‘Wherever Carrington is, she’s on her way there, isn’t she?’ Vaughn thumped the table. ‘Bloody Sasha, why does she always do this to me?’

‘I’m in the area already,’ said Craig on the speakerphone.

‘I thought we’d lost you, Detective Constable,’ said Vaughn in exasperation.

‘Nobody cut me off,’ said Craig. ‘I’m closer than anybody else. And I’ve just counted, boss, there are a dozen addresses on the list, and only eleven sets of keys.’

‘Which one is missing?’

‘It’s a property near Wallasea, close to where Swann used to live. It’s got to be worth checking out. I can get there before any helicopter.’

Vaughn stood. ‘Then what are you waiting for?’

58

Sasha and Karin stood on the verge of a narrow, winding road in the middle of a flat landscape of brown fields, trees and scrubland, looking up at a derelict farmhouse.

Bushes and weeds pushed against the front door of the plain grey front of the building. The lower windows were boarded up. Half the tiled roof was missing. Fallen chunks of masonry were embedded in the hard churn of mud and grass on the overgrown drive. A creeper spread across the brickwork, reaching into the shadows that fell across the front of the crumbling facade.

This place, once a home, had been abandoned years ago.

There was a holdall in the boot where Sasha kept emergency bits of kit – a change of clothes, a spare Tyvek suit and overshoes, exhibit bags and notebooks, even a roll of police tape – and she unzipped it, took out a flashlight and a telescopic baton. Standing behind the raised lid of the boot, they couldn’t be seen from the upper windows, where the sunlight reflected off shards of jagged glass.

She handed Karin the long metal flashlight. ‘In case we can’t see anything.’

Karin slipped it in the back pocket of her jeans.

‘What do you think?’ Sasha pushed the baton up the sleeve of her shirt, crooking her elbow slightly so that it wouldn’t fall back down. ‘Can you see it?’

‘Will we need that?’ asked Karin.

‘Let’s hope not.’

She slammed the boot shut and turned to the abandoned house, which was surrounded in every direction by trees and fields; behind it, in the distance, were the wetlands of Wallasea Island. An airliner left a trail across the sky above them. Maybe it was her imagination, but Sasha wondered if she heard the staccato thrum of a helicopter somewhere far off.

‘Are you ready?’

‘There’s something you need to know,’ Karin told her as they looked up at the derelict building. ‘He sent me texts, pretending to be Becky.’

Sasha didn’t understand. ‘Becky’s a long time dead.’

‘I was confused, I wasn’t thinking straight…’ She shook her head dismally. ‘I thought… I wished it could be her.’

‘What did he say?’