‘What do you reckon’s going on with the hand?’

Jessica made a humming noise. ‘I don’t know. Jason thinks whoever left it wanted it to be found.’

‘You don’t sound so sure.’

‘I agree with him actually but I’m always worried by people who go out of their way to get attention. Most people we deal with don’t want to be caught and do everything they can to avoid it. A handful are genuinely sorry and admit to what they’ve done in order to clear their conscience. Then you get a very tiny minority who want to show off. They’re the ones who are unpredictable but know what they’re doing. Maybe they want to be caught at some stage but not before they’ve made their point.’

‘I’d never thought of it like that.’

‘You don’t until you find yourself in the middle of things.’ Jessica reached forward and set the speed back to double. They sat in silence watching the images slowly lighten in front of them as the sun began to come up.

‘Not bad quality, is it?’ Izzy said.

‘Most of the CCTV you go through isn’t this good. Half the shops with cameras only have these grainy setups where you can’t figure out who someone is even if they’re looking directly at the camera,’ Jessica replied.

‘I’ve had a couple of those when I was back in uniform. It’s ridiculous when you put the pictures out in the papers and you can’t even tell if it’s a man or woman.’

Jessica reached out and paused the footage, putting her finger on the screen in front of them. ‘What’s that?’ she said.

The constable turned to face her as Jessica scrolled the action back a few seconds and let it play at regular speed. The light was still dim but the video clearly showed the back of a figure wearing a long black robe walking across the paved walkway in between the fountains. The figure in itself wouldn’t have necessarily been out of place but, aside from someone sleeping on one of the benches, they were the only person in shot. As the shape moved out of the frame, Jessica flicked the controls to change the angle to one of the other central cameras.

‘Is it someone wearing one of those religious robes? A burqa or niqab?’ Izzy said.

Jessica’s fingers flicked across the controls as she spoke. ‘I don’t think so. Look.’ She pointed towards the new screen that had appeared. ‘There’s no facial cover, it’s just a robe, like a dressing gown. Let’s see if we can zoom in.’ She ran her hand over a dial and the images refocused closer in.

‘Is it a man or a woman?’ Izzy asked.

‘Probably a woman. You can see she’s wearing low heels and has that way of walking as if she’s comfortable in them. It’s the way she’s moving too.’

Izzy clearly agreed. ‘I doubt there are many men out there who can walk so comfortably in heels. I’m not great myself.’

‘There are no clear images of the person’s face. You can just about tell they’re white but nothing more. She knows where the cameras are.’

Jessica pressed buttons to cut from one camera perspective to a second, then a third, before continuing. ‘Look at the angle of her face. She’s deliberately looking down and across because she knows there won’t be a clear view of her.’ She scrolled backwards through the footage to reinforce her point. ‘She’s turning ever so slightly as she walks to keep the angle and is wearing gloves too. This person knows what she’s doing.’

Jessica moved the footage forward, switching between cameras until the hooded figure neared the base of the fountain where the hand had been found. Jessica slowed the stream down to regular speed, watching as the cloaked figure stopped by the edge of the fountain and crouched. She reached across herself, stretching into an inner pocket of the robe and taking out an object that had to be the hand, before placing it on the ground. It seemed as if the figure was deliberately spreading the fingers into the correct position, before nudging it towards a nook between the bench and fountain. Then they stood, walking back the way they came.

Jessica started to ask a question but Izzy got there first. ‘Who the hell is that?’

2

Jessica peered down at the officers in front of her, waiting for one of her colleagues to speak. She was in Longsight Police Station’s incident room in the basement, standing on a slightly raised platform next to DI Reynolds and DCI Cole. On a giant whiteboard behind them was an enlarged photo of the hand that had been found as well as stills from the video footage. In front of them was a selection of officers, some in uniform, as well as other members of CID.

Cole was someone Jessica had a lot of respect for. Although she’d had differences with each of the previous two chief inspectors, she had worked closely with him when he had been an inspector. He had covered for her on numerous occasions and she trusted him implicitly. Her only concern about his promotion was that he knew her a little too well. As an inspector he had given her a little leeway in the way she acted but Jessica wasn’t convinced the same would apply now he had more responsibility.

It was Cole who opened the briefing. ‘Following yesterday’s discovery, I know we have some quite serious business to go over but, before any of that, I’d like to welcome a new member to our team.’ He indicated for a woman near the front to come and stand next to him on the stage. Jessica had met her the previous week but it was the new person’s first official day in the job.

As the woman reached the front, Cole continued, ‘It’s unfortunate the way timings have worked out but Louise Cornish will be taking the sergeant role vacated by DI Reynolds. She’s new to the area so be nice. I’ve already filled her in about which ones of you are the troublemakers.’ He pointed at a couple of the officers in front of him to a mixture of laughs, cheers and boos.

Jessica didn’t know much about DS Cornish but was aware she had asked for a transfer to the area from somewhere around the Midlands, and that she was married with children. The sergeant was somewhere in her mid-forties and had short brown hair that was swept backwards. If Jessica had had to give one word to sum the new recruit up, it would have been ‘mumsy’, harshly thinking the woman had a shape that looked as if she’d had children but hadn’t lost all of the weight.

Cole continued to speak after the shouts had quietened down. ‘I’m positive you’ll all get to know DS Cornish in time but, for now, let’s crack on. A severed hand was found on the edge of Piccadilly Gardens yesterday morning.’ He pointed behind him at the enlarged images from the CCTV cameras. ‘These are the best images we have of the person who left it. As far as we can tell it is a white woman who is around five foot six or so. As you can see, there isn’t an awful lot to go on.’

He looked towards Jessica, raising his eyebrows. She took the hint, explaining they were pretty sure the person had scouted the location and was most likely local to the area, given their apparent knowledge of the camera positions.

Reynolds spoke next. ‘We spent large parts of yesterday compiling a list of murder victims around the country who had been found with only one hand. There weren’t many and nothing matched the right hand we discovered so we moved on to lists of missing people. Obviously this was pretty long to start with, even just locals, but we had some initial lab results through yesterday evening that helped narrow things down. We now know the hand came from a man likely in his late twenties or early thirties. Aside from indications it had been frozen before being left, we don’t really have much else to go on in terms of who it came from. There are almost sixty names of men between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five from this area who have been reported missing in the past twelve months. The only way of matching anyone from that list to the actual hand is by contacting one of their family members and asking for a swab so we can test the DNA. For now, this seems pretty impractical and an enormous drain on resources so we’re going to go through the media first.’