‘Ow!’ DC Archie Davey squealed from behind her, hastily trying to yank his legs out from underneath her seat.

‘I told you I was going to have a quick kip.’

‘You didn’t say you were going to slam your fat arse into my legs.’

In the driver’s seat, DC Rowlands sniggered childishly.

Jessica twisted around in the seat, tying herself up in the seatbelt and nearly strangling herself. ‘Pardon?’

Archie was still shuffling onto the other side of the back seat, rubbing his knees. ‘Nothing.’

Their unmarked CID pool car was parked in the shadows of a side street leading away from the main road that was still blocked by roadworks in the area where Jessica suspected Cassie and Grace had disappeared. It didn’t look as if the workmen digging up the road had done anything since the last time Jessica had been there.

Jessica closed her eyes but the glare of the constantly changing traffic lights from the other end of the street still burned through her eyelids.

A woman’s voice crackled across the police radio. ‘It’s sodding freezing out there.’

Without opening her eyes, Jessica pressed the button to respond. ‘It’s November in Manchester, what do you bloody expect?’

A second woman’s voice erupted from the speaker: ‘I honestly think I might lose a nipple if I have to keep walking around in this. Can I borrow a coat?’

Jessica still didn’t open her eyes. ‘Will you all stop moaning?’

In fairness to the three constables chosen to walk along the main road, the mercury wouldn’t have been bothering many, if any, numbers above zero. Each woman strutted along the quarter-of-a-mile stretch beside the area that was dug up, turning left into the next street and then looping back to the unmarked van at the beginning, where a cup of tea and a bloody huge coat awaited them. Then it was the next woman’s turn. Between the three of them, they were wearing enough material to completely clothe one of Fat Pat’s thighs.

Each of the three was wired up, primarily so their complaints could be piped directly back to the car containing Jessica, Archie and Dave, and to the backup van with two constables, a sergeant and the driver.

‘Easy for you to say,’ one of the constables shot back, ‘you’re not the one traipsing up and down with your arse hanging out of a skirt.’

Archie sat up straighter in the back seat, trying to peer around Jessica towards the deserted main road, knocking the back of her seat in the process.

Jessica shot him a dirty look. ‘She only said the word “skirt” – it wasn’t an invitation.’ Dave’s head had bobbed up like a startled meerkat’s too. ‘It’s only Joy Bag,’ Jessica added. ‘You see her every day at work.’

‘There’s that new one too,’ Dave replied, turning to Archie. ‘What’s her name?’

‘All right,’ Jessica interrupted. ‘It’s not a fashion show. We’re supposed to be here looking for some nasty bastard, not gawping at anything female with a pulse.’

There was a short pause before Dave replied. ‘If that’s the case, then why are you trying to go to sleep?’

‘What might appear to your untrained eye to be an attempt to sleep is in fact a careful refining of my thought process. Anyway, that’s why we’re a team – you do the looking out for nasty bastards, I do the careful planning.’

‘With your eyes shut?’

‘Exactly.’

A couple of minutes passed with only the merest complaint from Jane as she set off for her lap of the estate. Just as Jessica was beginning to relax, Archie cut the silence. ‘You know what the problem is, don’t you? Our lot aren’t slutty enough. Northern girls are tough – they’re not walking home in skirts and tops, half of them are out in their underwear. It’s all the rage nowadays.’

‘He’s right,’ Dave said.

Jessica hoiked her chair back into position and jabbed a finger in Dave’s direction. ‘As if you know what girls are wearing nowadays. When was the last time you went out on the pull and didn’t end up home alone? The only crush you’ve got is on him.’ She poked a thumb towards Archie in the back seat to prove her point. ‘Now – can you please all stop talking because you’re steaming up the windows and I can’t see a bloody thing.’

Jessica wedged her head into the gap between the seat and the window and closed her eyes again but she could sense Archie and Dave exchanging a look.

She was trying to focus by thinking of anyone who wasn’t Bex. Somewhere in the frozen city centre, the teenager was trying to find a safe spot to sleep. No wonder she kept a knife close to hand.

More complaining over the radio – this time because the heels were making Jane’s feet hurt.

Jessica blinked her eyes open. ‘What time is it?’

Dave’s phone lit up the front seat. ‘Twenty to ten.’

‘Have you got any money on you?’

‘Dunno, maybe a fiver?’

Jessica sat up straighter and held her palm out. ‘Let’s have it.’

Dave delved into his coat pocket and pulled out a scrunched-up note. ‘What for?’

Jessica grabbed it and reached towards the back seat. ‘Arch, you awake?’

‘Aye.’

‘I’ve got a really important job I’m going to trust you with – take this money, head directly down the road, second left, first right and keep going until you see the row of shops. Ignore the pizza place and first row of shutters, then follow your nose. I think I saw a chippy down there. I’m large chips, battered sausage and gravy, Dave’s small chips, and get whatever you want.’

‘With a fiver?’

‘I’m sure you’ve got a few quid on you. Whatever you do, don’t forget my sausage and don’t let them scrimp on the gravy. Now – chop, chop; most places around here close at ten so get a move on.’

Archie grumbled his way out of the back seat, complaining that he hadn’t spent all the years in uniform and training just so he could end up on the chip run but Jessica told him to stop moaning, else she’d get him tarted up in a short skirt to patrol the estate and see how he liked it.

Icy air whooshed into the car as Archie opened the door, only for him to be shouted at for making Jessica cold.

When it was just the pair of them, Dave angled himself in the driver’s seat until he was facing her. ‘You’re on one tonight . . .’

‘It’s been a week for it.’

‘I’ve not had time to look at your symbol since we last spoke.’

‘Don’t worry about it – we’ll get there. Izzy said the day crew have been snowed under today too. They’ve been interviewing everyone at the rowing club’s party for a third time, making sure they’ve not missed anything. They’ve also had someone trying to sort out the number plate thing for this case but Hamish has been out in his taxi today, so every time he’s out picking up a passenger, his number plate flashes up on our system. There are so many places you can buy a plate from nowadays that it’s not as if we can narrow down when our guy might have cloned it.’

‘Basically, we’ve got nowhere?’

‘Precisely – that’s why we’re here.’

Over the radio, Jane announced that she was back in the van, as one of the other constables asked if she really had to go out in the cold. Jessica’s reply was an unsympathetic ‘stop whingeing’.

‘Do you really think we’re going to get anything doing this?’ Dave asked.

‘Of course not. It’s probably the superintendent panicking that we’ve not made any progress so he needs us to look pro-active.’

The radio sparked to life again, the constable speaking quietly: ‘Bloke in a hoody looking a bit weird on the other side of the road.’

‘Probably Archie,’ Dave mumbled.

They waited for a few seconds until she added: ‘It’s all right; he’s just taking a piss in someone’s garden.’

It really had come to something when that was considered ‘all right’, but it wasn’t as if they could go charging in and arrest him for it when they were trying to remain in the shadows.

‘How’s it going with your granny?’ Jessica asked.