‘Those guys are professionals: they can manage very well without us.’ Joseph perched on the edge of her desk and looked down at her thoughtfully. ‘You’ve been hunting this woman at the expense of all else for a very long time. This is your one chance to find out what really happened to Hannah.’

Nikki bit down hard on her bottom lip. It was true. She had waited all this time, and now she was going to let the opportunity slip away? She closed her eyes and saw her daughter, her lovely girl, as she was before she went out for a drink one night, with a deadly friend.

When her eyes opened again, they were completely focused, and as cold as ice.

‘So, where exactly are we meeting her?’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

‘WHAT IS THIS place?’ asked Joseph in a low voice. ‘It’s got a bad atmosphere.’

‘It is what it says, a cattle market, only we haven’t had a livestock market here since the first outbreak of foot and mouth disease.’ Nikki looked around. ‘They are gradually demolishing it. They’ve taken most of the stalls away, and the hardstanding is being utilized as a temporary overspill car park.’

‘Looks like the kids use it too.’ remarked Joseph. ‘I think I recognize some of my friend Petey’s artwork over there.’

One wall, in front of which were a few randomly parked cars, was completely covered in graffiti.

‘Yeah, we try to keep them out. There’s a lot of junk and old wood around. What’s left could go up like a tinderbox if they decided to have some fun with a box of matches.’ Nikki’s eyes were continually watching for movement. They were early, but she did not feel at all comfortable about this meeting. The place was secluded, but not completely unused. People took shortcuts through it to the town centre, and although not many felt confident enough to park their cars there, it was frequented on a fairly regular basis. She looked around again and shivered. She could hardly believe that she may be meeting her nemesis after all this time. ‘Where did she say again?’

Joseph watched as a man with a scruffy dog skirted around a derelict wooden office and sauntered slowly towards the riverside path. ‘The river end, that’s all she said.’

Nikki didn’t like it. Every nerve ending was screaming out that something was wrong, but Joseph, the ex-Special Forces officer seemed strangely oblivious to the dangers.

‘There are no guarantees that she’ll come,’ he said softly, ‘But I hope for your sake that she does.’ He moved a little closer to her. ‘You need to talk to this woman; you need to know.’