Holding onto Beth McCulloch’s sleeve, Carole had to look again. Her eyes hadn’t deceived her. There was a man shouting for someone called Karin. He turned away and, a moment later, a large piece of masonry crashed onto the balcony close to where he had just been standing.

The near miss was a reminder of how exposed she was and Carole snapped her head to the front again, searching out her escape route. She didn’t see the falling missile continue on its trajectory, or witness it take another victim of the Empress fire; a young woman who would never get to kiss and make up with her boyfriend. Carole kept moving, and made it through the side exit and into a corridor. As she drew nearer to the fire doors, she passed someone moving in the opposite direction, but the idea that anyone would want to go inside was so alien to her that her brain cancelled out all memory of Claudia Rothwell.

Angela, meanwhile, wanted to curl into a ball, but she knew she shouldn’t give up. Her legs trembled as she stood up and surveyed the emerging scene. She found the spot where she had last seen Amelia and gagged on the air she squeezed from her lungs with a tight wheeze. The poor child. Where once there had been red velvet seats, there were smouldering fires amongst the rubble. Angela felt an ache in her heart for Mrs Parker and the pain that lay ahead for her. Angela had lost one of her babies before he could take his first breath. That had been over twenty years ago, and it still it hurt. Before grief could overtake her, she heard a child’s cry.

‘Please! Help me! Please! I want my mummy!’

28

The windscreen was clear of condensation, but if the temperature continued to fall, Leanne would be scraping ice off the windows soon. She had brought her laptop in case the boredom became too much, but there were no pressing deadlines. Mal had approved her latest stakeout and had gone as far as to say she could claim expenses for coffee and doughnuts.

Licking vanilla sugar from her lips, Leanne stared through the gates to the car park beyond. There were two people under surveillance this time, which doubled her chances, and she was prepared to stay as long as was necessary. There was no alternative. Karin continued to ignore her calls, and the email she had sent to Beth had bounced back.

Sipping a gingerbread latte, Leanne kept an eye on the blue Peugeot, hoping that Karin and Beth weren’t so short of money that the petrol tank was empty. It bothered her that she couldn’t see the entrance to their apartment, and she considered reclaiming her previous spot by the canal, but it was the beginning of December, and she wasn’t prepared to freeze to death. Or was she?