‘Here.’

He held out the Jiffy package to her.

‘Put it on the side,’ she said, gesturing towards the obscenely large marble-topped island, before wandering off to the fridge once more.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?’

Finally, Lloyd’s anger had erupted.

‘Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? For me? For us? If you’re so bloody uninterested, why did you start all this?’

Harwood paused and turned. She looked surprised, rather than offended, by his words. She shot a look at the package and her face softened. Slowly she made her way back over to him.

‘Forgive me, Lloyd,’ she said softly. ‘It’s been the worst of all days.’

She seemed uncertain whether to go on. For his part, Lloyd wasn’t sure what to say.

‘I know how this must look. But I am grateful for everything you’ve done. I know I can always rely on you.’

She looked at him warmly.

‘So let’s forget my bad behaviour, have a drink and talk about something else shall we?’

‘I don’t want to intrude. Especially if Tim’s at home and –’

‘I kicked him out.’

Lloyd was speechless once more. She didn’t seem keen to elaborate further. Harwood took a step closer to him, her nose now only a couple of inches from his.

‘So why don’t you sit down on the sofa, have a drink and relax?’

As she said it she ran her finger down his face, brushing his lips and chin before coming to rest on his chest. Her eyes sparkled fiercely at him, but he felt no desire for her, just a mixture of horror and pity.

Gently taking her hand from him, he placed his still full glass in hers and said:

‘I really must be getting home.’

78

Jim Grieves never said very much, but today he was unusually taciturn. The reason for this was obvious – two partially decomposed women lay on neighbouring slabs in his mortuary. This meant a sudden spike in workload for Jim – which he never appreciated – but more than that it meant a depressing few hours spent in the company of two young people who should have had their whole lives ahead of them. Fifty-something Jim was truculent and sarcastic, navigating his job with gallows humour, but he had grown-up girls of his own and Helen could tell that he was affected by the latest arrivals to the mortuary.

‘Roisin Murphy and Isobel Lansley,’ Jim began, ‘Missing Persons had their dental records on file. I’ve sent off DNA samples to double-check, but it’s them.’

Helen nodded.

‘How long?’

‘Roisin about two years. Isobel less – a year to eighteen months.’

Two more girls kept alive from beyond the grave through tweets and texts. It gave Helen no satisfaction to see that she had been right about the killer’s need for fresh victims.

‘I’m going to need a bit longer to give you cause of death. But both are likely to have suffered some kind of organ failure. They’ve been starved and kept in darkness. Like Pippa, their eyes have deteriorated, they have a complete absence of vitamin D in their systems, their skin is leathery. At some point their bodies just shut down – I’ll pin it down further as we go on.’

Helen knew this was coming but it still upset her.

‘We do have something here that we didn’t have with Pippa. All three bodies were washed clean – either by the killer or by Mother Nature – but I found something odd on Isobel. Two of the hairs in her fringe were stuck together. Nothing unusual in that – wet sand is sticky – but this was stuck together with some kind of solvent.’

‘Any idea what it is?’

‘Not a clue,’ he replied cheerily. ‘Not my department. But I’ve sent it off for tests. I’ve told them we need it back within hours. You can imagine what they said to that.’

For the first time today, Helen smiled. Jim enjoyed nothing more than winding up the lab crew, whom he unfairly dismissed as automatons.

‘What about the tattoo?’ she said, pressing on.

‘Similar pigments as used on Pippa. Hard to say if he used the same needle – if there’s bacteria on the needle that may help us decide either way – but one thing’s clear, he’s getting better at it. Isobel’s tattoo was much more skilled than Pippa’s.’

Helen took this in.

‘Truth be told,’ Jim continued. ‘You can buy these inks and needles online or in scores of stores in Hampshire. They are all pretty generic and I’m not sure that’s going to take you anywhere. If I were you I’d concentrate on the design. Find out why the bluebird is important to him.’

Helen left shortly after, having thanked Jim for his endeavours. He was right of course, though it didn’t take them any further forward. They had done the necessary checks on the tattoo – nobody sporting a bluebird tattoo had been arrested in recent history, nor was there any record of bodies turning up which were decorated in this way. Computerized records only went back ten to fifteen years, so it might be that the evidence was out there somewhere, predating computerization, but she couldn’t allot valuable manpower to sifting the archive, when the result of this line of investigation was so doubtful.

There was, however, one card left she could play, though it wasn’t a card she was particularly looking forward to using. She was still pondering how to approach this, when her phone rang.

On the other end was a very excitable DC Sanderson.

79

Lloyd was halfway down the stone steps, when he heard her calling after him.

‘Lloyd?’

He had left so abruptly – rudely – that he wasn’t surprised. Instinct had taken over – he just wanted to be away. Still, he paused now. She was his boss after all. She stood in the doorway beckoning to him, as if keen not to be seen by the neighbours. Suppressing his irritation, he slowly climbed the steps, until he was standing in front of her. Why did he feel like he’d been summoned to the headmaster’s office? He’d done nothing wrong.

‘A word before you go.’

To Lloyd’s eyes, Harwood suddenly seemed much more cold-eyed and in control than she had been even five minutes ago. Something of the steely professional was returning, in spite of her obvious intoxication.

‘We’ll forget today ever happened. It’s business as usual from now on.’

She chose her words carefully and delivered them with emphasis and conviction. Lloyd could feel himself getting sucked in once more.

‘I appreciate everything you’ve done for me,’ she continued evenly. ‘And it would be a shame for our close working relationship to be compromised in any way, wouldn’t you agree?’

Lloyd nodded, though he was feeling the very opposite. Perhaps Harwood sensed this for now she leaned closer, her lips almost brushing his ear.

‘Don’t turn on me, Lloyd.’

Then she retreated, shutting the front door firmly behind her.

Driving home, Lloyd cursed himself for his stupidity. Why had he ever got involved with Harwood? Was he really so stupid as to have thought that he could come out of this thing unscathed? It had seemed so simple at first, but now he could see he’d been a fool. Had he come to believe his own hype – the Teflon kid who sailed through life climbing ever upwards, never a mark against his name? There was a joke that followed him everywhere – a joke that infuriated him by its knowing racism – that he was ‘whiter than white’. The goody two shoes, flawless in his prowess and reputation. Lloyd knew it made him unpopular, but oddly it was a badge he clung to now, reminding himself that it meant he was better and more committed than those other jokers. Had he thrown that all away now?

Parking up, Lloyd walked to his front door. The lights were on in the living room, which meant his father was still up. Lloyd felt a flash of irritation – why did he insist on staying up so late? – then a wave of shame. Why should he criticize his dad when it was himself he was furious with?