‘Where are you two going?’ Marc’s voice bellowed down the corridor, making Morgan jerk her head up. She looked wild. Her hair was more down than up; her eyeliner was smudged and there were dark circles under her eyes.
Cain whispered, ‘Sorry.’
She croaked, ‘What time is it?’
‘Almost eight.’
Rubbing her eyes with her fingers, she straightened up. ‘Crap.’
Marc strode into the room, took one look at her, then craned his neck to see Ben who was still asleep in his chair. ‘Why didn’t the pair of you go home?’
‘We were going through the case files for the past three murders.’
‘Can’t pay you for sleeping, you know that right?’
Cain pulled a face behind his back and moved his closed fingers up and down as he mouthed, ‘Wanker.’
This made Morgan cup a hand across her mouth so the smirk on her lips was concealed. ‘Yes, boss.’
‘Did you find anything?’
Morgan needed coffee and fast because she felt as if her brain was nothing but thick sludge, and her mouth was so dry it was hard to form words. She shook her head instead.
Marc strode across to Ben’s office door and threw it open. ‘Wakey, wakey, rise and shine.’
Ben snorted and snapped his head up, staring at Marc in complete confusion until he realised where he was. Morgan didn’t miss the flash of anger in his eyes as he stared at the boss, who stepped inside, closing the door behind him.
Cain’s voice was as hushed as he could make it. ‘What’s going on?’
Stan was sitting at his desk logging on to his computer, and he looked up, both of them waiting for her to answer. She pointed to the whiteboard that had photographs, graphic photographs, of Lauren tacked onto it. Wendy, at her request, had also taken lots of the outside of the building, and she had a shot of the Keswick Manor Hotel in all its full abandoned glory. Cain and Stan both stood up, walking nearer to it. Stan quickly turned away when he realised exactly what he was looking at, but Cain stared long and hard.
‘When did this happen?’
‘Last night, just as we were about to order a takeaway.’
‘No way.’
She nodded and couldn’t help the smile on her lips; Cain’s whole life revolved around food, and at the thought of food her stomach let out a growl so loud even Cain heard it.
‘Well, first of all if you two pulled an all-nighter on empty stomachs you need to eat. I’ll go get you something in a minute, but do we know who the victim is?’
‘We don’t know her as far as I’m aware, no record or intel on the system, but we knowofher which makes it completely suck.’
‘We do?’
‘Her sister was Lydia Williams.’ She let her name hang in the air.
‘No.’
‘Unfortunately, yes, and now we need to locate the third sister because she hasn’t been heard from since a couple of days after Lydia’s death.’
‘You think she’s good for this? Hang on, Beth Montgomery confessed to killing Lydia. Who would want to kill her sister?’
‘The same person who killed her sister, most likely. I think we fucked up. I don’t think Beth was the killer, or if she was, she had an accomplice and was covering up for them.’
Stan gaped. ‘What, are you saying that the killer is still out there? What if it’s a copycat though, someone who wants us to think we messed up the first time but it’s someone who wasn’t involved.’ His voice was slightly higher pitched than usual at this notion.
Morgan nodded. ‘If it is a copycat then that’s even more worrying because there are only a few people who know the exact details of the crime scenes. I’d much rather go with the possibility that Beth wasn’t working alone, that makes more sense, I think.’
