Human tissue is surprisingly resilient.
It’s not just a case of digging a hole and putting the body in. Bones can yield DNA profiles decades after death, hundreds of years after. Even buried under a ton of concrete, hard tissue will still yield a profile if it’s ever found and retrieved.
Acid is effective. Unfortunately though, rather hard to come by in sufficient quantities without raising suspicion.
If not acid, pulverisation can do the job nicely. Pulverising the bones into dust. But the forces involved are colossal. Just ask the poor bastards charged with finding bodies in a collapsed building.
Ultimately, incineration always comes out as the best option. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
Grind up the bones and scatter what remains over open water to aid dispersal.
The main issue is with the size of the subject: portability and movement, volume of tissue, bone mass and residue, the time involved in the burning process.
Which is why it’s so much easier when the subject is a baby.
57
The gates close smoothly behind me as I head back out onto the country road that leads into the village. I drive the half-mile into Prestwood Ash and pull over in a lay-by next to a little country church, turning off the ignition and letting my head fall back against the headrest.
Deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Spending time with Angela – hearing about her daughters – was heartbreaking, and it’s almost impossible to comprehend that so much tragedy can descend on one family. And yet somehow she keeps going, keeps putting one foot in front of another. Keeps doing the best she can for Mia, for her family. She is as tough as they come.
I start the car again and drive on, through the tunnel of overhanging trees, up and over the undulating Chiltern Hills through one village after another. Switching channels on the radio as a distraction, not really hearing the music, unable to settle on anything for more than a minute or two. Spots of rain spatter my windscreen as I drive south and east, picking up the main road back towards London, crossing under the M25 and hitting Saturday afternoon football traffic that ebbs and flows with a tide of cars and buses.
I’m a couple of miles away from my hotel when I realise I’m being followed.
A dark saloon, a few cars back, is shifting lanes to follow me. It’s smooth and subtle, nothing to attract attention and on a normal day – in a normal week – I wouldn’t have noticed it there at all. I change lanes again, filtering left at the last minute to leave the elevated section of the A40 and drop down onto city streets away from my route back to the Premier Inn. The dark car indicates and follows,calm as you like, and I finally get a glimpse of the driver. Male. Late twenties. Stubble. Dark baseball cap and sunglasses despite the gathering dusk. Angela’s words in my ear.Just flat-out lied about where he was. As if he’s got some other agenda.
Holt. Who had been in contact with Kathryn before she ran. A decision she had paid for with her life.
How long has he been following me? A few miles at least. Maybe more than that, maybe from the start of this journey back in Buckinghamshire. He could have been waiting in the lane outside Angela’s house. How did he know I’d be there? And what will he do when I stop?
For a moment I think of googling the nearest police station and pulling up outside but just as quickly dismiss the idea. Heisthe police. And more than that, I’m tired of being stalked and followed, of constantly looking over my shoulder. There’s a lump in my throat, a painful mixture of fear and anger, as I make another turn, right at a junction. Again, he slides into the lane behind me, one car back. I’m still heading in the wrong direction, away from where I need to go, compounding my sense of creeping dread.
As the next set of traffic lights approach I slow down and let a gap grow between me and the car in front. I dawdle on the green light, dropping down into third gear, then second, the driver behind me hooting furiously that I’m holding him up. When the traffic light turns orange I stamp on the accelerator and speed through the junction with the engine screaming, the car behind me forced to stop on red, his horn still blaring. I check my rearview mirror and feel a pulse of relief as I see Holt is stuck behind the angry driver, both of them receding behind me.
When the road curves out of sight, I brake hard and turn left into a busy shopping street, accelerate to the next junction and then take another left into a supermarket car park. I find a spot facing the road and kill the engine, sliding down in my seat. My heart is thumping, my hands slick with sweat on the steering wheel. Sure enough, thirty seconds later the dark saloon car roars past with Holt hunched behind the steering wheel. I don’t think he’s seen me but I’m not going to wait to be sure, reversing out quickly and returning the way I came.
I keep one eye on my mirrors all the way back.
*
I’ve eaten nothing since breakfast but the thought of sitting in the hotel restaurant – alone, exposed, surrounded by strangers – makes my palms itch. Instead I call in at a Tesco Express near the hotel, grabbing items with barely a glance and dropping them into my basket. A ready-to-eat pasta salad from the shelf. Crisps, flapjacks, chocolate chip cookies. Comfort food. I add a bottle of red wine and take it back to my hotel, fighting a powerful urge to ignore the food and get started on the wine straight away. I need a drink.
In the car park of the Premier Inn, I find a space in the corner with a view of the main entrance, checking all the cars around me and keeping an eye on the main entrance to the hotel. I can’t see Holt’s dark saloon car anywhere. But I do see a side entrance leading into the car park, a fire exit by the looks of it, slightly ajar after a staff member steps out for a cigarette break. After ten minutes, when there’s been no one suspicious coming or going from reception, I lock my car and walk quickly to the fire exit. I find myself in a side corridor away from main reception, quickly orientating myself.Ignore the lift. Take the stairs.On my corridor, I pull the stairwell door open a few inches, just enough to get a look each way. My room is only five doors away. The corridor looks clear, still no sign of Holt. I reach into my handbag and my fingers find the attack alarm that Tara gave me. Next to my keycard for the door. I hurry to my room and let myself in, a breath of relief pushing from my chest as the door slams shut behind me.
Silence. I flip on the lights and put the Tesco bag down on the desk, checking the bathroom in case there’s anyone hiding in there. It’s empty. I flip the security latch on the door, check the fisheye view of the corridor through the peephole, then take off my jacket and shoes, finally feeling some of the tension in my neck and shoulders start to ease. It feels better to have a solid door between me and the outside world.
I can’t stop thinking about Angela’s haunted expression as she sat with Zoe in the annexe, as she told me about her shattered family, weighed down with tragedy and grief. Circled by an unseen predator, who was waiting even now for his moment to finish what he started more than a year ago. Because it seems logical to assume that both her daughters were attacked by the same man. The same man who now wants to kill Mia – the clue to his identity he unknowingly left behind.
Holt. Markovitz. Church.
One of them is the Ghost.
My hunger has disappeared but I make myself open the pasta salad anyway, picking at it in its container, pouring wine into a plastic tumbler which doesn’t leave my hand until it’s empty again. The wine is a French Grenache, velvety and dark on my tongue, and I’m deep into my second cup and thinking about a third when an unfamiliar ringing breaks my train of thought.
It’s the hotel phone beside the bed, a little red light flashing below the keypad.Reception?I hadn’t asked for a call.
‘Hello?’
