CHAPTER 31

The atmosphere in the incident room the next morning was lethargic.

Yesterday, the tiredness caused by all the long shifts had been temporarily forgotten. Carney’s arrest had raised everybody’s hopes. The end was in sight.

Now, with him revealing nothing and it looking increasingly less likely that he was the killer, heads were down. And most of those in the room didn’t even know about the Bart Healy affair, which had sprung up and just as suddenly fizzled to nothing.

The inspector gave the team a quick update on the various strands of the investigation, then crossed over to the area of the room his detectives had colonised.

‘Where’s Laura?’ he asked Michael. ‘All we’re missing is her briefing on the rest of the Holland employees. Tell me she’s found something and is chasing it. I need some good news.’

Michael shrugged.

‘She hasn’t come in.’

Tom frowned. That was strange. Laura was the most conscientious member of his team. She was usually the first one in each morning and the last one out at night.

‘Is she following up on something?’ he asked. ‘Did she ring anybody?’

The team members shook their heads. Ray and Bridget both looked uneasy.

‘I tried to ring her earlier,’ Brian said. ‘Her phone was off.’

‘She was supposed to have dinner with me last night,’ Ray said, blushing. ‘But she’d already gone home when I went looking for her.’

‘Hold on,’ Bridget interjected. ‘She told me yesterday she was staying late and grabbing dinner with you in here. She was … she was looking forward to it. She never came home. I thought she got stuck here or that you two had …’ She froze, flashing their boss a quick glance as Ray turned bright red.

‘What time did she leave, Michael?’ Tom asked, ignoring the sideshow.

The detective chewed his lip, his face pale and worried.

‘I don’t know. I left early in the day to deal with a personal matter and by the time I got back she was already gone. I’d spoken to her on the phone and she said she was going to check on something. When she didn’t come back, I assumed she’d gone home.’

‘She was driving somewhere when I rang her,’ Ray said.

The team stood looking at each other, all of their thoughts landing in the same place.

‘Okay, well, let’s not overreact,’ Tom said, trying to subdue the panic he could feel building. It was so unlike Laura to go AWOL. He wouldn’t have said it aloud, but with any other member of the team, he’d have taken it for granted that they’d slept in or were about to ring in sick. ‘Somebody call her again.’

Bridget tried.

‘Her phone is still off. I can’t even leave a message. It’s just the network saying “Not in service”.’