Page 86 of The Unforgiven

“It is. I believe you were her social worker after she was discharged from Lindridge Psychiatric Unit.”

“I was. For about eighteen months, and then she completely disappeared. She’d been living first of all in semi-independent housing, usually used for care leavers who need more support than they’d get independently. It wasn’t the best place for her – some of the other girls were violent, and Kelly-Anne was an easy target. She’d managed to sit her A-Levels while she was at Lindridge, so she applied to university to study psychology, and moved into the Halls of Residence. I helped her apply for various grants, and she was successful.” Annie’s words were fond; I could hear affection in them.

“She succeeded then?”

“She did. She was a quiet thing, but not selectively mute any more. Studying psychology was great for her as I think she understood herself better. She carried on with therapy too, all on the NHS, but reliable. I saw her every six weeks, then eight weeks and then she disappeared. Dropped out just before the end of her first year. The university actually contacted me to ask if I knew what’d happened.”

“Where did she go?” Was she the first victim?

“We don’t know. She’d cleared out her room in halls. Everything was taken and the room pristine. She’d withdrawn all her money from her bank accounts. She left a note in her room, very brief, thanking everyone for how they’d helped her, but she needed a fresh start, so it was never treated as a missingperson. She was an adult and at the time, not vulnerable. I’ve never heard anything from her since.”

Wrigley paced from one side of the office to the other, looking ahead of him all the time, right through anyone in his line of sight. “We need to find two women: Kelly-Anne Marsh, last known whereabouts is Leeds, seven years ago, and Sophie Davies. One or both could be a victim or a potential victim. Or we can’t discount that one of them could be our killer. We’re also looking for the three men you can see in this photo – we’ve aged them as to how they may look now. Nick, where are we up to online?”

I half-listened to Nick bring everyone up to speed on what online digging had been done on the three boys in the photos from Aberwyn. I was combing through information sent from Leeds University pertaining to Kelly-Anne. She’d been a bright and conscientious student, assignments in on time and high marks for each one. Kept herself to herself, or so I found when I managed to get in touch with one of her contemporaries who’d been in the same halls and on her course, sharing a couple of seminars, who was now still at the university and had just completed a PhD.

“I was sure I saw her recently,” Georgie Holland had said. “Or I saw someone who reminded me of her. It was a shame she moved – she was just starting to come out of her shell. What happened to her?”

Which was the question of the moment.

Kelly-Anne Marsh had ceased to exist. Disappeared. Disappeared after she’d said she wanted a fresh start.

The question was, what did that fresh start entail?

Chapter Thirty-Eight

I cut through Piccadilly Gardens onto Mosely Street, almost witnessing a teenager being taken out by a tram as they dashed across the road, aiming for Primark. Luckily, I didn’t have to stop and provide a witness statement, just cope with a slight deafening for a few seconds.

Three minutes later and I was outside a bar on New York Street, Darcy Harrop waiting for me outside, wearing a raincoat that made her look like Little Red Riding Hood.

“Thank you for meeting me. Can I get you a drink?” She was beaming with excitement.

I followed her into the bar, finding the one empty table. “I’ll get these. What do you want?” Being bought a drink by a member of the press wouldn’t be the wisest thing I’d ever done.

“Whatever you’re having.”

“I’m having a cocktail. Something with a load of steam that comes off it.” The bar was more drama than alcohol, but I could get behind that.

Two foaming, colour changing cocktails felt sticky in my hands as I took them over to the table, Darcy waiting expectantly.

I’d agreed to meet her to talk about what it was like to be a woman on a murder investigation team and give her what information I could about the Aberwyn Girls.

She’d released a podcast last week and sent me a link. I’d given it a listen and found it quite entertaining. She talked about Daniel’s lecture, which she’d apparently attended, and the advice I’d given her about staying safe, and then she went through the statistics about men on women violence, all in an entertaining way. I’d sent it to Wrigley, who’d told me Pam had liked it, and you couldn’t really get a better review than that.

“Thank you,” Darcy said, taking a slurp of the cocktail. “Did you listen to the podcast?”

“I did. It was good.”

“Would you be a guest on it?” She didn’t waste her words.

“I think so. When this case is over, although I can’t give details about it. I can talk about some of the procedures though, and the parts that are boring and frustrating.” The cocktail was good, sweet and overindulgent. One would be enough – I had things I needed to do tonight.

“How’s it going? The murdered girls? Five victims definitely makes a serial killer, doesn’t it?”

“It does. We have some strong leads. There’s a press conference tomorrow if you can make it.”

“I’ll make it. Do you think you’ll make an arrest?”

“Yes.” I was sure of it. “And I don’t think it’ll be long off.” I debated what to tell her. “We’re looking for two women who all holidayed at a caravan and lodge site in North-Wales. There’s a connection with the victims.”