He closed his eyes as the memory of her perfume returned. It was so hard to recapture a scent. He could recall Laura’s smell though. There was the staleness of no sleep mixed in with the fabric conditioner on her clothes, fake and flowery, all lying underneath the musk of the perfume sprayed onto her neck. He could smell coffee on her, and just a hint of sweat from the morning’s work. He swallowed as he thought of how she would smell at the end of the day, at home, intimate.

He opened his eyes and looked away. People would stare at the flush in his cheeks, at the shortness of his breaths.

His smile faded as he thought of the woman behind the counter. He had smiled at her when she’d asked him what he wanted. She hadn’t smiled back. Just served him his food and saved her beam for the inspector standing behind him.

He heard the rumble of feet and he looked up. It was all movement now, the rooms that overlooked the atrium emptying as the staff hurried to the canteen for their lunch. The tables around him would fill up with the typists and administrative staff who prepared the files, who turned the footwork into something fit for court, and the detectives who’d worked out how to keep their working day from nine till five. He knew there’d be more uniforms soon, as they found an excuse to come back to the station, where they could eat without being pestered.

He heard a noise, an angry shout. It came from Carson’s table. There was someone else there. A man. Then he recognised him from the photograph on the newspaper website. It was the reporter. He had told him to look for Emma, not to speak to the police. He saw a printed sheet pass between them. An email.

He felt the first growl of anger and took some deep breaths through his nose. He could hear the sounds in his head again. Like a constant song, the beat never leaving him, so that the only way to fight it was to sing along.

He looked up again. Think of something else. Not here. Stay calm. They were all eating their lunch, hadn’t noticed him. That’s how he liked it.

Then he saw something else. A touch on Laura’s leg. Personal. Close. Had he missed something? The noise in his head grew louder, taunting him, and a flush crept over his body. He had known his work wasn’t done. Now he knew why.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Laura sat at the back of the Incident Room as the rest of the squad filed in, all pulled in from their enquiries to listen to Carson’s update. Or rather, to listen to his warning. Carson was at the front of the room, glowering, pacing, with Joe Kinsella sitting in a chair nearby, his legs crossed. Laura was there to check for reactions at the back.

There was some chatter as people found their places, just casual exchanges. Some people were holding sandwiches after being dragged out from their lunch. Everyone seemed tense, as if they sensed trouble, with nervous glances to the floor or their hands, or at pretty much anything that wasn’t the prowling Carson.

Carson nodded to someone that they ought to close the door, and then once it had settled in the frame, he said, ‘You all know why we held back details of the bodies from the press – to filter out the weirdos and so that we control the information, not the media.’

Laura watched for a nervous reaction, an extra shuffle of the feet, but everyone was static, as if they guessed that something had gone wrong.

Carson put his hands on his hips and looked around the room, and the gleam from the lights that reflected off his head matched the angry glare in his eyes. ‘It’s got out,’ he said, trying to catch everyone’s gaze. ‘We have been contacted by a reporter who knows about the condition of the body. He was told this by email, someone leaking details to him.’

‘Which reporter?’ someone asked.

‘It was Jack,’ Laura said, and she felt her cheeks flush as everyone turned around to look at her. ‘And before you say or think it, it hasn’t come from me. He came down because he found out, to make sure that we knew there was a problem.’

‘So this is it,’ Carson said. ‘Confession time. Has anyone got anything they want to get off their chest?’ No one moved. ‘If you have told someone about this, for personal gain or just because you’ve got a loose tongue, head for that door. You’ll be off the team, but I’ll leave it at that. But if you don’t confess and I find out about it, you are fucked.’ He paced up and down, looking everyone in the eye. No one dared look away. ‘Anyone?’

Still no one moved.

Carson stopped. ‘Okay, thank you for your time,’ he said. ‘Go back to whatever you were doing. If anyone hears of a leak, I want to know. Squad loyalty comes before friendships, because if you cover for someone else, you both fall. Everyone got it?’

No one responded, but no one disagreed.

Carson headed for the door and nodded at Laura to follow. She felt everyone’s eyes on her as she made her way through the room, and once she was out of the door, she heard the rumbles of conversation start up.

‘You’re in the clear on this one, McGanity, so don’t worry what they think,’ Carson said, and then he smiled, the colour in his face draining slightly. ‘You worry about the killer. I’ll catch the bastard who contacted Jack.’

‘And if they are one and the same person?’

‘Then people will blame me for getting it wrong. Either way I stand to lose.’

Jack called Dolby and told him that the police were willing to go with the story.

‘I like it,’ Dolby said. ‘Dirty coppers leaking secrets. Let me have a look at it when you’ve finished, see if I can put my own special gloss onto it.’

‘No. This one goes in as I write it,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll be shut out from the police for ever if this gets messed up.’

Dolby sighed and then said, ‘But I retain the right to not use it all.’

‘No. You commission me to write it and you put it in. And it’s going to the nationals too. I’ve still got a few contacts.’

‘Come on, Jack, you know I can’t promise to publish what I haven’t seen. And this should be my exclusive.’

‘Do you want it or not, Dolby?’ Jack said. ‘Those are my conditions.’

There was a pause, as Dolby thought about it. Jack wasn’t sure it was material for the nationals. The court stories from Blackley made it big sometimes: teachers caught in bed with their students, or asylum seekers breaking the law. Sex and immigration always invited outrage, and if it could be mixed with a crime, it got shoved forward a page or two. But he wasn’t prepared to give it up.

‘Okay, I’ll go with it,’ Dolby said eventually. ‘But this is a one-off.’

‘Whatever you say, Dolby,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll have the story with you today,’ and then he hung up.

Then he called Harry English.

Harry English was Jack’s news-desk editor from his London days, when he worked on one of the nationals before he went freelance. Harry was a bear of a man who wore the smoke and stress of Fleet Street in the flush and broken veins in his cheeks. He was a good person to offer a decent story to, one that might interest the dailies, and he always gave a fair price if it was worth printing.

Harry answered his phone with a cough and then said, ‘Jack, it’s been a long time. I suppose you’re calling about the murders up there?’

‘You’ve heard of them then.’

‘We keep an eye on the north, you know,’ Harry said chuckling. ‘We just don’t feel like printing much of it.’

‘The police want to release some extra information, but through me,’ Jack said. ‘Would you be interested? It’s grisly stuff.’

‘Sounds good.’

‘You’re all heart, Harry, but I need a guarantee that it will go in tomorrow’s paper.’

‘That depends on how good the story is.’

‘Oh, it should be good.’