5
The rain poured down, washing away her tears. It should have felt cleansing, but it didn’t—she was too far gone for that. She plunged madly through the tangled foliage of the wood, not heeding her direction. She just needed to keep going. Away. Away. Away.
Thorns tore at her face; stones lacerated her feet. But on she went. Her eyes scanned desperately for someone, something, but all she could see were trees. For a moment she had a terrible thought—was she even in England still? She screamed for help, but her cries were feeble, her throat too hoarse to function.
At Sampson’s Winter Wonderland, families were queuing patiently for Santa’s Grotto. The whole site was really just a handful of tents hastily erected on muddy farmland, but the kids seemed to like it. Father of four Freddie Williams had just bitten into his first mince pie of the season when he saw her. Through the driving rain, she appeared ghostly. Freddie’s mince pie hung in midair as she limped slowly but deliberately across the site, her eyes fixed on him. On closer inspection, she wasn’t ghostly; she was pitiful—bedraggled, bleeding and deathly pale. Freddie didn’t want any part of her—she looked mental—but his legs wouldn’t move, rendered immobile by the fierceness of her gaze. She covered the last few yards quicker than he’d expected and suddenly he was reeling backward as she launched herself upon him. His mince pie somersaulted into the sky, landing with a satisfyingsplatin a puddle.
In the site office, swathed in a blanket, she didn’t look any less mental. She wouldn’t tell them where she’d been or where she was from. She didn’t even seem to know what day it was. In fact, all they could get out of her was that she was called Amy and that she’d murdered her boyfriend that morning.
***
Helen jammed the brakes and came to a halt outside Southampton Central Police Station. The futuristic glass and limestone building towered above her, commanding fantastic views over the city and the docks. It was only a year or two old and by any measure was an impressive nick. State-of-the-art custody facilities, a Crown Prosecution Service unit on-site, SmartWater testing facilities—it had everything a modern copper needed. She parked up and walked inside.
“Sleeping on the job, Jerry?”
The desk sergeant snapped out of his daydream and tried to look as busy as possible. They always sat up a bit straighter when Helen entered. This wasn’t just because she was a detective inspector; it also had something to do with the way she carried herself. Entering the building clad in her bike leathers, she was six feet of driving ambition and energy. Never late, never hungover, never sick. She lived and breathed her job with a fierceness they could only dream of.
Helen headed straight for the offices of the Major Incident Team. Southampton’s flagship nick might be revolutionary, but the city it watched over remained unchanged. As Helen surveyed the caseload, she sagged a little at the predictable familiarity of it all. A domestic argument that had ended in murder—two lives ruined and a young child taken into care. The attempted murder of a Saints fan by traveling Leeds United supporters, and most recently the brutal killing of an eighty-two-year-old man in a botched mugging. His attacker had dropped the stolen wallet while fleeing the scene, handing the police a clean fingerprint and a swift ID. The perpetrator was well-known to Southampton police—just another lowlife who had devastated an unsuspecting family in the run-up to Christmas. Helen was due to brief Crown Prosecution Service lawyers on the particulars this morning. She opened the file, determined that the case against this little thug should be absolutely watertight.
“Don’t get too comfortable. Job’s on.”
Mark, her DS, approached. A handsome and talented copper, Detective Sergeant Mark Fuller had worked hand in glove with Helen for the last five years. Murder, child abduction, rape, sex trafficking—he’d helped her solve numerous unpleasant cases and she had come to rely on his dedication, intuition and bravery. A nasty divorce had taken its toll, however, and recently he’d become erratic and unreliable. Helen was depressed to notice that he once again smelled of booze.
“Young girl who says she’s killed her boyfriend.”
Mark extracted a photo from his file and handed it to Helen. It had the distinctive Missing Persons stamp on the top right-hand corner.
“Victim’s name is Sam Fisher.”
Helen looked down at the snapshot of a fresh-faced young man. Clean-cut, optimistic, even a touch naive. Mark paused a moment, allowing Helen to examine the photo, before handing her another.
“And our suspect. Amy Anderson.”
Helen couldn’t hide her surprise as she took in the image. A beautiful bohemian girl—twenty-one years old at the very most. With long, flowing hair, striking cobalt eyes and delicate lips, she looked the definition of youth and innocence. Helen picked up her jacket.
“Let’s go, then.”
“Do you want to drive or shall—?”
“I will.”
They walked down to the car pool in silence. En route, Helen extracted her DC, who’d been liaising with Missing Persons. The irrepressibly perky Detective Constable Charlene “Charlie” Brooks was a good officer, diligent and spirited, who resolutely refused to dress like a cop. Today’s offering was skintight leather trousers. It was beyond Helen’s remit to take her to task over her dress sense, but she was tempted to nevertheless.
In the car, the stale alcohol on Mark’s breath smelled even stronger. Helen cast a sideways look at him before rolling down the window.
“So what have we got?” she asked.
Charlie already had the file open.
“Amy Anderson. Reported missing a little over two weeks ago. Last seen at a gig in London. She e-mailed her mother on the evening of the second of December to say she was hitching home with Sam and would be back before midnight. No sign of either since. Her mother phoned it in.”
“Then what?”
“She turns up at Sampson’s this morning. Says she’s killed her boyfriend, then clams up. Won’t say a word to anybody now.”
“And where’s she been all this time?”
Mark and Charlie looked at each other. Mark eventually replied:
