Part 3 (1/2)

Daniela nodded and rushed into her apartment, returning seconds later holding a key.

Tom felt uneasy. Going back into Leo's apartment would have been difficult at the best of times, and he felt uncomfortable. What if she was ill and was simply nursing her sickness by herself? What if she had a man in there, and they had simply holed up for a week, switching their phones off?

'Would you mind coming in with me, Daniela?' Tom asked. Even though he couldn't see Leo making a formal complaint about his visit, he wanted to cover himself. He turned the key and pushed the door open.

'Leo? It's Tom,' he shouted. But he knew instantly that the apartment was empty. It had a dead feeling to it that only comes with houses that have been left vacant for a few days. There were no smells of food not that cooking was Leo's forte, but she had to eat or coffee or even perfume. Tom was a.s.sailed by memories: walking into the apartment at the end of a long day, Leo coming to greet him, smiling; cooking her dinner while she sat on a counter stool and told him about her day; listening to music; lying entwined together on the sofa.

He took a deep breath and signalled Daniela to follow him. The boyfriend, who he now remembered was called Luca, waited at the door.

The apartment consisted of one huge combined sitting room, dining room and kitchen. It was neat and tidy with no sign of recent occupation. There were also a bedroom and bathroom. Certain now that the apartment was empty, Tom nevertheless knocked on the bedroom door and shouted Leo's name. As expected, there was no answer. He turned the handle and stopped short in the doorway.

The room was a mess. Clothes were all over the bed; cupboard doors stood ajar and underwear was spilling out of open drawers. Leo was meticulous about her clothes. She loved silk and soft jersey, and everything had to be steamed to remove each and every crease. The steamer stood at the ready next to her wardrobe, yet all her beautiful clothes were heaped in piles on the bed, some even on the floor.

He moved over to the dressing table. Leo hadn't worn much jewellery and only had a few simple silver pieces. They all appeared to be there, so this wasn't a burglary. What the h.e.l.l had happened? He felt a tightness in his chest. Had there been a fight here, and if so, where was she now?

Tom glanced into the bathroom, which was as orderly as ever. Only the bedroom was a tip. He walked over to the window and looked out at a view he had seen on so many occasions at this time of night. The lights of Manchester lit the sky. Was Leo out there somewhere close by? Or was she far away? He had no idea, but he couldn't help feeling that something dark had happened within these four walls.

He turned back to the main room and walked over to the fridge. There was no milk, no vegetables nothing fresh that would deteriorate in her absence. Did this mean she had left by choice, or that she had given up any pretence of looking after herself and decided to rely on black coffee and takeaway food?

He stood and stared at the empty shelves, thinking but coming up with nothing. He looked at the worktop, and something caught his eye. It looked like a rose petal, shrivelled and browning at the edges. He checked the bins to see if any flowers had recently been thrown away, but although there were empty packets and some coffee grounds, there were no flowers.

He turned back to the neighbour.

'Thanks, Daniela,' he said. 'I think we're done here. I'm going to phone Leo's sister and let her know what we've found.'

With a frown and a typically expressive Italian shrug, she wished him a buona notte and went back to Luca, who was still hovering in the doorway. Tom could hear what he a.s.sumed was Daniela's explanation of what they had found, and he gently closed the door. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to call Max. He didn't know what he would say, but his gut was telling him that Leo had not gone away. She was missing.

8.

12 years ago May 8th If there was one thing that Tom hated, it was a missing persons case. The devastating thought that it was bound to end badly seemed to be uppermost in everybody's mind. The family or friends who had reported their loved ones missing were inevitably terrified, and Tom never knew how to offer them comfort. In the early stages of an investigation he probably had no more information than they did, and for a policeman that wasn't a good place to be.

Although it was only late afternoon he knew that unless the missing girl turned up in the next couple of hours and he hoped for everybody's sake that she did tonight was likely to be a late one and he would have to cancel his plans. It was supposed to be one of his Jack nights the occasional evenings when Tom and his brother Jack had a few hours to themselves, drinking beer, listening to and arguing about music.

He needed his evenings with Jack. He needed to think and talk about something other than the job, something other than his wife, Kate. An evening with Jack would take his mind off the struggle he was having with his current boss and the doubts about his marriage. Things were up and down between him and Kate all the time, and Tom never knew where he was. She hated Tom's job, and he could understand that. Just like tonight, he couldn't always be relied on to be home at a set time, and he knew she wanted him to change careers to something more lucrative with better hours.

But Tom loved being a detective except at this precise moment, when he wished he could be somewhere else, doing a different job. A middle-aged couple had reported their nineteen-year-old daughter missing and somehow Tom had to penetrate the wall of fear they were trapped behind to uncover details of their missing child. He wasn't looking forward to it.

Sonia Beecham was a student at Manchester University and apparently she was the perfect daughter, still living happily with her parents. Last night she hadn't come home. She'd said she had a late lecture, and when she wasn't back by the time her parents went to bed they a.s.sumed she had gone for a drink with some of the other students; unusual for Sonia, but they had been pleased she was making more of an effort to make friends.

According to the PC who had been despatched to talk to them, the parents always left the landing light on when their daughter was out late, and she always turned it off when she got in, so if they woke up, they would know she was home. The light wasn't turned off last night.

'I don't think this is a case of a kid forgetting to let her parents know she was staying out, or meeting some guy and going home with him, sir,' the PC had said when Tom had spoken to him. 'It doesn't fit with everything they say about her. They may be delusional, but I think we need to take it seriously.'

As Tom pulled up outside the family home, his radio buzzed.

'You're not in the house yet, are you Douglas?' It was the brash, abrasive voice of Tom's boss, Detective Chief Inspector Victor Elliott.

'No. I was about to get out of the car.'

'Well don't. Get your a.r.s.e down to Pomona Island. We've got a body, and it's a girl.'

The warm spring suns.h.i.+ne gave Pomona Island the feeling of a lost slice of paradise. It was hard to believe that this slice of land bordered by the Bridgewater Ca.n.a.l and the River Irwell was just a few minutes' walk from the centre of Manchester. Wild and uncared for as it was, the late spring flowers were bursting through the scrubland, and even last year's dead buddleia plumes had their own beauty when backlit by the sun's dying rays. The air was buzzing with the sounds and sights of insects: crickets and gra.s.shoppers, bees and b.u.t.terflies, all somehow indifferent to the proximity of the busy city.

But there was nothing beautiful about the crime that had brought Tom to this wasteland. DCI Elliott had told him the body of a young woman little more than a girl had been discovered by a dog walker that afternoon, and as Tom made his way along the path he felt a wave of sadness for the Beecham family. It was no use hoping this wasn't Sonia. If the victim wasn't the Beechams' child, she was certainly somebody's.

In the distance Tom could just make out the top of the tent that would be protecting the body and preserving evidence, but before approaching the scene of crime team who were waiting for him, Tom stopped and looked around. He had lived his whole life in Manchester and had never been aware of this sliver of wasteland. Pomona Docks had once been part of the thriving port of Manchester, and old tyres still hung down the quaysides to protect the s.h.i.+ps as they pulled into the wharves. But now there wasn't a boat in sight.

Tom started off again, walking slowly along a well-made path between the scrubland and the water. A strong metal fence along the water's edge looked to be in good condition, and large lamps stood tall at regular intervals. Tom wondered if these were still in working order, but he somehow doubted it.

He looked back the way he had come. He had already been told that, based on the lack of blood in the vicinity of the body, it seemed unlikely the victim had been killed here; it was probable that she had been brought here after death.

Why walk so far in, probably the best part of half a mile, and yet still make no attempt to hide the body? Why not tip her over the fence and into the water, or carry her to the back wall where the arches were? But she had been left right by the path, as if waiting to be found.

Tom made his way towards the tent, following the designated route to the crime scene. Donning protective clothing, he lifted the flap of the tent and went inside, muttering a subdued greeting to the SOCO team.

The girl was facing him. Dressed in blue cut-off jeans, flip-flops and a T-s.h.i.+rt, her blonde shoulder length hair looked newly washed and s.h.i.+ny, and she was wearing hardly any makeup. Sitting propped against the stump of an old tree, she looked like an innocent child hoping to catch a few rays of suns.h.i.+ne.

There was one thing marring the picture. The girl's neck had been slashed from ear to ear, and her eyes were open and gla.s.sy, staring at nothing.

Leaving the tent to give the newly arrived forensic pathologist a bit more room, Tom walked outside the perimeter of the crime scene and took a good look around. Across the wide stretch of water where the River Irwell and the Manchester s.h.i.+p Ca.n.a.l became one he could see buildings, but they seemed mainly to be warehouses with their backs towards the water and not a window in sight. There was evidence of some new building further along probably apartments or offices overlooking the water but they were too far away for anybody to have seen anything, particularly given the dense undergrowth.

He turned to look the other way, back towards Manchester. In the distance he could see tall buildings and a skyline punctuated by cranes as the last of the redevelopment following the 1996 IRA bombing was completed. The new Metrolink tramline was barely visible through the trees, but Tom remembered reading that in the three years that the line had been open Pomona station had been the least used on the whole of the tram system so he didn't hold out much hope there. A smaller ca.n.a.l and a railway line separated Pomona from a number of old mill buildings, but although some seemed to be in the process of being renovated, there was little sign of activity at this time of day. At night he imagined the area would be deserted.

Tom pushed his hands into his trouser pockets and allowed ideas and impressions of the area to flow freely though his mind, hoping for some insight into how or why the girl had been brought here. He was in no doubt who the victim was. She fitted the description of the missing girl perfectly, although of course there would have to be a formal identification. Somebody was going to have to inform the parents, and he was sure his boss would nominate him for that task.

'You're good at it, Douglas,' he would say. 'You've got the kind of face that people trust.'

It was just about the only compliment he ever got from Victor Elliott, and only then because the DCI knew it was an awful thing to have to do.

There was no doubt at all what had killed the girl her slit throat said it all and yet there was no blood at the scene. Only her blood-soaked clothes bore witness to the violence with which she had been murdered. So the victim had to have been carried or transported by some means or another, exactly as the SOCOs first thought.

'You can't get a car onto Pomona Island unless you have a key to the double gates at the end,' Carl, the head of the team, said. 'They could have been left open, I suppose, but it's unlikely. It's a long way to walk with a body over your shoulder I wouldn't want to try it so we're wondering about a wheelbarrow or something like that. We're checking it out.' He nodded towards two of his team, on their hands and knees in their white suits, fingertip-searching the area for traces of footprints or tyre tracks. 'It's been dry for a while now, so we're not holding out too much hope.'

A shout came from inside the tent.

'Inspector Douglas, you might want to see this.'

Tom made his way back into the tent and crouched down next to the forensic pathologist.

'I noticed that there was a flap cut in her jeans at the top of the left leg. I wasn't going to remove her clothing of course until we got her onto my table, but I saw this and decided to take a look. Come here lean over to your right, her left.'

The pathologist reached out and pulled back a flap of fabric about ten centimetres square. Etched into the top of the girl's thigh were three straight horizontal lines.

9.