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Back When I Lost You Save as PDF
Chapters (81)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. Dedication
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. Forty-six
  51. Forty-seven
  52. Forty-eight
  53. Forty-nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Fifty-one
  56. Fifty-two
  57. Fifty-three
  58. Fifty-four
  59. Fifty-five
  60. Fifty-six
  61. Fifty-seven
  62. Fifty-eight
  63. Fifty-nine
  64. Sixty
  65. Sixty-one
  66. Sixty-two
  67. Sixty-three
  68. Sixty-four
  69. Sixty-five
  70. Sixty-six
  71. Sixty-seven
  72. Epilogue
  73. Acknowledgments
  74. Read More
  75. Prologue
  76. One
  77. Two
  78. Three
  79. Four
  80. Follow Merilyn online
  81. Dedication

Carla turned to Google. Eve’s names – both maiden and married – drew blanks, save for cases she’d worked on after qualifying as a pathologist, so Carla typed in the care home’s details. One article appeared and she scanned it, hand poised over a mug of coffee.

The article had been written thirty-five years ago and had only found itself on the Internet after an intern – so the paper’s website told her – had studiously uploaded all past stories from the Portsmouth Chronicle onto the World Wide Web.

It detailed a gruesome murder that had rocked the seaside town. A young care-home girl had been lured to the beach by Alf Waites, a man three times her age who’d pummelled her head with a rock before setting her body on fire. No motive was given, but Waites still went down for twenty years.

The lack of a name bothered Carla and not just because it frustrated further research.

‘So invisible she wasn’t even worthy of a name,’ she muttered, noting the date of the murder. She checked Eve’s HR record – Eve would have been at the care home at the time Waites murdered the girl. She must have known her, or at the very least known of her.

Before she could google contact details for the care home, her phone rang and the number on the display told her it was the Telephone Unit.

‘Carla Brown speaking.’

‘Hi, I’ve got the details of the phone number you wanted checking, but it’s not good.’

Shit. Pay-as-you-go, then.

‘It’s a phone box.’

‘What?’

He gave the address. ‘I’ve checked either side of the two calls you identified and there were no others made from the phone box within a two-hour period either way.’

Carla didn’t need any more. She’d got her killer. No one else would have called both the victim and Joanne otherwise. She thanked him and hung up, then dialled Nell.

‘Those calls came from a call box on the street where Connor was murdered. Someone must have seen the person who used it.’

‘Right, Paul and I will do a door-to-door. You’ll tell Bremer?’

‘Yeah, will do. And there’s another thing. I think there’s a connection between Eve and a murder which happened thirty-five years ago. She’d have been fifteen, sixteen.’

‘And that helps us how?’

Carla looked at the screen showing details of the care home. ‘I don’t know yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as I do.’

Thirty-eight

Then

Alf looks to Aoife as she hangs back in the shadows.

‘Aoife?’