Chapters (156)
- A DATE WITH DEATH
- Also by Mark Roberts
- A Date With Death
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- The Past
- 1977
- Day OneWednesday, 1st December 2021CatoptrophobiaFear of mirrors
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- The Past
- 1979
- Day TwoThursday, 2nd December 2021OneirophobiaFear of dreams
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- The Past
- 1980
- Day ThreeFriday, 3rd December 2021MonophobiaFear of being alone
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- The Past
- 1982
- Day FourSaturday, 4th December 2021ThanatophobiaFear of Death
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- 125
- 126
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- 134
- 135
- 136
- 137
- About the Author
- An Invitation from the Publisher
Her mind somersaulted to the woman on the mudflats of the River Mersey and, at the red light at the junction of Grove Street and Myrtle Street, she whispered to herself, ‘I bet your parents used to wrap you up warm on cold winter mornings like this.’
On her dashboard, Clay’s iPhone rang out and when she saw COLE on display, she connected and went to speakerphone, before heading away from the green light.
‘Barney?’ She was filled with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation.
‘There’s only one missing person who fits your description for the woman on the Mersey mudflats.’
‘Go on?’
Clay turned left on to Pembroke Place, waiting for Cole to speak as he turned over paper on his desk.
‘Her name’s Annie Boyd. She’s twenty-five years old.’
‘Barney, does she live in a two-mile radius of the place she was found?’
‘She did. 358 Melbreck Road, not far from West Allerton station.’
‘Are you one hundred per cent certain it’s her?’
‘She’s a teacher. One hundred per cent attendance for work. But she hasn’t been in to work or heard of since she left the school last Thursday. I looked at the pictures Mason and Price sent me from the River Mersey of the dead woman. She’s got a mole on her upper left arm the size of a two pence piece. On her upper right arm there’s a tattoo of a bluebird in flight. Her parents supplied us with an image of their daughter on holiday in Crete when they reported her missing. She’s wearing a sleeveless white blouse. Annie Boyd’s got the exact same mole and the exact same tattoo, both in the right places.’
‘Email me close shots of her mole and the tattoo. Close shots that give away absolutely nothing else about the condition of her body.’
‘Leave it with me.’
She continued on to London Road, felt swamped in the dense traffic that was slowed down by the rain.
‘And Barney, find out who her dentist was. Ask them to drop everything and make it to the mortuary with Annie’s dental records. Good job, well done. Thank you.’
As she spoke, Clay worked out in her mind the quickest route back from the mortuary to Melbreck Road.
‘Anything else, Eve?’
‘Same as ever. Keep me posted of anything that comes in, Barney.’
She disconnected the call and, stuck at the lights, prepared herself to look again at Annie Boyd’s disfigured body in the mortuary, just over a hundred metres away. In the well of her recent memory, the young woman looked up at her into torchlight from the mud of the Mersey and the effect of her dead eyes made the soles of Clay’s feet tingle with pinpricks of heat.
Your eyes, thought Clay with a sorrowful heart, are as dead as you and all your dreams of life and love and happiness.