Imogen had to walk away; she didn’t like thinking the things she was thinking. This woman was vulnerable and needed both their protection and their help. So why did Imogen feel like they were being sucked into some big black hole of a mess? She wouldn’t ignore her instincts. Every time she had in the past, she had kicked herself for not listening to that little voice inside her head that told her something was wrong. Right now, that little voice was screaming.

Chapter Twelve

They asked me who he was. I couldn’t tell them; they can’t find out who I am. If they do, then he will find out I am here.

I heard the nurse talking about how there is a video online of the detective pulling me out of the water. I can no longer disappear. Maybe he didn’t mean it when he said he was done with me and wanted me dead.

Who am I kidding?

Chapter Thirteen

Dr Forrester was placing an eyeball in the socket of a plaster mould of a skull when Adrian and Imogen entered his office on the Streatham Campus of Exeter University. The office was a cornucopia of dusty old books and curios, the way you imagine a professor’s office to look. There were several clay skulls at various stages of development around the room. Adrian had seen plenty of dramatisations of this kind of thing on the TV, but it was fascinating to see in person.

Gary stood up excitedly as they approached. ‘Imogen, Adrian, this is Dr Carl Forrester.’

Dr Forrester nodded hello to them. ‘I would shake your hands, but I’m a bit mucky at present.’

‘The doctor is reconstructing our John Doe’s face,’ Gary said.

‘Already?’ Imogen asked.

‘What is it you’re doing? How do you do that? How do you know what his eyes were like?’

Adrian fired a series of questions at the professor. This kind of thing seemed like magic to Adrian and yet he had seen the results with his own eyes before. It worked. What was it they said? Magic was just science we don’t understand yet, which, in Adrian’s case, was almost all science.

‘I spoke to your pathologist last night and she sent me photos and measurements. From the body, I would say that we are looking at a Caucasian male in his late twenties. He has brown hair and brown eyes, and would have stood around five foot eleven, which we know because the pathologist told us; that’s not information we normally have when reconstructing.’

‘How did you get the skull so quickly? Is pathology done with it?’ Adrian asked.

‘We did an MRI of the head and then used a program to create a 3D image of the skull from the source material. We were then able to print a 3D replica of it, so we didn’t need the actual skull,’ Gary said excitedly.