.
‘And you are?’ Perry asked, avoiding answering his question.
‘Oliver Riley. And you have no right to question my son without me being present.’
Perry nodded. ‘I agree, but we weren’t questioning him, and the headmaster was present too.’
‘The detective has been asking Thomas questions about Lauren, nothing more, Mr Riley,’ Nathan started, ‘and I was—’
‘I don’t care whether you were here or not. You still have no right.’ He let go of Tom. ‘Come on, we’re going home.’ He took out a business card and threw it on the table. ‘If you need anything else, contact me and I’ll bring along my lawyer.’
‘Mr Riley!’ Nathan followed Thomas and his father as they left the room.
Perry chewed his lip. He knew the anger from Mr Riley was reasonable. It was fear that made some people respond that way. Most fathers would be wary of their son getting the blame for something they didn’t do. He might be fearful they were going to stitch him up – people still thought the police did things like that. Plus Perry guessed that, despite his harsh demeanour, even Mr Riley could be feeling guilty that his son was okay and another child had been murdered. It was all reflexes.
Nathan came back into the room after a few minutes.
‘That was dreadful!’ he exclaimed, sitting down with a thump. ‘I’m sorry he was so sharp. He shouldn’t have been so rude.’
‘It’s understandable.’ Perry waved away his comment. ‘It’s a hard thing to get your head around.’
‘Especially when she was so young, with her whole life ahead of her. And you have no idea who it might be?’
‘We’ll have lots to go on soon.’ Perry wouldn’t be drawn.
They sat in silence for a moment.
‘Do you see many crimes like this one?’ Nathan asked quietly.
‘Thankfully, no.’
‘So terribly sad.’ Nathan stood up quickly. ‘I need to find something to do. Someone will want my help somewhere, I’m sure.’
Once Nathan had left the room, Perry sighed. So many ways to deal with grief. Keeping busy was one of them. It helped until the quiet set in, when everything came rushing back. It couldn’t stay away for long.
Nathan turned to Perry as he got to the door. ‘You will catch whoever did this, won’t you?’ He spoke in a distressed tone.
‘We’re on to it.’ Perry looked at him with as much reassurance as he could muster.
ELEVEN
When Grace returned to Dunwood Academy, it was just after two p.m. Nick dropped her off and went back to the station, while she went in search of Perry to see what he’d found. Whenever anything like this happened, she was reminded that he was a good second-in-command, getting everyone to come to him with details of what had been said, seen, suggested. She could imagine how upset he’d been when she’d pipped him to the post for the sergeant’s job last year. He would no doubt be promoted soon.
It was at times like this she remembered her team back in Manchester. DS Gus Banks, her line manager then, and the formidable DC Sandy Princeton, who she’d worked alongside. Sandy’s nickname was the Oracle, as she had a memory that could recall anything from cases gone by.
Grace could see both Sandy and Gus in Sam and Perry; she felt very lucky to work with them. She could have ended up with a lot of backstabbing and prejudice after what had happened last year when the truth had come out about her relationship with the Steele family. Things could have been so much worse, but instead, most of the team had stood by her. They’d lost one colleague when DC Alex Challinor had gone rogue on them and this now left them a man down. Sadly, Alex hadn’t been replaced owing to budget cuts, so they were always begging uniform to help out.
‘Anything new?’ she asked when she found Perry grabbing a quick coffee in the hall that was now serving as a canteen. It had been set up to accommodate both the public and the emergency services.
Perry shook his head. ‘No one from the class seems to have seen anything – at all.’
‘I guess our killer depended on that,’ Grace acknowledged. ‘It was a brave move to attack our girl in such an open space. Let’s hope the press release brings us something.’
Perry told her about Lauren’s friends and about speaking to Thomas Riley.
‘Did you see Teagan Cole?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I spoke to her earlier. Sophie Bishop, too. They were all close friends.’
‘What did Teagan say?’
‘That she and Sophie were back in school when they heard about what had happened.’
Grace updated him on seeing Teagan on one of Lauren’s photographs.
‘It’s a coincidence,’ he reassured her. ‘Not someone out to get you.’
She glanced at him over her paper cup as she took a sip of tea that she’d been given. ‘I hope so.’
They sat in silence, each with their own thoughts. At the next table, a group of uniformed officers had come in for a break. Their heads were as low as their voices as they huddled close together, rather than upset anyone around them with a badly placed comment or observation.
‘So, are we looking for a killer with a motive?’ Grace asked after a few moments. ‘Or someone who’s out for a bit of fun with us?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Someone playing a deadly game.’
‘Nothing would surprise me in this job,’ Perry admitted.
The mobile police unit had been set up outside and Sam had come over to help coordinate all the people they needed to speak to. Grace discovered that Sam had booked lots of appointments for the following day too, to wrap up anyone they’d missed. It was a tedious exercise, not only because there were a lot of kids, but also because most of them would know nothing. Yet someone somewhere might have noticed something suspicious and they didn’t want to miss anything that could be right under their noses.
The next three hours were taken up with speaking to staff and the pupils who had stayed behind to talk to them until parents had arrived, collating any of the house-to-house information for further action and responding to the general public as speculation about Lauren Ansell grew. Grace was hoping it would be possible that the formal identification would take place that evening, although that would very much depend on forensics.
Finally, after a press release had gone out, they were ready to go back to the station around five p.m. There was nothing more that could be done at the school that day and it was only fair to let the teaching staff go home. They needed rest. They would be devastated and it would be a long day for them tomorrow. All media attention would be on them and their school. Grace hoped there were no hidden secrets that were going to crop up and take them away from the real investigation. The public were always quick to assume the worst, and all kinds of dirty laundry might be aired, however irrelevant.
As she left the school grounds with Perry, Grace could see her partner, Simon, hovering around by the gate.
Even though their relationship was new, they seemed to have a non-spoken agreement to be mutually respectful of each other’s roles. They talked about ongoing cases, but there was nothing to push either of them to answer questions that they didn’t want to. Each had a job to do, maintaining a professional standard as well as keeping their relationship healthy. Grace hoped it continued, as she thought a lot of Simon.
From the look of him, he was finding this distressing, too. His shirt had sweat patches under the arms despite the cool day, his tie was askew and his choppy blond hair even messier than usual.
‘Thanks for the tip-off this morning,’ he said, taking her arm as they moved away from the crowds. ‘I couldn’t believe it. Even more harrowing when I knew the victim.’
She gave a faint smile. ‘How’s Teagan?’
Grace had only managed to have a very quick chat with his daughter when his ex-wife had turned up to collect her.
‘Still devastated, but at least she’s at home now.’
Since she and Simon had become an item, Grace hadn’t gelled with his daughter at all. Each time they met was a little harder than she’d anticipated, despite her best efforts. Teagan seemed to blame Grace for her parents splitting up, but Simon and his wife had been separated long before she’d met him. Even so, Grace was the first woman he’d formed a relationship with and that made her, in his daughter’s eyes, the spawn of the devil.
Simon ran a hand over his chin, stubble already forming since his morning’s shave. ‘I can’t believe Lauren’s dead, Grace. I’ve known her since she was five years old. She and Teagan met at nursery school.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she appeased. ‘It’s going to affect a lot of people, even if they didn’t know her. No one wants to send their child to school and not have them return.’
‘Worse, I can’t stop thinking that it might have been Teagan. She was in one of the other groups of girls to come down the lane.’
‘Hey now,’ Grace soothed, giving his hand a quick squeeze. She wanted desperately to kiss him and allay his fears, but she couldn’t do either here.
‘They’re having a meet-up in the youth club this evening,’ Simon said. ‘Teagan asked if it was okay to go along. When I said I’d prefer her to be at home with her mum, she accused me of putting my job first.’ He gave a half-smile. ‘I’ll be on call for a while now this has happened. It can’t be helped.’
‘You have to make people aware. Whereas we need to catch whoever did this so they don’t do it again.’
In the background, Grace could see Perry waving for her attention.
‘Time for me to skedaddle,’ she added. ‘We’re going back to the station for team briefing. Do you need a lift?’
‘No, I’m in my car. But I’ll stick around here for a while longer. See you this evening, at your place?’
‘Let yourself in if you get there first.’ She nodded. ‘It’s going to be a late one.’
TWELVE
Teagan Cole was in the kitchen having a standoff with her mum, Natalie.
‘But everyone will be there except me,’ she whined, pulling a face.
‘I don’t care about that. I just want you home with me tonight.’
Natalie walked across to her daughter and held out her arms, but Teagan rebuffed her, wriggling from her mother’s embrace.
‘I want to hang out with my friends. I’ll be fine inside the youth club. Cait and Court’s mum will collect and drop me off. I won’t be alone any time and I—’
‘No means no, Teagan, and that’s my final word.’ Natalie shook her head. ‘It’s not much to ask that you stay where I know you’re safe.’
‘You’d humiliate me by not letting me go?’
‘Oh, don’t be so dramatic.’
‘Pot. Kettle!’
Natalie threw her a warning look.
‘The twins need me,’ she tried once more.
‘I need you here.’
Teagan stormed out of the kitchen. Upstairs in her room, she flung herself lengthways onto her bed and located her iPad. Earlier, she’d sent a text message to Caitlin. Though she wasn’t allowed out, she had to speak to the twins. Caitlin had replied to say she’d call her in a few minutes.
Teagan was upset that she couldn’t go to the youth club with them. Everyone who mattered would be there and she’d really been looking forward to seeing Lewis because she wanted a hug from him. And it was the first major thing to happen like this in her life, so she wanted to be with her friends again, talk about what had happened.
Lauren had died and on top of that she’d had to be civil to Grace. As a person she was fine, but as someone who her dad was going out with, Teagan didn’t like that at all. Maybe if she hadn’t come sniffing around him, her parents might have got together again.
She rolled over onto her back and sighed. She was wise enough to know that her parents hadn’t been happy for a while, even staying together for her sake until she was older. She knew they were destined to stay apart and she didn’t blame Grace for it really. But it was hard to switch allegiances and she didn’t want to upset her mum, despite her seeing Adrian now.
She quite liked Adrian, although she would never admit it. Still, she’d be annoyed if he wanted to move in with them, and she suspected that would be the next move. She was only the daughter, after all. She had no say in who lived where, and it was only fair her mum and dad were happy, too. But she liked making their lives hell by comparing one against the other.
All of a sudden, guilt crept in and her eyes filled with tears. How could she be thinking of herself after what had happened to Lauren? Her friend was dead – murdered. What a selfish brat she must seem.
Her iPad alerted her to a FaceTime connection. She tapped the button to connect.
‘Hey,’ a Piggott twin said. ‘Courtney’s in the shower. She won’t be a minute. Your eyes look red. How are you, babes?’
‘I’m okay,’ Teagan acknowledged. ‘I can’t believe she’s dead. Earlier I was watching stuff about Lauren on the news …’
‘Me too.’
‘It seems weird to see our school on the TV. There are tons of flowers outside the railings.’
‘Yeah, we have some to bring with us this evening.’
‘I’ve got some here, but I can’t put them down until tomorrow afternoon. Mum wants to come with me.’
‘Well, I’ll take a photo of where we put ours and you can put yours next to them then.’
‘I can’t believe you can go to the youth club and I can’t,’ Teagan said, forgetting her earlier thoughts of remorse.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll call you when we’re there. You can hear all about it.’ Caitlin flicked her hair back. ‘Did you see the male detective this morning? Perry something.’
‘Yes. Sophie did, too. He said it was because we were all close friends with Lauren.’
‘We had a quick chat as soon as we got back to school after, you know. Then we waited for our olds to come before he spoke to us again. He was really nice, put us at ease.’
‘Well he would – you didn’t do anything!’ Teagan rolled her eyes.
‘But,’ Caitlin leaned forward and whispered, ‘apart from her killer, we were the last people to see Lauren alive, weren’t we, Court?’
‘Yes, we were.’ Courtney sat down on the bed next to her sister. She was wearing a pink fluffy dressing gown with a purple towel wrapped around her hair.
Teagan watched as Caitlin shuffled across the bed to make way for her sister.
‘Hey, babes.’ Courtney waved at Teagan.
‘Hey yourself.’ Teagan waved back. ‘I wish I could come out with you two tonight.’
‘I know.’ Courtney sighed. ‘I wish you could, too. It’s going to be weird enough without Lauren.’ She held in a sob as her sister gave her a hug.
Teagan heard a voice yelling in the background. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Gotta go, Tee,’ Caitlin said. ‘Mum’s shouting us. We’ll speak to you laters, yeah?’
‘Suppose so.’ Teagan tried not to feel dejected. ‘Do you both want to come around here tomorrow – Sophie, too? Now school’s closed …’
‘Yeah, we could do.’ Courtney nodded.
‘Laters, babe.’ Caitlin blew her a kiss and the screen went blank.
Teagan huffed. It wasn’t fair that she couldn’t go to the youth club with her friends. Of course it would be safe after what had happened this morning.
But when she realised that one of their group would be missing, she burst into tears again. What were they going to do without Lauren?
THIRTEEN
Bethesda Police Station was situated in the lower part of Hanley, in the city’s Cultural Quarter. It sat alongside the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, the City Central Library, the Magistrates Court, the Stoke News, where Simon was based, and Chimneys, the station’s local pub. Work had also started on an apartment block, next to the two Smithfield buildings situated behind it. For the past few years, it had always been a hive of activity, noise and fanfare.
Like Dunwood Academy, Bethesda Police Station was an L-shaped building, but it was over three floors. Grace’s team was on floor one, a large open-plan office with several other teams in operation besides Major Crimes. Luckily, she sat at a bank of desks in the far corner, which meant slightly less noise.
She was in the incident room at that moment. She rubbed at her neck, trying to ease the pressure. It was just before six that evening and she was waiting for an early team briefing to start. The crime was the first of its kind to be connected to a school in the city and the national press as well as the Stoke News were already all over it. TV cameras were outside both the school and the police station. Grace resented their intrusion as much as she welcomed it, in terms of its necessity for information sharing and gathering.
Nick had given another brief statement on camera and they had a team waiting to man the phones, hoping the public might ring in and give them a lead. All it took was someone remembering something from earlier that morning. Jogging a memory, recalling anything different.
On the whiteboard in front of them was the recent photograph Grace had commandeered from Lauren Ansell’s parents. The schoolgirl’s face stared back at them, so full of life. It was hard to think she was dead.
Conversation was going on around her as people piled into the room.
‘I spoke to so many girls today who are going to be scarred by the death,’ Sam said to Grace. She had been at the school most of the afternoon in the mobile unit. ‘I know once I get home this evening I’ll be giving Emily a cuddle, even if I have to wake her up. I need to feel her beating heart next to me, hold her in my arms.’
Sam’s daughter, Emily, was eight years old. Sam was divorced from Emily’s father, but living with a new partner, Craig. Grace knew lots of parents would struggle with the death of a child – she certainly would have if she’d had any. It brought home to people how this sort of thing could happen to anyone.
Even having no children of her own, it made her think of her half-niece, Megan Steele, who she hadn’t seen since her mother’s arrest. Megan was the same age as their victim, although thankfully not a pupil at Dunwood Academy. Not for the first time, Grace wondered whether or not it was appropriate to get in touch with her but, as usual, she decided it wasn’t.
She glanced across at Perry, who was deep in conversation with another officer.
‘Frankie, you’re back with us!’ Grace said, her smile wide as she addressed the keen and eager young man in uniform. She’d asked for him as soon as the investigation had started, knowing there would be long hours and few staff to spare.
‘I am indeed, Grace!’
Frankie was otherwise known as PC Mick Higgins. Mick was drafted in to help whenever they were busy, but as it often became confusing with their DI being named Nick, after their last murder investigation had finished she’d asked if he had a nickname.
Mick had grinned. ‘They call me Frank.’
‘Frank?’
‘It’s not because I’m a boring old fart,’ he insisted, ‘but because I’m a chip off the old block. My granddad, Frank, was a beat bobby for thirty years.’
‘Would you mind if we called you that? Or, better still, Frankie?’
It had stuck immediately. Grace was glad he was on their team again. She would have liked him permanently after Alex had been sacked last year. One day she was sure Frankie would make a great detective, but for now, she’d settle with getting him on the larger cases they dealt with.
‘Okay, everyone,’ Nick said as he came into the room and sat down at the head of the table. ‘Welcome to Operation Middleport. Just to let you know, we’ve not yet had positive identification that our victim is Lauren Ansell, but I will be visiting the morgue later this evening to confirm this. Let’s see what we have so far. Grace, do you want to start us off?’
Grace cleared her throat. ‘Lauren was sixteen years old. Found strangled in a field near to her school. She was with a class, out cross-country running. According to her friends, twins Caitlin and Courtney Piggott, she’d lagged behind to tie her shoelace and they’d carried on walking. When she hadn’t rejoined them, they’d doubled back and found her unconscious, possibly dead by this time. We can’t be certain.’
‘Neither twin is known to us,’ Nick said. ‘But do you think it’s something they could have done and are covering up? Maybe an argument over a boy, or something silly.’
‘We can’t rule it out entirely until forensics are back.’ Grace shook her head. ‘Perry spoke to Caitlin and Courtney Piggott.’
‘I don’t think they had anything to do with the murder, because their teacher saw them come around the corner without Lauren,’ Perry said. ‘There wouldn’t have been much time to hurt her before or after that. They all have clean slates, too. Pleasant girls according to their headmaster and the teachers I spoke to. Lauren seems to be well liked, no obvious signs of being a loner.’
‘There were a fair share of teens outpouring their grief and there are flowers galore outside the school gates on the railings,’ Grace added.
‘Caitlin mentioned another teacher’s name, Jason Tranter,’ Perry continued. ‘Said that Lauren had a crush on him. I spoke to him briefly, asked him about it – he was quite embarrassed.’
‘How old?’ asked Nick.
‘Mid-thirties. He’s a good-looking fella; I reckon lots of the girls might like him. He also runs the school youth club.’
‘Okay, thanks, Perry. What else do we know about the parents?’ Nick looked at Grace.
‘They divorced nine years ago when Lauren was six. Her father, Richard Ansell, lives in Derby. I spoke to him first on the phone when I informed him of the death. He was in a meeting with several people at the time of the murder.’ She checked over her notes. ‘Lauren lived in Stanley with her mum, who has since remarried. Alan Gillespie. No more children.’
‘Did she visit her father?’ asked Sam.
‘Yes.’ Grace nodded. ‘She went regularly every other Friday. Everyone seemed to think everything was going okay for Lauren. She was doing well at school, had lots of friends and a happy home life.’
‘Both the twins and Thomas Riley suggested that Lauren didn’t get on with her step-dad,’ Perry said. ‘Should we look into it?’
Nick nodded. ‘And we have no CCTV outside the school?’
‘No,’ Sam replied. ‘Neither the lane nor the fields are covered. I’m going through the footage from the school cameras, but it’s very doubtful that our suspect would walk past the school to get to the fields, unless brazen or stupid. Although it has been known.’
‘They could have come on foot from any number of places,’ Perry added. ‘We’re searching out home CCTV from surrounding houses that back onto that field, seeing if anyone has any personal footage.’
‘The search team will widen their area tomorrow to cover the surrounding fields where Lauren Ansell was found,’ Nick continued. ‘They’re due to go across the lane and search the field opposite. Our killer could have run quickly across the lane and in the opposite direction.’
‘They could have run along the hedge in the field where Lauren was found, too,’ Perry noted, ‘and then come out on the lane further up.’
‘We spoke to the farmer who owned the field,’ Frankie piped in. ‘He hasn’t seen anyone hanging around lately, but he did say that lots of runners use it, walkers too, even though it’s private property, so he probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway.’
‘Unless he happened on the class, our killer must have got the information from someone.’ Nick nodded. ‘We don’t have much to go on yet, except a load of statements from teens who were running ahead of them.’
‘Where does the lane lead to?’ Grace pushed back her chair and got up to look at the map of Stoke-on-Trent that was on the wall by the side of the whiteboard.
Perry joined her, standing at her side.
‘It goes for about half a mile with farmland either side of it and then it comes to a T-junction.’ He tapped a finger on it. ‘There’s barely a handful of properties up there – the rest is green.’
‘And none of them saw anyone lurking around in the area?’ Nick questioned.
‘Nothing yet,’ Grace told him, checking through her notes. ‘We have more people to interview, though. There were so many of them – a lot were upset and some were picked up early. It will take most of tomorrow to speak to them all. Also, who would know about the cross-country run?’ she pondered. ‘Another pupil? Another teacher? Another regular runner? Or could it be a parent of one of the children who’d let it be known they were doing cross-country?’
‘I hated cross-country.’ Sam pointed at Grace. ‘I don’t know how anyone wants to run full stop.’
Grace smiled. She knew lots of her friends felt the same, but she loved the freedom of running. She couldn’t not run now. She enjoyed the quiet it gave her mind to work things out, the discipline to train to improve, pushing herself to aim higher with each session. It was frustrating that she still suffered from insomnia, something that no one in the team knew she had, but secretly she was pleased it gave her more time to run.
Insomnia was something left over from the days of Matt’s illness. The amount of times she’d lain by his side in the middle of the night, afraid to go to sleep in case he wasn’t alive the next day. The days that turned into nights at the end of his life, where she didn’t know dark from light. The weeks, months and now years that she’d failed to get into a regular sleep pattern again, more to do with her loneliness and grief. It was getting better now that she was with Simon, but at times it was as bad as those earlier days.
‘Sam’s keeping an eye on anything coming in from the press release and I expect we’ll be doing a further update this afternoon.’ Nick turned to look at Grace. ‘Keep the pressure up on speaking to people today. We need to build as big a picture as we can about Lauren, plus get a timeline of her movements before she died. The post-mortem should be with us early in the morning, hopefully.’
‘We’ll be going back to the school first thing too,’ Grace continued.
‘It’s staying open?’ Frankie frowned.
‘Only for us,’ Nick enlightened him. ‘Now that the mobile unit is set up, we can take first statements there and bring anyone into the station if we need to question them further.’
‘The youth club is still being held this evening,’ Grace added. ‘It doesn’t seem very respectful, but I can understand. The kids might need someone to talk to.’
‘They might open up if they’re all together on their own,’ Nick agreed.
‘They might. But there is the danger that they’ll hear things from others that they didn’t really see and then take those ideas as their own.’ Grace paused. ‘Do you think I should be in attendance? Or do you think I’m best having a word with Jason Tranter in the morning, see if he overheard anything, or was told something useful?’ She looked to Nick for advice. ‘How’s it best to play it, do you think?’
‘Difficult to tell.’ Nick ran a hand over his chin. ‘If we wade in, he might clam up. Maybe we should see what he gets out of the pupils first.’
Grace nodded. ‘I’ll let him know. How long has he worked at the school, Perry?’
‘Five years. He’s a local, too.’
‘What does he teach?’ Nick questioned.
‘Art. He seems okay, had the kids’ welfare at heart, but I’m keeping an open mind.’
‘As long as it’s not a cover-up like the Soham murders,’ Nick almost growled. ‘Seemed as though Ian Huntley had the kids’ interests at heart and look how that ended.’
Grace shuddered involuntarily, knowing she wouldn’t have liked to work on that case. Then she paused, feeling an overwhelming need to do whatever it took to bring down the person or persons who had done this.
‘On second thoughts, sir, I’d like to go to the youth club this evening.’
FOURTEEN
It was half past seven at night when Grace arrived back at Dunwood Academy. News had got around throughout the day, and now there were people of all ages gathering both in and around the school gates.
Grace always liked to step into the community when she could. See who was saying what and about whom. Often a snippet of conversation could turn into a nugget of information. Sometimes that’s all it took. So that’s why going to the youth club was a necessity. Besides, she wanted to help if she could. She knew what it was like to suffer the loss of someone close.
She passed bouquets and single flowers, propped up next to each other on the railings. Candles had been lit and scattered around, in between a few teddy bears. But it was the handmade cards and messages that brought a lump to Grace’s throat. Some of these children would never forget this incident in their lifetime. Especially the ones who were closest to Lauren Ansell.
So many flowers in a row reminded her of Matt’s funeral. Even though they’d asked for donations for the local hospice he’d been taken to for his last days, there had still been lots of tributes. Because he was so young and dying of a terminal illness, it had been quite a big crowd. A lot of people had known him when he’d passed away.
Matt had wanted everyone, including herself, to wear his favourite football team’s shirt or red T-shirts and to take lots of selfies with Grace. It had made for some happier memories of a sad day.
Pushing thoughts of Matt to the back of her mind, she tried to put herself into the students’ position. What it must be like to lose a classmate, a friend at sixteen years old. Long-term friendships were made at that delicate age. She could remember being the new girl when she and her mum had left Stoke when she was twelve. Everyone had already paired off with a best mate or groups to hang around in. She didn’t fit in anywhere. Of course she’d made friends eventually, but not any special ones. She was often guarded, never wanting to get close to anyone. She supposed that was owing to her background, having had a very abusive childhood.
Yet, even though there would be people milling around tomorrow, the next week, the following month, Grace realised that most of the people in the crowd – particularly the ones who weren’t close to Lauren Ansell – would have forgotten her soon and gone back to their normal lives. Just that in itself showed how precious life was, that it could be taken from you in an instant, and the world ticked on regardless. But you could still become a star for a day because of how you’d died.
Grace stepped around a woman hugging a teenager to her chest as the girl sobbed. There were two other girls next to her, crying silently as they stooped down to read the messages. Ahead, a lone male stood back, an angry expression on his face.
Was her killer amongst the people watching? Some suspects liked to be near to the scene of the crime afterwards; others wanted to be as far away as possible, only looking on from a distance via social media channels and the TV.
She glanced around, taking everyone in as she walked, hands in pockets, hoping not to stand out as a cop. She’d worn her hair down and had ditched her suit jacket for the denim one that was always in the boot of the car. She’d freshened up her make-up, too.
Finally at the gates, she paused for a moment. Hands behind her back, she stood in silence looking at the images of Lauren Ansell. One photograph showed a young woman who had everything to look forward to. Her eyes were smiling, dancing even, and there was a mischievous grin on her face. It wasn’t the usual school photo. It had been taken when she was somewhere hot. Grace could see a beach in the background, lights shining on the sea. Lauren was tanned, happy and smiling. She hoped her parents remembered her like that once the grief had gone.
‘You’re the cop I saw this morning, aren’t you?’ a voice said behind her.
Grace turned to see a teenage boy, tall, short dark hair, with an array of spots on his forehead. His wary eyes were flitting around before they finally landed on her.
‘Yes, I was here earlier,’ she replied. ‘And you are?’
‘Lewis Granger.’
‘Did you know Lauren?’
‘We were in the same class.’ He looked down the road and then thrust his hands in his pockets as he turned back. ‘I’m going to miss her.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Did she get on with everyone?’
‘Yeah, she was good company. We hung around together.’
‘She seemed very popular from what I’ve seen.’ Grace threw a thumb over her shoulder. ‘I’m going to the youth club. Is that where you’re heading?’
He nodded. ‘I’m waiting for my mate to turn up.’
‘I’ll see you in there.’
As she walked off, he spoke again.
‘It seems weird, someone I know dying.’
She turned back to him. ‘There will be counselling available from the school when it reopens. It’s going to be tough for a while.’
Grace waited for him to speak again but when he stayed silent she walked away. She wondered if he’d searched her out for a reason, or maybe he’d noticed her arrival.
With her mind working overtime, she went inside.
FIFTEEN
The youth club was being held in a large hall, a pool table at one end. Next to it was an old sideboard with a coffee machine and stacks of paper cups in a pile. Music was playing low, the sounds of a recent chart-topper Grace knew some of the words to. She wondered if it was a favourite of Lauren’s or a track that was being played regardless.
Sitting in a huddle on a small settee were three girls. Several people stood in twos. A group of mixed teens sat around a large table. All of them seemed subdued, unsure what to do. The atmosphere was tense.
Grace moved towards two girls who were trying to comfort each other.
‘Excuse me, where will I find Mr Tranter?’ she asked, deciding not to show her warrant card. There was no need for such formality here.
One of the girls pointed to a room in the far corner.
‘Thanks.’
Grace followed the direction of the girl’s finger. Arriving at the room, she saw the door was open. There was a man inside, sitting at a desk. He had a thick sheen of dark hair and sultry blue eyes, and was casually dressed in jeans and a black woollen jumper.
‘Jason Tranter?’ This time Grace did get out her warrant card. ‘DS Allendale.’
‘Hi. I assumed someone might show up this evening. Come on in.’ He moved a pile of papers from a chair.
Grace sat down. ‘I thought I’d drop by. I’m not here to question anyone in particular.’ She thought it better to be economical with the truth rather than unfriendly. Of course she was there to gather information from as many people as possible, but she still needed to keep them at ease. ‘It will give me a feel of how well liked Lauren was, and also the chance to listen to her friends and their thoughts.’
‘Their thoughts?’ Jason frowned.
‘Sometimes people give themselves away when they least expect it.’ She held up a hand as he sat forwards to protest. ‘I don’t mean anything other than information that someone might think isn’t important and then turns out to be quite the opposite. I doubt they’ll open up to me as a police officer, but I hope I can rely on you to see what you can find out?’
Jason nodded. ‘Sure.’
‘How long have you been working at the youth club?’ she asked, looking around the room and spotting a corkboard crammed with photos of pupils.
‘A couple of years,’ Jason told her. ‘It’s voluntary. I love teaching during the day, but I don’t really like being stuck in a classroom. So this is another outlet for me. It’s only a few hours a week.’
‘So you know the pupils out there quite well.’ Grace paused. ‘Do any of them give you problems?’
‘They all do at one time or another. They’re teens. Hormones galore. The boys fight, the girls argue. They make up or they don’t in some cases.’
‘Anyone not made up at the moment that you know of?’ Grace pushed. ‘Any big arguments lately?’
‘Nothing comes to mind.’ He shook his head.
‘I’m just trying to get the layout of Lauren and her friends. If she’s been hanging out with different ones we’ve yet to find out about, it could be important.’
‘It’s Robert I pity. It wasn’t his fault, but it happened on his watch and I know he’ll blame himself. I would have done the same in his position. The girls were lagging behind, they were a minute out of his sight, and there had been three of them. Who would have thought that something like that could happen?’
‘How many pupils attend the youth club?’ Grace asked next, wondering why he had chosen to change the subject.
‘It has about seventy kids in total who use it every now and then. They don’t have to attend the school to be a member, though. We take anyone who will behave themselves.’ He smiled. ‘Some turn up every week, on the two nights we open.’
‘Which are?’ Grace asked.
‘Tuesdays and Thursdays. Others appear sporadically. They pay a pound subs and sign in. It covers the cost of the school being open late, and the drinks we provide. I won’t collect any money tonight. It doesn’t seem right. Do you want to see the signing-in book later?’
Grace nodded. ‘Was Lauren a regular?’
‘She came most weeks, twice sometimes. Her and her friends. There’s a group of about five of them, all girls. We offer a safe place for the kids to hang out, and also keep out of trouble in the local area.’
‘Did you get on well with her?’
‘Yes. She was a good kid. It will be weird not to see her around.’
Grace noticed he didn’t stir at the question. As Perry had mentioned earlier in team brief, he didn’t seem fazed by the fact that a murdered girl had a crush on him.
‘Tougher for the kids than me, I guess.’ Jason sighed before standing. ‘Can I grab you a coffee, perhaps introduce you to some of the members?’
‘That would be great.’
‘Nathan’s around, too. He’s been popping in and out. It’s not often we have the headmaster here.’ Jason paused. ‘I must admit, I hadn’t been too sure about opening the youth club this evening. For starters, why would any of the parents want their children out of their sight after one of the pupils at the school had been murdered? But Nathan insisted, saying it would be a good place for the kids to have time to be with each other and grieve.’
‘I expect he won’t be able to stay away.’ Grace knew how much pressure Stiller would be under right now.
A cry rang out and they all turned. One of the girls who’d arrived had burst into tears and dropped into the arms of another.
‘That’s Katie Davies,’ Jason explained. ‘Sophie Bishop is comforting her, with a Piggott twin. I can never tell them apart. They were all close friends of Lauren’s.’
Over the course of the next hour, Grace chatted to lots of the teenagers. Nathan Stiller did indeed come and go, joining in conversations as the students reminisced about Lauren. Some of the teenagers laughed openly about her when sharing anecdotes; others, Grace could tell, felt guilty if they did. But she knew as well as anyone how much better it was to remember the good times. Be comforted by them. Bury them deep within to be resurrected whenever necessary.
Because she’d done the same when Matt had died. It hadn’t lessened the pain, but it had made the days seem more bearable.
She was still struggling with the nights.
SIXTEEN
At the youth club, Sophie Bishop had been messing with her phone all evening. She’d been doing it under the pretence of looking for what people were saying about Lauren on social media. But really she was waiting.
Finally, a text message came in:
Meet me behind the sheds in two minutes?
She glanced around the youth club until she caught his eye. Her stomach flipped like it did every time he looked at her. She nodded her reply and turned to Courtney and Caitlin, who she was sitting with.
‘I’m going to grab a bit of fresh air.’ She stood, acting casual, even though her heart was pumping fast. ‘I feel like I need some space.’
‘Want me to come with you?’ Courtney asked with a look of concern.
Sophie shook her head. ‘No, you stay here. I won’t be long.’
‘Okay, babes. Message me if you want me and I’ll come out to you.’
Sophie nodded to her friend. Once outside, she let out a breath. Her dad hadn’t been too impressed when she’d said she was going out, but eventually she’d persuaded him that she needed to be with her friends. Teagan hadn’t been allowed to come, which was annoying, but at least she had the twins. She’d told her dad she was being picked up and brought home by Mrs Piggott. Luckily, he’d been okay with that.
She gulped down a sob. She was going to miss Lauren so much. They’d known each other since junior school and even though Sophie never usually cried in public, she hadn’t been able to stop the tears all day. Her eyes were red and sore, but there was no point in trying to make herself look presentable again now. He’d have to take her as he found her. One of them was missing, gone forever, not coming back. How were they supposed to cope with that?
After dropping them off at school, Mrs Piggott had told them she’d be waiting at half past eight, which is why Sophie knew time was of the essence. But as well as being there for the rest of the girls, she wanted to see him. She wanted to be comforted, too.
Finally, her phone beeped:
I’m here.
It was quiet back there but, even so, Sophie glanced around to see if anyone was watching. When she felt it was safe, she ran across to the outbuildings behind the sports hall. As she reached the first shed, he popped his head out and disappeared again. Around the corner, out of view, she ran into his arms.
‘I thought I wouldn’t be able to see you,’ she cried as she held on tight to him.
He rubbed a hand over her hair. ‘I’m glad that we’ve found time.’ He tilted her chin towards him and kissed her. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m okay, but it’s such a shock.’ She wiped away tears that had fallen. ‘I can’t stop crying. She was one of my closest friends.’
‘I know.’ He drew her into his arms again. ‘I feel like I don’t want to let you go. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I care about you too much.’
‘I care about you, too,’ Sophie replied, although she wasn’t really sure. Was he talking about love? She didn’t feel as if they’d been together long enough for that. But then, how would she know? She’d never been in love before.
They’d been meeting for nearly six weeks but she hadn’t told anyone. She’d sneaked out to see him two or three times a week. Knowing that people wouldn’t understand why she was seeing him, she’d fibbed to her dad, saying she was over at the twins’ house, and she’d lied to the twins, saying she was staying in. So far, it had worked out fine. Except when things like this happened and she wanted to see him but couldn’t.
‘I wonder who the killer could be,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to know that someone is still out there.’
‘I guess. But the police will catch whoever did it,’ he said.
She paused for a moment in honour of her friend, then flipped the talk back to herself as only a teenager could.
‘When will I be able to see you again?’
‘Soon.’
‘I hope so.’
She breathed in the scent of him, the tang of his aftershave. She really wished they had somewhere they could be alone together. She wanted his hands all over her.
He kissed her gently on the lips this time. ‘I need to remember you until we can be together.’
Sophie almost laughed – she couldn’t help it. He was trying to be romantic, but it sounded like a line out of a bad movie.
‘I can get out tomorrow, if you can?’ he questioned.
‘I’ll try.’
‘When will you know?’
‘Probably tomorrow afternoon. I’ll text you.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I have to go. Don’t want to blow my cover.’
He pulled her close, his lips crushing down on hers. It was passionate, something that made Sophie’s heart soar. She broke away with regret.
‘I need to leave.’ She moved away from him reluctantly.
He held on to her hand until he had to let it go.
Sophie blew him a kiss before running back to the youth club.
When she got to the entrance, she breathed a sigh of relief. Neither the twins, nor their mother’s car, were anywhere to be seen. She’d got away with it.
She slipped back inside the hall. Courtney and Caitlin hadn’t moved. They both had their heads down looking at their phones.
‘How are you now, babes?’ Courtney asked as Sophie sat down again.
‘Slightly better.’ She felt a blush rising to her cheeks and she got out her phone again. There was a text message from him already:
Can’t wait to see you again. xx
She tapped the phone to her bottom lip, trying desperately hard not to smile.
SEVENTEEN
After leaving the youth club just before nine p.m., Grace went back to the station for an hour. The phones had finally calmed down a little after the press release, only the odd call coming in. Officers and civilians were typing out details they’d pass over to Grace and her team. She would delegate cross-referencing them in the morning.
Nick had gone with Lauren Ansell’s parents to identify the body. She sat at her desk, thinking of Lauren – sixteen years old and murdered. That poor child who wouldn’t be going back to her bed that night. Her family who were mourning her loss. Her friends at school who’d miss her dearly. It seemed such a waste.
Finally, she texted Simon to say she was on her way home. He’d contacted her a few times during the day, letting her know when he’d be finishing and any developments with the Stoke News. Apparently, there had been lots of messages of condolence, but nothing much of anything else.
Simon would always check in on her somehow – either speaking to her on the phone or texting her first to see where she was. She liked that he cared enough, though she knew he hated living in his tiny house that he’d been in since the break-up of his marriage.
Grace was glad to see the living room light on when she pulled into the drive. It was comforting – much better than coming home to a dark, empty house. Simon never called uninvited, but she’d given him a set of his own keys as a silly stocking filler that Christmas.
Just as she was about to get out of her car, a text message came in. She read it before going into the house.
‘Hey.’ She sat down on the arm of the settee, leaning down to kiss him.
‘Hey.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Anything else come in?’
‘I’ve had a text from Nick to confirm formal identification has taken place, but other than that, nothing more than we knew this morning.’
Grace rubbed at her neck, feeling the tension in her shoulders. Suddenly, she realised that Simon was crying.
She slid down next to him and took him in her arms, pulling him close.
‘It could have been Teagan, Grace. She was only a few feet in front of Lauren,’ he said. ‘Every time I saw Emma Gillespie cry, I felt guilty for being glad my own daughter was alive. I can’t seem to get it out of my head. They must be going through hell right now.’
She let him cry until he lifted his head. Then she wiped a tear from his cheek, no need for words.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘You don’t have to apologise. How’s Teagan?’
‘Upset. We decided against her going to the youth club. I felt like the Big Bad Wolf, even though Natalie had agreed. I know Teagan wanted to be with her friends, but I needed to know she was safe, too. I called to see her this evening, not that it’s any consolation.’ He wiped at his eyes, a faint smile forming. ‘She kept ringing her friends. I was tired of hearing “babes”.’
Grace giggled. It wasn’t her favourite word, either.
‘I’m glad she stayed away,’ she soothed. Despite what people might expect, Grace didn’t feel an ounce of jealousy that he’d been with his ex-wife. Simon’s divorce had come through two months ago. ‘I know it will be hard for her, but you’re right, until we apprehend our suspect, she’s better at home.’
‘Do you have any leads?’
‘We have some things to look into. We’re going back to the school tomorrow. It’s closed, thankfully.’
Simon nodded. ‘Kettle’s boiled. Want a brew?’
‘I need a shower first. I’ll be ten minutes.’
Simon turned back to the television as Grace went upstairs. She smiled to herself, glad he’d cried in front of her. They were comfortable together. But that was all she could give him for now. She needed to see if their roles would get in the way of any big cases; if they’d be okay under the scrutiny. They had to work together, but not seem to be. To the outside world, they were always a threat. The cop and the journo. She hoped to prove everyone wrong. She was loyal to her team, as well as Simon, but she wouldn’t allow either one to be put to the test by the other.
Showered and changed, she joined Simon in the kitchen when she heard him getting cups out. He took her into his arms and she relished how tightly he held on to her.
‘I don’t know how you do your job when the victims are so young.’ He spoke softly against her hair. ‘Is she your youngest?’
‘No. We had a five-month-old boy who was shaken to death by his mother. She tried to cover it up by saying she had been asleep and he’d suffocated. That’s the worst I’ve dealt with yet.’
‘Ouch.’ Simon squeezed her to his chest. ‘And I thought reporting the aftermath was harrowing.’
Grace moved across the room. Even though she liked having Simon around, it was at times like this that she missed just being able to get on her treadmill and run the emotion of the day away. She wouldn’t sleep much that night; she never did after she’d seen a life taken. Everything would be going around inside her head for a while yet.
There was so little to get her teeth into on this case. No motive, no witnesses, no CCTV; no one had seen anything, but it was early days. She hoped they’d be able to find Lauren Ansell’s killer and that this case wouldn’t remain unsolved. Or worse, that the killer would attack again.
‘I read your piece just before team brief. You did some great coverage,’ she told him as he handed her a hot drink and a plate of buttered toast.
Her stomach growled, making her realise she’d hardly had anything to eat all day again.
‘Thanks.’ Simon hid a yawn with his hand. ‘It was kind of the Gillespies to offer to work with me so soon because I knew Lauren; her mum only wanted me to cover it in the Stoke News to see if it encouraged people to come forward with information. Yet, it was equally as easy as it was hard to write.’
Grace half-smiled. ‘Perhaps someone will remember something and come to us in the morning. It only takes one lead.’
‘I hope so.’ Simon kissed her on the forehead as he passed her. ‘I’m going up the wooden hill. Don’t be too long.’
She nodded, a mouthful of toast making her unable to speak.
‘Promise?’ He gave her a knowing look.
She nodded again vehemently and swallowed. ‘Just finishing my drink. I need some kip.’
Alone in the kitchen, she sat down at the table. She really did hope someone might know something tomorrow. Either that or forensics would come back with some clues. She tried not to picture the lifeless body as it had lain out in the field.
Grace didn’t want the girl to die without the case being solved.
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