‘It’s time to let you go and for me to move on. I won’t ever love you less, and we’ll meet again one day, I know.’

As Marie closed her eyes, she felt her husband gradually slip away from her, while the room remained warm and full of love. As sleep began to overtake her, she felt the lightest brush of a kiss on her cheek, and a whispered, ‘Goodbye, my love.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The morning was still damp and breezy, but the torrential rain had stopped and a weak sun was struggling to emerge from behind the clouds.

Laura decided to drive past Freddie Shields’s home on her way in to the police station rather than waiting till later. Her car was a nondescript grey colour, so should Freddie chance to be out and about, he wouldn’t notice her. She drew near the terrace of houses where he lived. The road was fairly busy, and she couldn’t slow down enough to get a good look at the place, so she turned and made her way back, parking a few houses along, from where she could see the house clearly.

The house was exactly as he had described it, with a slightly uncared-for appearance, as if he’d lost interest in keeping it up. Laura looked closer. The annexe he had spoken of with such pride was obviously costly, but that too looked rundown.

Laura glanced at the clock on her dashboard and saw that there was still plenty of time, so she drove a little further and pulled into the car park at the recreation ground next door. She might be able to get a better look from there. She locked the car and strolled over to the trees lining the boundary and found a spot that would give a fairly clear view of his mother’s annexe. The luxury, purpose-built granny flatlet was in worse condition than the house.

‘He’s neglecting her,’ she whispered out loud. Clearly, his condition was occupying his every waking moment, giving him no time to care for his mother and her home.

Laura abandoned her inspection, more anxious than ever.

* * *

By nine o’clock, Jackman and Marie were working flat out. The whole team was now engaged in either hunting down Jordan Spiller or trying to establish a link between him and the women whose houses he’d entered. They were contacting estate agents regarding his rushed sale of the house in Glebe Close, contractors who specialised in church repairs and specialist firms that maintained the roofs of listed buildings. They had asked other forces to send them any information they might have on him and were trawling through the PNC and any other platform they could think of, even Facebook, to try and find a mention of his name.