2

By the time Jessica arrived at Longsight Police Station, various photographs of the crash had begun to show up on Internet news sites. Almost all of them had been taken by passers-by with their phones but luckily none seemed to feature what she had found in the car’s boot. Instead, the news stories were focusing on the length of time the junction had been shut and the knock-on effect it had had on the flow of traffic into the city.

Weather and a traffic jam: people’s two favourite talking points all wrapped up in one.

Jessica had no doubts about who the body in the boot was and wondered how long it would take for the real story to leak out. Isaac Hutchings was eleven years old and had gone missing almost three weeks ago. Jessica had never been able to figure out why some missing-children stories caught on, while others were barely reported. Sometimes a kid would disappear and there would be a national media storm that seemingly engulfed everyone. Other times, there would barely be a mention in the local papers, let alone anything wider. One of the other officers told her about an instance where a missing-child case had next to no attention until one of his friends, a blond, blue-eyed nine-year-old boy, gave a tearful appeal that had been partly stage-managed by the force. After that, the cameras came flooding in.

For whatever reason, the disappearance of Isaac Hutchings had barely registered anywhere other than on the local police’s own website.

Jessica wasn’t part of the specialist missing persons team and hadn’t been involved in the case in any way other than the fact it had happened on her patch and she was aware of it. But, as she stared into the pale face of the body she had found in the boot, she knew his identity immediately.

There was a nervous hum of energy in the air as Jessica walked into the Longsight station. Early information would have begun to leak back through the various ranks during the morning about what had been found and, as when anything major occurred, it didn’t take long for the news to spread.

Jessica headed straight for the stairs at the back of the reception area but was immediately put off by a string of tinsel wrapped around the bottom of the banister. She had noticed something similar the previous day in the canteen, where the frame around the door was decorated with bright Christmas streamers. Jessica shook her head in annoyance and then jogged up the stairs two at a time on her way to Detective Chief Inspector Jack Cole’s office. After discovering the body, she had phoned in to the station to give the brief details she knew, giving her boss the opportunity to start the investigation from their end while she waited for the Scene of Crime team to show up.

As Jessica reached the office, she could see Detective Inspector Jason Reynolds and the DCI waiting for her through the glass walls. Both turned to face her and she didn’t have time to knock before being waved in.

DCI Cole had recently turned fifty. Since taking the chief inspector’s job around eighteen months ago, he had really started to look his age. When Jessica first began working with him a few years before, they had both been in more junior positions. Back then he seemed to take everything in his stride and remained unfazed by more or less anything. After his promotion, he had begun to change. At first it had been subtle but in recent months, Jessica had found herself less confident around him. His hair was now fully grey and new wrinkles had appeared around his eyes. His cool approach had taken a hit and Jessica had seen him angry on a few occasions, something she couldn’t have pictured beforehand. The pressure of the job, financial cutbacks and the anxiety to meet government targets were having an obvious effect.

Cole was sitting behind a large wooden desk with a selection of certificates on the wall above him and a couple of cardboard files on the table. Opposite him sat Reynolds, an imposing black officer who Jessica used to share an office with. As she entered the room, the DI shuffled his chair sideways, allowing her room.

Cole waited for a moment, eyeing her up and down, then spoke with a grin. ‘Raining out, is it?’

Jessica felt puzzled for a moment, then saw her boss nodding towards the floor where she had left a trail of drips which no doubt ran the length of the corridor and all the way down the stairs. With everything that had happened during the morning, Jessica had forgotten how wet she was. Now she shivered slightly, almost in recognition of her boss’s point. She could feel her wet hair plastered to her left ear and brushed it away with her hand.

‘Sorry, Sir . . .’

The DCI waved his hand, realising his joke had fallen flat. ‘No, it’s fine. I don’t know if anyone filled you in but the car with the body in the boot is stolen.’ Cole typed on the keyboard in front of him before shaking his head. ‘I’ve not got the information here but the owner reported the theft yesterday. The mother of the missing boy has been notified and we’re hoping she can identify the body one way or the other at some point today. It’s awkward for obvious reasons.’ He leant back into his chair, running a hand through his hair.

‘Do we know who’s doing what yet?’ Jessica asked.

Jason answered: ‘It’s all a bit of a mess because the missing persons team were involved but now it looks like a murder investigation. You know what the politics are like around here but I think we’ll end up taking it once the body has been formally identified.’

It occurred to Jessica that she’d missed an obvious point. ‘If the car was stolen, do we know who the driver is?’

The two men exchanged a glance and Jessica realised that was what they had been talking about before she arrived. It was again Reynolds who answered.

‘We don’t know yet. The Scene of Crime boys and the coroner will be involved. If we’re really lucky he’ll have a wallet in his pocket, if not we’ll have to wait a few days but might get a match from his DNA to the national database. Other than that, we’re going to be struggling. His face is in such a bad way, we might not be able to get a picture we can use. Did you see anything in the front of the vehicle?’

Jessica shook her head. ‘It was a bit of a mess with the airbag and blood and everything. After I went to the boot, I didn’t look anywhere else.’

DCI Cole picked up the phone from his desk. ‘I’ll check to see if anyone on site found a wallet or something to get us moving. Someone’s going to have to take another statement from the person whose car was nicked but we can come back to that.’

He dialled some numbers and then leant back in his chair, the receiver to his ear. Jessica offered a thin smile to Reynolds after he caught her eye as they listened to one half of a conversation which seemed to consist largely of acknowledging grunts.

After a couple of minutes, Cole put the phone down and looked up at the other two detectives. He scratched his chin and grimaced slightly, accentuating the wrinkles around his eyes. ‘They’ve not found much,’ he said. ‘No wallet or ID on the driver and it’s going to take a little while for them to test the blood to see if they can get a match. For now we have no idea who he is.’

Reynolds hummed in response but Cole continued. ‘They did find two things on the passenger seat. They might be nothing but . . .’ He tailed off as Jessica felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. It could have been because of the dampness of her clothes but something in the tone of her boss’s voice made it sound significant. It was almost as if he had paused for dramatic effect. The chief inspector started to shuffle papers on his desk again before picking up a pad and pen and beginning to write. ‘They’re going to have to check them for fingerprints and the like, but there was a key and a map. We’ll get them handed over later today or early tomorrow when they’re finished with them.’