The Birdies. DC Adrian Wren and DS Jane Gosling. Inevitable they got paired together. But no one was laughing about their names at the moment.

‘You think it’s about the baby, boss?’ Anni again. ‘He’s taken it, hasn’t he? Whoever did this.’

‘Like I said, not jumping to conclusions, it seems the likeliest explanation.’

Anni looked into the bedroom once more. ‘D’you think it’s still alive?’

Phil sighed. ‘Nick reckons it is, so we have to assume the same; bear that in mind.’

‘Until we find out otherwise,’ said Clayton.

‘Yeah, thanks, Dr Doom.’ Clayton had the potential to be an exceptional police detective, Phil knew. He had made no secret of his ambition, but despite what he thought and told people, he wasn’t the finished article yet. And sometimes his comments, as well as irritating Phil, betrayed the fact. ‘I’m aware of that.’

‘Putting aside how fucked up this is,’ said Anni, stepping between them, ‘I think there’s another possibility we should consider.’

‘That it’s him, you mean?’ said Clayton.

Phil knew what they were both talking about, glanced round to see who was in earshot, bent in close to them. ‘Not here. You know what walls have got, and it’s not ice cream.’ He sighed, ordering his thoughts, willing his training to kick in, take over. He could still hear his heart beating, each beat signalling inactivity that took him further away from catching the perpetrator.

‘Right. A plan. Anni, chain of evidence. Accompany the bodies through the post-mortems. See what you can find there. Get Nick to prioritise. Don’t let him fob you off. I’m sure the budget for this one’ll get upgraded.’

She nodded.

‘Now. Claire Fielding’s background. Who loved her, who hated her. Friends, family, work colleagues, the lot. Her boyfriend, Clayton, what was it? Brian . . .’

‘Ryan. Ryan Brotherton.’

‘Right. Let’s see what we can get on him, then you and me will pay him a visit. See what he has to say, where he was when he should have been here.’

Clayton nodded.

‘Now—’

Whatever Phil was about to say was cut short by the sharp ringing of a phone. Everyone stopped what they were doing, looked around at each other. An eerie stillness fell, disturbed only by the insistent sound. Like someone had just broken through at a seance. The living trying to contact the dead.

Phil saw the phone in the living room and motioned to Anni. Whoever it was would be expecting a female voice. Anni crossed the room, picked it up. She hesitated, put it to her ear.

‘H-hello.’

The whole room waited, watching Anni. She felt their stares, turned away from them.

‘Can I help you?’ She kept her voice calm and courteous.

They waited. Anni listened. ‘Afraid not,’ she said eventually. ‘Who is this, please? . . . I see. Could I ask you to stay on the line, please?’

She held the receiver to her chest, cupping it with her hand. She called Phil over. ‘All Saints Primary. Where Claire Fielding worked. They’re wondering why she hasn’t turned up for work.’ She mouthed the next words. ‘What should I tell them?’

Phil didn’t like handing out death messages to work colleagues before close relatives had been informed.

‘Have they spoken to Julie Simpson’s husband yet?’

‘Don’t think so. He would have told them what was going on.’

‘Good. Tell them we’ll send someone round to talk to them this morning. But don’t say anything more.’

‘Why not?’

‘I think next of kin should know first.’

Anni nodded, went back on the phone.

Phil turned to Clayton, his voice lowered so it wouldn’t carry down the phone line. ‘Okay. Like I said, the Birdies can follow up on Julie Simpson. Now, the media’ll be here soon. Before we go, I’ll call Ben Fenwick. Get him down here to deal with them.’

‘King Cliché rides again,’ said Clayton.

‘Indeed,’ agreed Phil, not irritated by this comment of Clayton’s, ‘but he’s good at that kind of stuff and they seem to like him. Plays well on screen. They’re going to be on our side with this one - at least for now - so we’ll sort out our approach in the meantime. And find out if Claire Fielding’s parents live in the area. Get someone over to talk to them.’

‘Shouldn’t we get the DCI to deliver the death message, boss? All PR to him.’

‘Yeah, but he might want to take along a camera crew. See who’s at the station. Get someone with a suitable rank to do it. Draw straws if you have to.’

‘Yes, boss.’ Clayton was writing everything down.

Anni came off the phone. ‘We’d better get someone round there soon as. They’re not going to keep a lid on this for long. And it was a baby shower.’

‘How d’you know?’

‘Lizzie, that’s Lizzie Stone who just phoned, knew Claire was having a get-together with friends last night. Mostly other teachers, I think.’

‘Right,’ said Phil, thinking on the spot. ‘Can’t remember who said this, but it’s true. My mind will change when the facts change. So. Anni, get the Birdies sorted. Adrian chain of evidence, Jane still sticks with what she was doing. You get yourself round to All Saints, take as many spare units as you can. Statements, the works. Separate them, don’t give them a chance to collude. I want to know exactly what happened at that party last night. Get Millhouse up and running as gatekeeper for the investigation back at base. And get him to give the computer system a pounding. We’re going to need extra bodies. DCI Fenwick’ll sanction that, I’m sure, because I want the Susie Evans and Lisa King cases re-examined with a fine-toothed comb. Any similarities, no matter how small, they get flagged and logged. And get uniforms to check CCTV for the whole area, inside these flats and out, registration plates, the lot. Everything referenced and cross-referenced. Right?’

The other two nodded.

‘Any questions?’

Neither had any. He looked at them both. They dealt in murder and violent crime and he had hand-picked them himself. There was mutual trust between them and he hoped that look he had caught earlier wasn’t going to undermine that. He examined their faces, saw only determination in their eyes. The need to catch a double killer and a possibly living child. None of them would be going home any time soon. Or going out. He felt a pang of guilt, wondered how that would go down. Could guess.

He pushed the thought out of his mind. Deal with it later.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go. We’ve got work to do.’

He strode out of the apartment as quickly as possible.

5

Phil stood outside the apartment block, ripping apart the Velcro fastenings of his paper suit, hunting for his phone. He thought of Anni’s words once more: I mean, this is Colchester . . .

Colchester. Last outpost of Essex before it became Suffolk. If heaven, as David Byrne once sang, was a place where nothing ever happened, then heaven and Colchester had a lot in common. But as Phil knew only too well, something, like nothing, could happen anywhere.

He looked round. Claire Fielding’s flat was in Parkside Quarter, sandwiched between the river, the Dutch Quarter and Castle Park. The Dutch Quarter: all winding streets and alleyways of sixteenth-century and Edwardian houses stuck between the high street and the river. An urban village, the town’s self-appointed boho area, complete with cobblestones, corner pubs and even its own gay club. Parkside Quarter was a modern development of townhouses and apartment blocks, all faux wooden towers and shuttered windows, designed to fit sympathetically alongside the older buildings but just looking like a cheap toytown version of them.

He was on a footpath by the river, where weeping willows shaded out the sun, leaving dappled shadows all around. It took joggers and baby-carriage-pushing mothers to and from Castle Park. On the opposite bank was a row of quaint old terraced cottages. Up the steps and beyond was North Station Road, the main link for commuters from the rail station to the town centre. It seemed so mundane, so normal. Safe. Happy.