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‘I’m not retired.’
‘I heard a rumour that you were thinking of it.’
Does Jo’s spy network reach all the way to Blackpool?
‘You’re one step ahead of me then.’
‘That wouldn’t surprise me. This job, though, it’s an interesting one. They’re after someone to head up the cold-case investigation team. What about it? Aren’t you missing the bright lights of the Golden Mile?’
He is, of course.
‘Cold cases?’ says Nelson. ‘I’m working on one now.’
‘Good luck,’ says Sandy. ‘Shall I mention your name to the super just in case?’
‘Why not?’ says Nelson.
‘Your little lad was with Michelle. He’s growing up fast.’
‘He is,’ says Nelson. As he says goodbye, he wonders how much his old friend knows. Or guesses.
Nelson calls a rather depleted team meeting with Tanya and Bradley. He explains that Tony is isolating.
‘Why doesn’t he just delete the app?’ asks Bradley.
Nelson secretly agrees but he knows he should be encouraging responsible Covid-prevention.
‘I’ve told Tony to go through everything on the original case,’ he says. ‘He might spot something the previous team missed. I’ll ask for some extra manpower– person power, sorry, Tanya– but, until then, we’ll just have to cope. We can do one-person interviews, recording them on body cams. Tanya, you go to London to interview Tom Westbourne. Better drive to cut down the risk of getting Covid on the train.’
‘Did you know that Tom was married to Amber Fletcher-Ellis?’ says Tanya.
‘I didn’t,’ says Nelson. ‘That is a turn-up for the books. Still, it means we can kill two birds with one stone. Emad Hussein is in London too. Bradley, you go to Manchester and interview Mark Oldbury. And we need to talk to Ballard again. Ruth saw him today and he was acting very strangely. He told her to “look to the sister”.’
‘So that’s what that was about,’ says Tanya. ‘I asked about Sophie Pickering. Apparently, she visited Emily at Cambridge once.’
‘The mum said she was in Emily’s shadow,’ volunteers Bradley.
‘Ballard was probably just trying to muddy the waters,’ says Nelson. ‘But I still think he might know something.’
‘I thought he was a creep,’ says Tanya.
‘According to Ruth, he thought you were “interesting”,’ says Nelson. ‘What did you make of the wife?’
‘I quite liked her,’ says Tanya. ‘But she seemed very defensive about Ballard. Insisted that there was nothing odd about his relationship with Emily. She said Emily was like all the others, but she only seemed to mention female students. Oh, and the Ballards had a daughter who died.’
‘That’s really sad,’ says Bradley.
‘She died at six weeks old. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. They went on to have two sons who are grown up now. Alice said that we mustn’t assume that Emily was a replacement for their dead daughter.’
‘Well, if we weren’t thinking that,’ says Nelson, ‘we are now.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I think I should go and see Ballard,’ says Nelson. ‘My guess is he won’t find me nearly so fascinating.’
‘Do you know when we’ll get the forensics on the remains?’ asks Tanya.
‘Any day now,’ says Nelson. ‘I’m hoping there’ll be something that will tell us where the body was kept between March and the wall being built in December.’
