There was something odd about it. It didn’t make sense that he would brush him off, not when he’d seen the photo. He’d want to talk it through, and he’d want to know how Dad was.

And what was he tied up with? He had nothing to do.

Fuck it. He’d call him. He needed to talk to him, find out what was going on. If nothing else, he needed peace of mind before his interview. He couldn’t blow it because he was worried about his brother.

The call went to voicemail.

He tried again. Voicemail, again.

Tom had just been texting him, so he was there and he had a signal, but now he was ignoring the calls? It was weird.

This was not right at all. He needed to find out what was happening, and soon.

So never mind his interview, he was heading up to the Lake District.

DI Wynne

Detective Inspector Wynne read the files on the Petersen family murders. There had never been an explanation or resolution. A suburban couple killed in their house for no apparent reason, and then, on top of it, the disappearance of their daughter.

She studied the photos of the crime scene.

Both were killed by vicious hammer strikes to the head. The mother had been hit on the temple; the father in the eye.

They were a lot like the murders she had seen in the last few months. The creeping feeling that these were linked grew.

But she simply couldn’t see how.

She opened a file directory called Andrea Petersen_Missing Person Enquiry. The first file was called poster photo and she clicked on it.

It was a photo of a smiling woman in her early twenties. She had long, reddish hair and an angular face. There was something familiar about her; perhaps it had been circulated in the UK at the time.

No, that wasn’t it. It was something else. She reminded Wynne of someone, but she couldn’t put her finger on who. It was like when you were watching a film and one of the actors resembled someone you knew, but you couldn’t figure it out.

Then she saw it.

‘No,’ she muttered. ‘No.’

She studied the image more closely, and her pulse sped up. She grabbed the laptop and walked into the corridor. DS Alexander was coming out of the bathroom.

Wynne beckoned to her and held up the laptop.

‘This remind you of anyone?’ she said.

DS Alexander looked at the photo. ‘Yes. I didn’t know she had red hair when she was younger.’

‘You know who this is?’

DS Alexander frowned. ‘Of course.’

‘Let me tell you who this person is, and we can see if we have the same name.’

‘I know who it is.’

‘You think you do.’

‘What’s this about, boss?’ Nadia said.