If Erika had any doubts, she wasn’t going to share them, ‘I always solve my cases,’ she said.

‘Well good luck to you… Just watch out. She went mad, that copper who was on the case before, Amanda Baker.’

‘How did she go mad?’

‘Well, she’d been signed off sick before she even took the case. Years in vice, dealing with rape victims got to her. And then with the Jessica case she was so full on, obsessed. She stopped sleeping, and I don’t want to cast aspersions, but I think she was drinking. It was a difficult enough case with all that. Do you know the ins and outs?’

‘I’m working to catch up as fast as I can.’

‘It didn’t help that there were no witnesses. Jessica left the house that afternoon to go to her friends birthday party, and it was as if she vanished off the face of the earth. She never arrived. No one saw anything… The prime suspect was Trevor Marksman, a local sex offender. He lived in a halfway house in Hayes. They found photos and some video he’d taken of Jessica, a few weeks previous, when she was in the park with Marianne and Laura.’

‘And they arrested him.?

‘They did, but he had an alibi. Cast iron. He had to sign and out of the halfway house. And on the 7th of August, he was there all day. Didn’t leave. But everything else led to it being him. He had a previous conviction for abducting a young girl from the park and taking her home. Luckily that time, the police swooped in and the girl was unharmed… Amanda had no choice but to release him. They kept surveillance on him and then she got frustrated and started to harass him. He was a nasty piece of work. Enjoyed riling her up. But she went too far and tipped off a group of local women, vigilantes, and one night they shoved a bottle full of petrol through his door. He survived, with hideous burns.’

‘And it came back on Amanda?’

Nancy nodded. ‘A fancy lawyer took up Trevor Marksman’s case. He sued the MET and won substantial damages. Amanda was given early retirement, more than she deserved really, but her legacy is that she’s a bent copper. And the last I heard is that she’s virtually dead from cirrhosis of the liver… ooh, take the next left…’ Erika was disappointed that the journey had come to an end. She pulled off the main road and the traffic was moving normally. They passed a large pub and some Kebab shops before the street became residential. ’This is me, the flats.’

There was a gap in the row of terraces, occupied by a drab squat concrete block of flats. Erika pulled up by the kerb.

‘Thanks for the lift. I’m going to take one more of these strong ones with a nip of something,’ she said undoing her seatbelt. Erika nodded. Nancy unbuckled her seat belt and opened the door. It was still raining hard. She winced as she pulled up her hood, catching the edge of the bandage. She stepped out of the car.

‘Who do you think did it? Who do you think killed Jessica?’ asked Erika leaning over to peer out of the passenger door.

‘God knows… maybe someone snatched her and drove away, never to be seen again.’ said Nancy ducking down adding, ‘If Jessica vanished, the person who did it would have to have vanished into thin air too. Thanks again.’ She slammed the door and darted off up the path to the main entrance. It was a grotty block of flats, the concrete cladding stained with rainwater. Erika watched for a moment as she fumbled with her keys and let herself in.

Her answer troubled Erika… vanished into thin air.

16

It was late when Erika arrived back at Bromley Station, and she was impressed to find her team still working.

She’d been assigned one of the large open plan offices on the top floor. Several officers were on the phone and raised an eyebrow or a hand in acknowledgement. Two officers, DC Knight and DC Temple were working to assemble the evidence from the historical case files on whiteboards running the length of the back wall. A huge map of South London and the Kent borders dominated one corner and beside it were photos which included Hayes Quarry and 7 Avondale Road. A picture of Jessica Collins dressed in her party outfit was juxtaposed with a photo of her skeleton laid out in the mortuary. Another photo showed the brown a tattered remnants of her clothes after years underwater.

‘How are we doing?’ asked Erika moving over to them. Knight was a tall angular woman with a blunt dark fringe, and Temple a head shorter with pleasant blond boyish features.

‘We’re just putting a timeline together, Jessica’s movements leading up to August 7th and then when she left 7 Avondale Road,’ said Knight blowing her fringe out of her eyes and pushing a pin into the map. ‘We’re working from the original missing person report and all the statements.’

‘Who’s this?’ asked Erika picking up a yellowing photo of a thirty-five year old man with pale blue eyes, greasy blond hair and a beaky face.

‘Trevor Marksman, the convicted kiddy fiddler. We’re including him in the timeline as he was seen watching her in the days leading up to her disappearance,’ said Temple. ‘Although, this is what he looks like now.’

He sifted through and found a picture of a man with hideous burns to his face. He stared straight into the camera, and pain was etched in his eyes, now deep set under skin grafts and he had no hair, eyebrows or lashes.

‘Don’t say kiddy fiddler. It makes a joke of something horrific. Sex offender, paedophile. Okay?’ said Erika. DC Temple’s cheeks flushed red and he nodded. ’This is good work though, do you think this will be ready for tomorrow morning?’

‘Yes, Ma’am,’ said Knight.

‘Call me Boss, please.’

‘Yes, Boss.’

John came through the door with a takeaway box and a cup of coffee. He moved over to his desk by the door, put down the take away box and opened it stuffing a load of chips in his mouth. ‘Hi Boss. Chip?’

‘No,’ said Erika, waiting.

‘Sorry boss,’ he said through a mouthful of chips. I haven’t eaten all day…’ he swallowed them down with a gulp of coffee. ‘You’ve had a couple of messages from Superintendent Yale, asking for the report on Jason Tyler.’

‘Shit, I forgot about that,’ said Erika looking at her watch. It was coming up to ten pm.

‘We’ve also had the official autopsy report through from Dr Strong, I put it on your desk.’