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It was – what? Like getting drunk but ten times better? A hundred times? A thousand?

Definitely, but it was more than simply better. It was different. It made you feel perfect, flawless, like nothing could touch you. And it was so quick. There’d been the prick of the needle and then he had felt it rushing through every cell in his body and pointing them all in the same direction.

All the thoughts and questions and worries that had been running around his head dissolved. Should he have said yes to Penny? Was his job how he wanted to spend his life? Was the hole inside him, the Maggie-shaped hole, ever going to be filled in?

All gone. None of it mattered. All the anxiety and sadness and conflict – gone. Vanished, in an instant. Replaced by bliss, and the knowledge that he was safe and nothing could hurt him. He’d been happy, for the first time in years.

He’d woken and his first thought had been of the heroin and he’d smiled. For a while, he lay in bed, watching the sun stream in through the gap in the curtains. It was a lovely summer day. He could go for a walk. Head up to the countryside. Maybe hike up Kinder Scout and look down on Manchester below. He imagined lying on the rocks, feeling their warmth against his back, the sound of a brook lulling him to sleep, a gentle breeze keeping him cool. Or maybe sit and read the paper in his garden with a cup of tea.

Maybe call Penny and say, Sorry about yesterday, do you still want a drink?

No. Why bother? That was too complicated. Too difficult. Too risky. Something might go wrong.

He knew what he wanted. He wanted that feeling again.

He’d be back in work Monday, but why not spend one weekend happy? It wasn’t like he’d get addicted. You couldn’t get addicted doing it twice.

He swung his legs out of bed. The house was quiet, but Carl wouldn’t mind being woken up.

Four Years Earlier: July 2014

DI Wynne

1

Wynne’s phone rang. A number she didn’t know, with an unfamiliar area code. Probably some telemarketing bullshit.

But maybe not.

‘This is Wynne.’

‘Detective Inspector Wynne? This is DS Liz Dales, from Alsbury.’

Wynne straightened in her chair. She reached for a pencil.

‘Yes. How can I help?’

‘We received a request related to a letter posted two days ago somewhere in the village. We were asked to review any CCTV footage that might show who posted it.’

‘That’s right. The request came from me.’

‘Well, we think we have it. We think we have the letter being posted.’

‘Who was it?’

‘A man in his late fifties, maybe early sixties. He lives here in the village.’

‘Thanks,’ Wynne said. ‘We’ll be there as soon as we can. Do nothing until we arrive.’

2

The letters had continued to come every year around the anniversary. There was no letter on the seventh year – like the third year – but other than that they came. Mocking, boastful, sick. They were posted in various locations around the north of England, dropped into a postbox by the man – she assumed it was a man – who had abducted Maggie Cooper.

Wynne had spent hours reading them, looking for some clue, but there was nothing. At least nothing in the letters themselves. She had wondered why he had missed the third and seventh anniversaries. There must have been a reason. It could have been as simple as illness, or laziness, but Wynne didn’t think so. She thought something had prevented him from sending them, something like prison, or a stint working abroad.

So she had checked the prison admissions in those years, looking for someone from the Warrington area who had been locked up in the third year, free in the fourth, and back inside in the seventh. There were one or two, but it had come to nothing. She checked the same with the Army; again, nothing.

And now she had the latest letter.