*

  The team were waiting for more forensic results. They had DNA from the three missing girls’ families – taken from toothbrushes, hair slides, hairbrushes as well as blood samples from family members. The scientists were working in shifts as there was so much evidence from the coal hole and basement flat to work through, examining a saw blade, a wire brush, a shovel and a fifteen-inch sharpened screwdriver, along with four long, sharp-bladed knives.

  They had their first match by 10.30 a.m., with Nadine O’Reilly’s DNA.

  At eleven o’clock the second match came in. This time it was for Trudie Hudson, and the match had come from the wire brush as well as a section of the stone flooring in the coal hole. No one celebrated.

  Sara had pinned up four other possible runaways who were still missing – two of them now had the word ‘traced’ stamped across their faces. But even with the horrific evidence, they still did not have any bodies or body parts, and that could be a problem.

  Local officers now had the sad and difficult job of visiting the families and telling them about the positive DNA matches. Meanwhile, Sara was keeping a watchful eye on Amanda Dunn’s progress. She had been diagnosed with severe anaemia and was dangerously underweight. She had been put on a glucose drip and appeared to be gaining strength. She had been asking when she could go to see Rodney, and when she could have her mobile phone back. The officers had been given strict instructions not to allow Amanda to make any calls on the landline, unless they were recorded, and her mobile was not to be returned to her. She did not have any money and had to remain in hospital until the doctors discharged her into a hostel or protective custody. Interviewing Amanda was obviously urgent but according to the doctor caring for her, he felt she was not yet fit to be interviewed as she had a high temperature.

  Sara put down the phone after speaking to the female officer who was monitoring Amanda. She looked over to Anik. ‘The officer said Amanda was very childlike, like she’s a bit backward, although she’s getting a bit tetchy apparently because she’s not allowed to smoke. What do you think?’

  Anik pursed his lips and shrugged.

  ‘I’ve never met her, but from what we have on her sick boyfriend I would say she is likely to be a co-conspirator. She picked up the girls with the bastard; she had to know what was happening in that fucking shithole of a basement flat, just like Rosemary West. I think she should be arrested.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, she’s only seventeen years old!’ Sara protested.

  ‘So were the dead girls, some even younger. Laura told me Amanda Dunn was an accomplished liar and even pulled the wool over super-sleuth Jack Warr’s eyes. He gave her cash for a train fare back to her parents, but she never went. Oh, and by the way, he left a memo for us to check into the possibility that Rodney’s aunt or her husband may have provided him with a mobile.’

  They were interrupted by Leon, passing on a message from the desk sergeant.

  ‘There’s a Mrs O’Reilly in reception, waiting to talk to someone about her daughter.’

  ‘Oh my God, we sent a liaison officer to her home. Does she know about the DNA match?’ Sara asked.

  ‘I don’t know, I’m just bringing the message. What do you say, sarge?’ He looked at Anik.

  ‘Listen, I’m not good at this stuff. You go and talk to her, Sara. If you’re not up for it go and talk to the DCI, because by rights he should be the one talking to her; but he’s got his hands full with that fat little woman Glenda Bagshot, and the Chief Super is in with them.’

  Sara hesitated, then agreed to go and talk to Mrs O’Reilly. She had never had to break bad news to the relative of a deceased person, whether it was accidental or murder. She told Leon to take Mrs O’Reilly into the small interview room and to organise a cup of tea for her. She then took out her makeup bag and opened a compact to check her hair and freshen her lipstick.

  ‘What on earth are you checking yourself for?’ Anik snapped. ‘Just go and do it and get back as fast as you can. We have a big backlog of statements to check through.’

  The small interview room contained a table and two chairs. It smelt stale, and the only window was high up on the back wall. The strip lighting was blinking as if the bulb was loose or needed changing.

  Mrs O’Reilly was sitting with her back to the door. Her dark, rather greasy hair was tied with a black rubber band, and she wore a heavy tweed coat and fur-lined ankle boots.

  On her lap was a large worn leather bag. She turned expectantly when Sara entered the room.

  ‘Thank you for the tea,’ she said in a soft Irish accent.

  Sara introduced herself and sat down opposite.

  ‘I got the train, straight after they’d come around to the house for some of Nadine’s things. They told me that they were officers working for the Metropolitan Police here in London and gave me the address. I knew that it must be important – my husband said to me that they asked for certain things and he said he had seen programmes on the TV, you know, real crime ones, and they always asked for things like toothbrushes and hair accessories. He said that it was for identification purposes. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs O’Reilly, that is correct.’

  ‘Then we got another woman come round and she told us that they was doing a murder investigation, that Nadine might have been killed at a house in London. She was very nice, trying to be helpful. She said it wasn’t confirmed yet, and so now I’m here to find out if they have found her.’

  ‘Mrs O’Reilly, I am very sorry to tell you, but we have found items that belonged to your daughter.’

  ‘Does it mean that you’ve found her? Maybe I’ve wasted the train fare, I was just eager to help . . . at least to speak to her because I never meant to get into such a row with her . . . I’ve been wanting to slap myself for being so nasty to her, but she can be a right little madam sometimes, and . . .’

  Sara was desperate to stop the flow, but just as she was about to try and explain that they had found evidence that her daughter was no longer alive, Mrs O’Reilly dug in her worn handbag and pulled out a postcard.

  ‘This is what I wanted to bring here, because when we got it . . . well, it was a while back, but it made me feel not so worried. Here, dear, you read it.’

  The postcard was a photograph of Buckingham Palace and had been posted almost eight months ago. Sara turned it over and read the message on the back:

  Dear Ma – Just to let you know I’ve met some friends from Snapchat, and they let me move in with them. I’m going to try and get a job in a hair salon and I’m not coming home. Love Nadine.

  ‘Thank you for bringing this in,’ Sara said. The date on the postcard would be helpful in constructing their timelines. As she was about to give Mrs O’Reilly the sad news, she dived into her bag again and this time brought out a mobile phone.

  ‘This is what caused the big row. She was never off it, and we had to pay the bills. So my husband took it away from her and it made her go crazy. She attacked me. She was that angry. Next morning she’d gone. We thought she was just messing, so we didn’t report her missing for a couple of days. Then we got that postcard saying she wasn’t coming home. The phone’s dead and it’s been in a drawer all this time.’

  ‘Is the handwriting on the postcard Nadine’s, Mrs O’Reilly?’

  ‘Yes, that’s her handwriting . . . she was very clever at school.’

  ‘When you reported Nadine missing, did they ask you whether she had a mobile phone?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, but it wasn’t turned on or charged up, just in the drawer.’

  Sara reached over and touched Mrs O’Reilly’s hand. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Mrs O’Reilly, I am very sorry to tell you that Nadine may not be coming home.’

  She looked bewildered. ‘I don’t understand. Has she got herself into trouble? I knew it when the coppers came round asking for her things, showing me photographs of her things; I just knew it.’

  Sara quietly explained to Mrs O’Reilly that they had DNA and other evidence indicating Nadine was probably dead.

  Mrs O’Reilly repeatedly shook her head, then suddenly broke into tormented sobs. Sara felt terrible for being the bearer of such devastating news. She offered her another cup of tea, then got up and walked around the table to put her arms around the distraught mother. Sara spent another half an hour with Mrs O’Reilly, then ordered a taxi to the train station for her.

  Sara returned to the incident room, feeling emotionally overwhelmed. As she slumped into her seat, Anik came over to ask how it had gone. She shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘It was horrible. I couldn’t give her any details, like Nadine’s body not being found; it was just so hard . . . totally heartbreaking.’

  Anik looked at the mobile phone and the postcard she had placed on the desk in front of her.

  ‘What’s this?’

  Sara told him that Nadine’s parents had received the postcard and that they thought she had run away because they had taken her mobile phone away. He picked up the card, read it, then studied the mobile.

  ‘This is a major breakthrough! This means that little two-faced bitch Amanda Dunn could have been in contact with Nadine on Snapchat. The guv is going to love this.’

  Sara watched him scoot across the incident room and go into DCI Clarke’s office. All she could think of was the expression on Mrs O’Reilly’s face when she had told her that Nadine was possibly never coming home. Anik came back to his desk after a short while. ‘I’m going to go and interview Middleton’s aunt and her husband about giving him a mobile phone.’

  ‘Do you need a search warrant?’ Sara asked.

  ‘No, just going to put the frighteners on them. As you met them both, you can come along with me if you like.’

  After they had left the station, new information came in from forensics. They had now identified a DNA match with the missing girl, Jamail. The positive result came from blood splattering in the coal hole and the hairs recovered from the drain inside the basement flat, indicating that Jamail had probably been dismembered in the bathroom.

  The incriminating evidence was mounting by the hour. However, no relevant clothing had been found from the charity drop cabinet yet, but they were still searching the vast warehouse where the clothes were being sorted, ready for distribution. Twenty officers had been assigned to the landfill sites, but as yet, they hadn’t unearthed any evidence connected to the murders. Leon had been compiling the missing girls’ dates of birth which had been passed to them by the victims’ respective families. He knocked on DCI Clarke’s office door.

  Clarke looked up at Leon with an irritated expression, as he was busy trying to collate all the new evidence.

  Leon was hesitant.

  ‘Sir, I just wanted you to know that I’ve been double-checking all the birth dates of the missing victims and matching them with the missing persons reports.’

  ‘Yes, and. . .?’

  ‘It’s Amanda Dunn, sir. She was born on 15th March 2006 and is therefore a bit older than we thought. It means she’s now eighteen years old as her birthday was last week. She’s no longer a juvenile.’

  DCI Clarke sat back in his swivel chair.

  ‘Good lad. That could be a great help when we question her, or if we go as far as arresting her. The more we uncover, the more it appears she was an accessory to the murders.’

  Leon went to record the new information on the notice board. There was now a fourth section to accommodate the new developments. In the light of Leon’s discovery, Clarke contacted the hospital to check on Amanda’s wellbeing. He was told that she was no longer on a drip feed and had recovered enough to be moved from the hospital to a different facility. Clarke started the process of arranging a safe house with local authorities plus 24/7 surveillance.

  *

  Sara and Anik rang the bell at the Millers’ flat and waited. There was no sign of anyone coming, but they knew it was occupied and continued to ring. Eventually Harold Miller opened the front door. Anik held up his ID and asked to speak to Joyce Miller.

  ‘She can’t see anyone right now. She’s with her carers, being washed,’ Harold told them.

  ‘That’s alright,’ Anik said. ‘I can talk to you whilst my DC goes into the bedroom.’

  Reluctantly Harold let them in.

  Sara knocked on the wide bedroom door. The folded wheelchair was leaning against the wall in the hallway and Sara doubted that Joyce had left the room for some considerable time.

  A care worker in a navy blue overall opened the door. Sara explained that it was important she speak to Joyce on an urgent matter.

  ‘Well, we’re almost finished,’ the carer explained. ‘We just turned her, but her bed sores are very painful. She’s in a lot of discomfort.’

  Sara walked into the bedroom. The second care worker was attempting to put a vast kimono-style garment over Joyce’s head and Sara could see her bloated stomach falling in rolls down to her massive thighs. Her legs were also bloated, making her feet look as if they belonged to a tiny doll in comparison to the bulky body above them. Joyce gave Sara an angry look as she struggled to put her arms through the sleeves.

  ‘You should have waited. I was being washed.’

  ‘I do apologise. I urgently need to ask you a question with regard to your nephew, Rodney Middleton.’

  The two carers packed up their equipment and, after pulling a sheet up over Joyce’s body, they left the room. Joyce proceeded to clean her teeth, using a mug and a bowl for her to spit into. Sara moved closer and stood beside Joyce’s bed. She watched as Joyce began to comb her thick dark hair. Joyce then balanced a plastic makeup bag on her breasts and dug around in it until she found some moisturiser and foundation.

  ‘Did you supply your nephew with a mobile phone?’ Sara asked bluntly.

  ‘No, I did not,’ Joyce said indignantly. ‘I haven’t seen him for a very long time. Why would I purchase a mobile phone for him? I have one, but I only use it for my carers and the hospital and for ordering in food deliveries.’

  ‘Could I see it, please?’ Sara asked.

  Joyce waved her tiny hand at the bedside table, then went back to applying her makeup. Sara went across to the table and picked up an old-fashioned flip-top mobile, almost hidden by piles chocolate bars and biscuits.

  ‘Can you give me the PIN, please?’

  ‘3-2-4-5, but you won’t find anything on there, apart from what I just told you.’

  Sara leaned against the bed as she opened the phone. She scrolled through the list of recent calls, jotting down the numbers so she could verify that they were the ones Joyce had mentioned: carers, hospital and food deliveries. Joyce was now applying eye shadow and mascara.

  ‘You probably think this is a waste of time,’ she said. ‘But I always wear makeup just in case I have to be seen by a doctor, or a nurse. I always try to look my best. I have a woman come in to do my hair once a week: she dry washes it, and then once a month I have it properly washed. We’ve got a plastic thing for me to rest my head against and she has a basin propped up behind me with a hose from the bathroom, I’m very particular about the way my hair is set.’

  Sara finished checking through the phone. There were no text messages, no apps and there was no contact stored on it for Rodney Middleton.

  ‘Do you have Wi-Fi here?’ she asked.

  ‘My husband has it in his office, but I don’t use it. I just watch the TV and DVDs. Why do you want to see my phone?’

  ‘Just confirming some details regarding the investigation, Mrs Miller. Thank you for your time.’

  Joyce pointed to the photographs adorning the wall. ‘That was me, that photo next to my little nieces; one of them looked a bit like me. I was quite the looker when I was younger.’

  Sara glanced over at the large photos of Joyce’s two dead nieces – two adorable-looking little girls dressed in pretty clothes, smiling. The smaller photograph beside them was of Joyce as a young woman. She was slim and attractive, and it was shocking to see how much she had changed.

  Sara thanked her again and put the phone back down on her bedside table. She declined the offer of a Mars bar as Joyce unwrapped one, sucking at it as she switched on the TV.

  Anik was sitting with Harold Miller in his office. He turned to Sara as she walked in giving him a little shake of her head to indicate she had found nothing. Anik stood up and carried the small hard-backed chair back to its place against the wall.

  ‘Mr Miller says that he has never supplied his nephew with a mobile phone. We were just searching for the receipt for his wife’s mobile, but he seems to be having difficulty tracing it.’

  ‘Mrs Miller has an old flip top mobile, with only a few numbers and no apps,’ Sara explained. ‘There’s no contact for Rodney and the numbers are mostly medical or for food delivery companies. I didn’t think we need to take it in, but I can double-check with her service provider. She said she doesn’t use Wi-Fi, but we found Netflix and Prime on the TV in her bedroom.’

  Anik moved closer to Miller, and Miller reacted nervously.

  ‘I don’t think we need to take Mrs Miller’s phone,’ Anik said in his most officious voice, ‘but I think we need to escort Mr Miller in to the station for questioning. We have video footage of Mr Miller passing money and a mobile phone to his nephew. I don’t think he realised the seriousness of him withholding evidence in a murder enquiry, and how it could have serious consequences for him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Harold asked in a high-pitched voice.

  ‘You have been lying, Mr Miller. Perhaps you can start telling us the truth or we’ll have to take you in. Your nephew has been arrested and will be charged with three murders . . .’

  Anik leant very close and kept his voice low.

  ‘You are obstructing this investigation, Mr Miller, and I’m losing my patience.’

  Miller swallowed hard. He had begun to sweat. He retrieved a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked one of the drawers on his desk.