After they had drawn a blank in the Eastvale tattoo parlor and takeaway, Annie had told Gerry to work on the assumption that the victim was being transported from the northeast to some point south of Eastvale by a route off the beaten track. She had also assumed that the victim was from the northeast, but she had realized, lying awake in bed the previous night, that the vehicle might have been carrying the girl home. Someone might have picked her up in Middlesbrough or Sunderland, for example, and been in the process of driving her back down south, to where she lived, when things had gone wrong and the driver had taken a detour down a quiet country lane and dumped her. Raped and bruised, but alive. But if that were the case, why was she walking back the way she had come?

Annie ignored the throng of media and made her way up to the squad room. Neither Winsome nor DC Doug Wilson was in, but Gerry sat at her desk working on the computer, hair held back by a tortoiseshell headband, which looked surprisingly cool on her. She maintained good posture, Annie noticed, unlike herself, who bent over, hunched and round-shouldered, as she hunted and pecked. Gerry seemed poised, ergonomically perfect, as if being at a computer keyboard were the most comfortable position in the world, everything at the right height and the right angle. And, of course, she touch-typed like a pro, eyes on the screen all the time.

“Anything yet?” Annie flopped into her chair, put her feet up on the desk and took a sip of the coffee she had picked up at the Starbucks on Market Street. She was trying to give it up, hence the green tea, but the lure of a latte was just too much at the start of the working day. Only one, though. That was her rule.

“Still nothing,” said Gerry, pausing at her labors. “The lab’s finished with Roger Stanford’s work clothes. Nothing there, as we suspected. We’ve also run checks on his background. Nothing. I think we can scratch him from our list. I’ve been in touch with Cleveland, Northumbria and the Durham Constabulary, and they’ll offer us all the help we want. They’re appalled by what happened, of course. They’ve already got patrol cars out to check up on the tattoo parlors and kebab and pizza places.”

“Good. How about CCTV?”

“That’s a bit more interesting,” Gerry said, reaching for a file folder. “Though nothing to get too excited about. The nearest cameras service the big roundabout on the southwest edge of Eastvale, the end of Market Street. You’d turn off at the third exit for Bradham Lane, which is about two miles west.”

“OK. So we can find out who went that way.”