‘No. I’ve followed up with her parents and two of her friends too. It looks like a complete red herring. Her parents received a phone call from her two days ago. They’ve had texts too. She’d buggered off to Prague or Budapest or somewhere with some guy she’s met. Her friend showed me the Facebook post.’

Dani shook her head in disbelief. She’d felt sure there was more to Jessica’s story.

‘Missing Persons are going to follow up when she’s home to make sure everything is ok. They won’t take any chances, but there’s not much else they or we can do right now.’

Dani sighed again. It seemed the investigation was simply hitting dead end after dead end.

‘Did they figure out what happened to Mrs Staunton?’

‘She was injected with a tranquiliser, just as you suspected, but there was no evidence found of the intruder, other than the prints in the grass. But those’re next to useless. All we can tell from them is that the person was wearing a shoe size probably between seven and ten.’

Dani shook her head.

‘We’ve still got more to come back from the lab, but that’s where we’re at.’

‘And nothing more on the other missing persons cases either?’

‘Nothing. Those women have just disappeared. No trace of what happened to them.’

Which Dani still didn’t like at all, particularly given Paul Reeve was directly linked not just to Natalya, but to Grace Agnew as well.

‘What about other deaths?’ Dani said, as a thought sprang to mind.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Other murders we’ve investigated that shared any similarities to Reeve’s and Natalya’s deaths? Solved or unsolved.’

Jason looked a little worn out now by her relentless grasping. ‘Where are you going with this?’

‘You know where. Can you check for me? Please?’

Though the reality was, she’d already performed similar checks on HOLMES 2 with no luck.

Jason sighed. ‘I’ll check.’

They went silent for a couple of moments as Dani’s brain whirred. Her thoughts began to take shape but for some reason she wasn’t sure she wanted to share them with Jason.

She saw him check his watch for the umpteenth time.

‘If you’ve somewhere to be, it’s ok,’ she said.

He gave her an uncertain look.

‘Honestly, it’s fine,’ she said. ‘I appreciate you spending the time with me. We’ll catch up again later.’

She had somewhere else she wanted to be anyway. She knew exactly who she wanted to speak to next.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Dani took a train over to University station and walked the short distance to the University of Birmingham campus, though it turned out to be a wasted trip. Steven Grant wasn’t there; he had already finished his last lecture of the day and headed home. Which was where Dani went next.