Page 29 of The Unforgiven

He stood up and frowned. “What is it?”

“Another email.”

He nodded, looking through the glass window into the rest of the office. “Have you shown it anyone else?”

“I haven’t opened it yet. I’ve just seen the name Atlas fly up. I don’t want to open something that hacks into every database we have and be forever known as that female cop.” Because my gender would be the determiner there.

“Got it. Why you, Mia?” he followed me to my desk, pulling up Lachy’s chair so he could sit next to me.

“I’ve been asking myself the same question.” I entered my password, changed frequently, the first letters from the line of a song I usually had in my head with random numbers that weren’t that random. I opened my email client; nine unread emails. The third one down was from Echo_Atlas_4152, the subject ‘spot the difference’.

“Should I open it? There are no attachments.” I hovered the mouse over it.

“It won’t have a virus. Don’t click on any links or download attachments, but it wouldn’t have gotten through the firewall if it was buggy, unless it’s someone ten steps ahead of us malware wise.” He sounded like he was being hypnotised. I sometimes forgot how Nick’s passion, apart from Manchester City, was anything online.

I opened the email.

Mia,

Same blade. Different city.

Leeds — twelve months ago.

Male, 29. Found near Burley Park. Stabbed once — left lower quadrant.

Depth: 10.5cm. Lacerated the inferior mesenteric artery and sigmoid colon. Death from rapid blood loss.

No struggle. No obvious motive.

Police called it gang-related. Mistaken identity.

But there was no follow-up. No match on blade.

No pattern — not then.

You’ll see it now.

—Echo_Atlas_4152

(This thread closes soon. Don’t reply.)

I read it three times and looked at Nick. “Why me?”

“I think you already know the answer to that, Mac.” His expression was the most serious I’d ever seen it. ‘He knows something about your background.”

The office suddenly felt too quiet, as if everyone was trying to listen in. “I need lunch. Want to join me?”

He nodded, grabbing his jacket from the partially broken coat stand while I locked my machine.

We headed outside, towards Piccadilly Gardens from the office, leaving behind the building we unaffectionately named the Pigeon Loft due to the copious amounts of the grey birds that gathered on the scaffolding that we suspected was holding the building up. It was a listed building, used by the serious crimes teams for the last decade as the place they’d been in before it had been condemned. We were awaiting the completion of anew building in the now trendy NOMA district, which was next to Angel Meadow, Engels’ favourite place to visit in Manchester, the home of pits of cholera victims.

There was a beautiful irony with it, really. Murder, rot and fire had become executive living.

For now, we hung with the pigeons and laughed every time one managed to crap on Vinny, never feeling quite alone even when we were there in the dead of night. Manchester didn’t sleep anyway. Shoppers and office workers and daytime partiers were replaced in the evenings with theatregoers and meal eaters, then as nighttime came into play, different parts of the city awakened. The early morning shift workers, postal workers, nurses, bus drivers, the people who should be home but circumstances – chosen or forced – meant that the Manchester dawn was their current companion. The city crawled at different paces along the various shades of grey concrete and through the red brick.

We headed to the nearby sandwich shop, a little independently owned place frequented by cops and nearby office workers, where the bread was thick, and words were sparse.

Nick ordered something fried and I went for a ham salad, the brief respite from rain offering us a dry stroll while we ate.