‘Five years ago, the then Detective Chief Inspector of MIT had a niece who’d developed a drug habit, become homeless, and disappeared off the radar. Police were under instruction to check any homeless woman they came across in her twenties. All the possessions in this case were checked to see if the girl who appears to have gone missing was the chief inspector’s niece. It’s an abuse of position, but an understandable one. Obviously it wasn’t the Chief’s niece, as we have no name to put to the belongings, but the file remained open and the DNA sample was kept on the database.’

Connie put her feet up on a desk and leaned her head back, closing her eyes.

‘Did the DCI ever find his niece?’ Connie asked.

‘I couldn’t ask him,’ Baarda said. ‘He died a couple of years ago.’

‘Fucksticks,’ Connie said. ‘You’re telling me that as the police were trying to find one missing girl, another went missing? Now here we are, five years later, with one dead woman and one missing. So are they all linked or not? I mean, is this your standard incredibly bad situation, or is it a really, truly fucking grand-scale disaster waiting to be uncovered?’

‘It doesn’t matter. We can only rescue the victim he has right now. Scale is irrelevant when you’re the captive,’ Baarda said.

‘Did you just out-perspective me?’

‘I did, and honestly, it was easier than I’d anticipated.’ Baarda undid his top button and ran a tired hand through his hair. ‘So what’s our next move?’

‘I have more questions. Lots of them. One of them can only be answered by the forensic pathologist. Want to swing by the morgue with me?’ She picked up her bag and jacket.

‘We call it a mortuary,’ he murmured, pulling his car keys from his pocket.

‘You can call it whatever you like, but let’s go figure out if Elspeth Dunwoody is alive or dead.’

Chapter Eight

It wasn’t much of a park, but it was better than being at home. Meggy Russell sat on the roundabout and watched the world spin. The metallic squeal from beneath her enhanced rather than diminished the ride. The screech-on-repeat reflected her own state of mind. Meggy had a bullying problem in the form of her step-mother, Carmen. If she’d had siblings to act as allies it might have been bearable, but until her father got home from work Monday to Friday it was just her and the awful Carmen in the house after school.