Under the water something went crack. A stream of bubbles broke on the water’s surface. Crack-crack-crack, louder each time, and the loud noise of air escaping under the water disturbed the surface. Clay watched as air trapped beneath breaking ice escaped, disturbing the hole.

‘It’s our lady killer, Bill,’ said Clay, as she watched the bubbles breaking on the surface. A sound like a window breaking beneath the water was followed by a huge bubble escaping to the surface, bringing up the rest of the body in a sudden gasp, her arms flailing beneath the water as if she were drowning and trying desperately to save her own life. Her skinned face, purple and covered with rotten leaves, burst out of the water, eyeballs bulging, jaws wide and her teeth clenched around a large pebble, gums exposed from the wide-open space where her lips used to be.

The earth exhaled her body from the water and, in the silence that followed, Clay watched as she floated still and defenceless.

Clay turned to Hendricks, Mason and Price, all looking at the victim, and, Clay guessed, bottling their shock just as she was doing.

‘Bill, can you organise a door to door on Menlove Avenue and Woolton Village that way, Allerton Road down at the other end of the path.’

‘I’ll organise it right now, Eve.’

She said, ‘Let’s get her out of the water and covered up as quickly as we can.’

‘What are you thinking, Eve?’ asked Hendricks.

‘I’m thinking The Ghoul is local to us. His expedition in the summer to Warrington was an out-of-town dress rehearsal. The big time home show is now well and truly on.’

Clay looked at the woman’s missing features as she floated on the surface and her rage turned into dark determination.

Two bodies within the same day. The words fell like fork lightning through Clay’s head, and when the lightning died down, the thunder spoke.

The Ghoul had held them in captivity at the same time.

19

4.43 pm

In silence, Detective Sergeant Terry Mason and Sergeant Paul Price folded out a sheet of clear plastic with the choreographed telepathy of an old married couple spreading out a bottom sheet to make up the marital bed.

At the Menlove Avenue end of the crime scene, Clay watched Harper and Kline, Doctor Lamb’s senior APTs from the mortuary at the Royal Liverpool Hospital, crossing the scene-of-crime tape and carrying a single grey body bag.

She watched the floating woman and, beneath the water, on her submerged wrist, she saw the dark discolorations of a tattoo, the detail of which she couldn’t make out.

Detective Sergeant Bill Hendricks closed down a call and said, ‘The footpath’s sealed off at Allerton Road and Gina Riley’s orchestrating the troops on the door to door at that end.’