‘Excuse me a moment.’ Morgan ran up the stairs, almost colliding with Wendy who was photographing the hallway.
‘Morgan.’
‘Sorry, stay there, Wendy, don’t go anywhere on your own.’
She dashed down to the room where Ben was whispering to Scotty. She leaned forward and whispered, ‘What if the killer is still here? We need to get Task Force here to search or a couple of taser officers at least.’
Ben nodded and asked, ‘Did you search the building, Scotty?’
He shook his head. ‘No, stayed with Lauren. I can’t believe she’s dead. It’s like some kind of bad dream; her poor sister is going to be devastated. She lost one sister a couple of months ago and now this.’
‘What? Who?’
‘Lydia Williams, the woman in the roof tent at the campsite was her older sister.’
‘Oh crap.’
Morgan’s voice was hoarse; she was so shocked at this revelation. She thought back to the knife in the body.
Ben nodded at the paramedics. ‘Are you guys done? I need to clear the area.’
‘All done, we’ll finish the paperwork in the truck.’
‘Cheers. Scotty, escort them out, please. Morgan, let’s take a moment then we’ll follow them too.’
Ben waited until they were at the stairs, going down them.
‘Do you think the killer would still be here?’ His voice was so close to her ear his breath tickled the tiny hairs inside of it.
‘I don’t think so, but it’s a huge building, we can’t be sure he isn’t.’
‘What about the guy who ran in, do we need to print and swab him?’
‘Yes, he looks upset enough, but he got here pretty quick. Where did he say they are based again?’
‘Kendal. Let’s get him back to the station and processed. If he resists, we can tell him it’s because he entered the scene, so we have his DNA on record.’
Morgan was impressed, that was a little bit of a sneaky way to get him into custody and get his fingerprints and DNA on file, but a necessity. Just because he looked upset, it didn’t mean he couldn’t have done this and killed Lauren, then left to come back and make his entrance.
THREE
1988
Angela Barrat stared at the blank television screen. She had no idea how long she’d been staring at it, but it soothed her a little. Her eyelids began to gently droop, her head began to nod. Tired wasn’t a strong enough word to describe the exhaustion she felt. As her chin began to touch her chest the sickly smell of stale milk filled her nostrils and tears began to roll down her face. She hated this, she hadn’t wanted to have a baby when she’d only just escaped her horrid parents.
Her mum had been too scared of her domineering father to ever stick up for Angela, so when the opportunity came along for her to leave their suffocating household, that’s what she did with wide open arms. She hadn’t even really liked Jonathan, but he’d had his own flat and that meant freedom, so when he’d asked her out, she jumped at the chance.
Now though, she was in a mess, married to him with a six-week-old baby she didn’t want and the desire to sleep for a week solid. It was no good, smelling revolting or not it didn’t matter, she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. She curled herself up into a ball on the two-seater sofa that they’d bargained for in a charity shop because it had reclining seats. They’d never be able to afford a new one until he was earning more money.
The crying began the moment she drifted off, softly at first, penetrating her dreams until it became full-on wailing at the top of its voice. ‘No.’ Angela begun to cry as hard as the baby she’d put in the crib in the bedroom. She ignored it, but it didn’t stop like all the baby magazines had told her it would.
In a daze she dragged herself off the chair, into the bedroom and picked it up.
She would never hurt him, she wasn’t the kind of person to do that kind of thing, but she glared at him with hate in her eyes that she’d only ever felt for her father. It even looked like him a little, he had the same ring of ginger hair around his crown and squinty black eyes. She wondered if it was a demon of some kind sent to test her. Scooping him up she felt her fingers touch something warm and wet. The smell of baby poop was the worst thing she’d ever had to inhale, and it had squelched out of his nappy, up his back and right through his vest and Babygro.
‘I hate you,’ she whispered to him through clenched teeth as she realised she was now covered in shit as well as baby sick. She thrust him back down into the cot and went into the bathroom to run a bath.
He cried the entire time she was running the bath. She did everything she was supposed to do and made sure it wasn’t too hot by sticking the crook of her elbow in the water to test the temperature. Stripping off the stinking T-shirt she’d been wearing, she walked back into the bedroom to pick up the now hysterical baby. Angela undressed him, took off his nappy and wiped him the best that she could. Carrying him into the bathroom he began to calm down a little.
