Clay scrolled through the images on her iPhone until she found the last staff portrait from the wall of Norma’s office. She made a close-image of Norma Maguire and Francesca Christie.

‘What did you do to Francesca, Ms Maguire?’ asked Hendricks.

She looked startled at the sound of a man who, up until that point, had been a silent spectre in the room. He looked at an image on his iPhone.

‘What did I do?’

Hendricks turned his iPhone around, showed her an image of Annie Boyd, scalped and faceless on the mud of the River Mersey.

Clay took in her reaction, the way she turned to stone; horror consumed Ms Rice’s face and she touched her forehead with both hands.

‘What did you do with their faces and scalps?’ asked Hendricks, pushing his iPhone a little closer to her.

There was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ said Clay.

The door opened and Sergeant Harris walked into the room, followed by Poppy Waters.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Harris.

‘No problem. Speak of the Devil. Come here please,
Poppy.’

Poppy Waters walked slowly towards Clay, an open laptop in her hands. She placed it on the desk in front of Clay.

‘That’s my laptop,’ said Norma Maguire to her solicitor, like a child reclaiming a lost ball.

‘You’ve cracked it then, Poppy.’

‘I think you need to look at Ms Maguire’s activity on Pebbles On The Beach,’ said the IT specialist.

‘I’m closing the interview, Ms Maguire. I need to look at some things on your laptop. I’ll talk to you shortly. But would you like to tell me where Francesca Christie is?’

Norma Maguire looked torn, like a firestorm of words was raging inside her brain.

‘When this gets to court, this lack of co-operation is going to be translated into one thing by the judge and jury. You have no remorse. That lack of remorse will be reflected in the sentence you receive. Think about it.’

122

11.30 am

Clay looked at Norma Maguire’s Pebbles On The Beach page and said, ‘This is great work, Poppy. There’s no way out for her now. Michael Towers aka Richard Ezra aka Thomas Saddler aka James Griffiths aka Geoff Campbell.’

She looked at Riley, Stone, Hendricks and Cole and saw quiet optimism in all their faces.

There was a hush in the incident room and, sitting next to Clay at her desk, Poppy Waters said, ‘She tried to delete everything last night. Maybe she had a premonition that you were on to her. I called it all back up. It wasn’t difficult.’

‘I’m very pleased with the speed and thoroughness of your work. Thank you.’

Clay looked at the linguistic glue smeared across the internet, the slime of language that was posted in the name of love, hope and happiness, and had to bite down on the passing need to be sick.