Chapter 4
Chapter Four
There was a time when I considered moving to the department of Greater Manchester Police that specialised in searching for missing persons until I spent a lunch time in the canteen talking to one of the officers there.
It was soul destroying, the success rate low, the heartbreak high, and she talked me into staying put in the murder investigation team, telling me I’d save more lives there.
Given how I’d spent most of yesterday and this morning, I owed her a drink and a thank you, because even teaching bottom set year nines history wouldn’t be as soul destroying as this.
The north-west of England, including Greater Manchester, had a higher volume of people reported missing each week than average, given its population density and the vulnerability of many of its residents.
Over a thousand people a week were reported as missing in England.
I had only a few characteristics to narrow down the search – gender, approximate age, range of height and skin colour.
The list was long and the nagging doubt that our Jane Doe wasn’t yet a missing person was strong.
Jade Thomas – 28, shared a flat in Failsworth; flatmates reported her missing after 48 hours of no contact.
Hannah Brewster – 30, newly qualified solicitor from Chorlton; disappeared en route to a second-round interview.
Freya Cartwright – 26, seasonal worker who travels for music festivals; last confirmed sighting at one near Piccadilly Gardens.
Natalie Brooks – 35, self-employed web designer living alone in Todmorden; laptop left on, front door unlocked.
Amber Barlow – 32, full-time carer for her mother in Middleton; known to take regular walks by the canal, last seen five days ago.
I called the number on Amber Barlow’s file, her sister, who’d reported her missing seventy-two hours ago when she failed to turn up at their mother’s leaving her sister as the sole carer.
It was a blind alley. Amber had returned two days after her sister had filed the report, tanned and relaxed after a cheeky girls’ getaway to Palma, her sister swearing blind that Amber hadn’t told her.
A happy ending. Kind of.
“How’s it going?” Lachy took the chair opposite me.
He’d been meant to be helping me go through mispers records, only his undiagnosed ADHD had finally tipped me over the edge with the constant shifting every two minutes and what I assumed were restless legs, so I’d sent him off to find lunch and pay a visit back to the Old Sailor, near to the spot where we’d found Jane Doe’s body.
The bar staff who’d been working the shifts the couple of days before hadn’t been around the day before, and no one had been keen to suggest where we could’ve found them.
Jane Doe’s image had been shared in the media; Wrigley had done a stint on the local news asking for information from anyone who recognised her, and we’d had an influx of the usual misfits, well-meaning members of society such as Mavis Spanhower who was convinced it was her neighbour (a neighbour who turned out to just be avoiding Mavis), and weirdos who liked to tell us that Jane Doe was in fact their grandmother and they had her in their freezer.
We left that one for Vinny to check out.
“It’s going slowly and painfully.” I accepted the hot chocolate he handed over. “Thank you.”
“Welcome. Thank you for letting me get away from a desk.” He slid a hand through his surfer-boy hairstyle, complete with highlights because his locks weren’t getting sun kissed in Manchester any time soon.
“You’d have been the subject of a murder enquiry if I’d had to listen to that tapping for another five minutes.
” I sent him a glare, then rolled myself away from my computer screen.
“The bastard’s frozen.” The system had been playing up all day, intermittently freezing or throwing me out, so I had to go back and log in.
“Call it a day. Are you in Saturday or Sunday?”
“Sunday.” Wrigley had called us in for one day or the other to carry on following any leads that came in. ‘You?”
“Sunday, so we’re going out for drinks tonight. Well, everyone apart from Nick. His missus is going out so he’s on his own with the kid.” Lachy grinned. “Thank god that’s not me.”
Rain belted against the office window. It was due to ease off overnight, leaving us with dry weather over the weekend and into next week. There was even the tease of a promise of sunshine, although no one was holding their breath.
“I could see you being good with a kid.” Lachy grinned again. “Because I’m still one myself? I’m a great uncle and that’ll do for now.”
“Are they living in Australia – your niece or nephew?” I didn’t know him well yet. He’d been with the team about five months, just about surviving a Christmas Day call-out to a murder scene in Salford. No one was eating roast pork that evening.
“They’re over here. Just moved to Chester. That was why I transferred up, and why I moved over here in the first place.” He shook his head and stood up, moving like he always was.
“That’s devotion to your family. I’m not sure I’d have left Australia to come here.”
Lachy shrugged. “You don’t have big poisonous spiders over here, so that’s a bonus. Are you coming to the pub with us?”
I shook my head, logging off the computer this time. I was done with battling it for today. “I’m going for a meal.”
“Date?”
I grinned this time. Cavan had messaged me before to say he’d booked the restaurant and was looking forward to it.
I’d confirmed half an hour ago to say work shouldn’t be delaying me for a change.
We hadn’t been out just the two of us together for weeks, tending to see each other when Lucy or other people were about, which made it feel like we were still in the early days of seeing each other.
I wasn’t sure where this was going to go, or where I wanted it to go, but I liked him.
I especially liked him because he wasn’t a cop. “Date.”
“Where are you going?”
“Like I’m going to share that. You’d probably all crash it.” I knew my team too well, especially if they ended up bored and wanted a daft prank to play to end the night.
“We won’t. Vinny wants to go to the Roebuck. Dr Miz is meant to be there.”
“Oh god. Why?” He clearly didn’t have a sense of danger.
Lachy shrugged. “I can think of a few reasons.” He eyed me as if he’d suddenly realised something, something he wasn’t going to share. “Seriously, which restaurant is it? I have a date tomorrow night and I need to know where to take her.”
“Bao and Co. It’s a new Chinese.” Not where we’d originally planned because Cavan had wanted to avoid Didsbury for some reason, but I wasn’t fussed. He lived in an apartment in the City Centre, so we’d probably go back to his.
Lachy fake kicked a football across the office. “Sounds good. Might see you there.” He gave me a wink and fucked off before I launched something at him.