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“We’ll get her back,” he had said fiercely. “I promise you that. Let me stop over and I’ll go to the meeting with you tomorrow.”
“I’m OK, Kevin,” she had insisted. “I haven’t done anything wrong, whatever that bastard inspector Walter says. I need a decent night’s sleep. I’ve got some pills. Then I’m going to see the kids at the Project as usual. And at two o’clock you can come with me to see social services. They’re well out of order with what they’ve done and I’ll have Emma back tomorrow if it’s the last thing I do. I’ll see you in the morning.”
But she hadn’t, because at nine that morning DCI Thackeray had called Mower in and told him to keep away from the Heights, an instruction it had only taken him a couple of hours to decide to ignore. He could see even from a distance as he got out of the car and buttoned his fleece against the downpour that the Project was in darkness and the doors closed, which was normal enough at this time of day. A couple of girls lingered outside, clutching thin jackets around themselves against the sharp wind and bone-numbing wet but they would not be allowed in until the adults returned to unlock the doors at two.
Leaving his car at the foot of Priestley House he made his way up the concrete stairs where the rain ran down in small waterfalls between the litter. He splashed through puddles along the walkway until he reached Do
“Anything?” he asked, but the answer was negative.
“Shit,” Mower said to himself. Looking round to make sure that he was still alone on the walkway, he pulled a credit card from his wallet and slid it against the lock, which held for a moment and then slid open, allowing him to slip into the flat apparently unobserved. Inside, when he turned on the light everything appeared normal enough. The small living room was tidy, and in the kitchen the glasses and plates which he and Do
Only the bathroom was left and Mower turned the door handle with a growing sense of alarm. At first he could see very little but as his eyes adjusted, even before he tugged on the light-pull, he could see that the water Do
“Oh, God, no,” Mower said despairingly, leaning against the door as his knees threatened to give way beneath him. He fought back waves of nausea for a long time before he felt able to step across the damp floor and look down directly at the dead woman. He checked for a pulse in her neck but without any expectation of finding one. A single razor blade lay on the floor close to the side of the bath, he noticed. It was probably one of his own. Do
“Oh, Do
It was not until some time later, sitting in Do
As the fresh air cleared his brain he finally began to consider his own position which, he thought, whichever way you looked at it was not a comfortable one. While Michael Thackeray might just concede that fear for Do
Drenched by a particularly gusty squall, and seeing no sign of blue lights flashing on the approach to the estate, Mower went back into the flat to wait. He knew better than to touch anything just in case this apparently not very suspicious death turned into something more sinister when the pathologist had examined Do
He had hoped he and Do