COLD KILL. Neil White

creep up the back of the detective’s neck, a blush to match his lilac shirt.

      ‘No, I don’t,’ the detective replied.

      ‘So run everyone’s name through the computer, and see if anything pops up,’ Carson said. When the detective looked to his colleague, who had suddenly developed an interest in the floor, Carson added, ‘You did get everyone’s name, didn’t you?’

      The detective looked down.

      ‘Fucking hell,’ Carson said, and slammed his hand on the whiteboard. One of the photographs slid off. ‘That’s your next job,’ he barked. ‘Go back and get everyone’s details, and then run them, see what you get. Convictions, intelligence, incident logs. And look for any link to either of the dead women or their families!’

      Carson pointed to two young detectives standing next to Laura. ‘I want you two to go through the Sex Offenders Register,’ he said. ‘Visit everyone on it who targets women. Forget about the child porn and kiddie fiddlers. I want the flashers, the gropers, the closet cameramen. If they haven’t got an alibi for either death, then they’re suspects.’

      ‘And look for violence,’ Joe said. ‘The flashers should be the first stop on the list. Ask around, speak to the beat cops and PCSO’s, see if they can think of anyone who is dangerous but hasn’t been caught yet. And concentrate on white offenders.’

      ‘Why is that?’ someone asked.

      ‘Common sense,’ Joe said. ‘The victims were white. The girl this morning was found in a white area. An Asian man would stand out, be remembered, wouldn’t venture onto that estate. So a white man is most likely.’

      A female detective put up her hand. Laura recognised the glossy blonde hair and the frosty body language. It was Rachel Mason, sitting in the middle of the room. Laura had crossed her before, except that now Laura was a sergeant and Rachel was still a constable.

      ‘I spoke to the extended family,’ Rachel said. ‘They know what Jane’s parents do, but they say that Jane was different, not part of that set-up. She worked for a travel agent in town and was just trying to make her own way.’

      ‘Boyfriend?’

      Rachel shook her head. ‘They split up a couple of months ago, but nothing in it. Childhood sweethearts who grew out of each other.’

      ‘If the wider family don’t know of a link between the two women, we can leave them alone for a while,’ Carson said. ‘The Jane Roberts murder is linked to the murder of Deborah Corley. We need to find out what it is that links the two women.’

      ‘We got a nod from an informant that Don Roberts has already put out a reward,’ said a voice at the side of the room. ‘Fifty grand, so I was told.’

      ‘Great,’ Carson said, rolling his eyes. ‘The security racket must be doing well. How do these people grow fortunes?’ He shook his head. ‘The back streets of Blackley will be crawling with amateur sleuths right now, none of them fit for fucking purpose. Can you imagine what it will be like when all the local smackheads think they’ve got a path to easy money. Don will get more names than fucking Lloyds.’

      ‘Maybe we can persuade the drug squad to muscle a bit of info out of someone,’ the same voice said. ‘You know how it is, they’ll do anything to stay out of a cell.’

      ‘Try everything,’ Carson said, and then turned his attention to two detectives sitting at a table near the front. ‘Anything from the phones?’ he asked.

      The detectives shook their heads in sync with each other. ‘Nothing yet, except people telling us that it might be gangland, because Jane’s father is a crook,’ one said.

      ‘Has anyone else got anything that can take this investigation forward?’ Carson asked, his eyes scanning the room. No one answered.

      Carson sighed. ‘So it looks like it’s forensic results or nothing for the moment. Anyone got an idea?’ The room stayed silent, and so Carson clapped his hands. ‘Come on, back to it. Phone your families and apologise that you’ll be out for most of the night. If they moan, just be glad that they’re alive.’

      Carson grabbed his jacket and nodded at Joe. He raised his hand to the back of the room, towards Laura, gesturing at her to follow. As she excused herself past small muttering cliques, Rachel Mason flashed her a glance, but Laura turned away. She didn’t have time for squabbles about Rachel being left out.

      As Laura got close, Carson said, ‘We’ll check whether anything was found at the scene, and then you go to Mike Corley’s house. We need to find out more about Deborah. People might remember more now, because the news is less fresh for her. Go over again where she went, who she slept with, who she knew. We might just find a link between the two women.’ He turned to Laura. ‘Try and speak to Corley’s wife alone, if you can. Talk to her as a mother, not as a copper. You might just get something from her that way.’

      Carson walked out of the Incident Room, Laura and Joe following behind, and turned into a room that sometimes got commandeered for meetings with community leaders and criminal justice committees. It was the murder squad’s turn now. There were two officers in there, supervised by a young female Crime Scene Investigator, cataloguing everything that had been collected from the scene. The table was filled with exhibit bags, and notes were being made about which officers had yet to provide statements detailing their finds. This was part of the routine, the exhibit trail, some of the grunt work done by those away from the frontline. A CSI used to be called SOCO, Scenes of Crime Officer, but American TV had glammed them up.

      ‘Is there anything that looks promising?’ Carson asked.

      One of the officers looked up and shrugged. ‘You’re the detective.’ When Carson scowled, he added, ‘Just the usual scrap metal collection. Ring pulls, bottle tops. There are some cigarette ends, but they are so mashed up that I can’t see them being much use.’

      ‘Get them analysed anyway,’ Carson said.

      ‘I’ll speak to forensic submissions, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope,’ the CSI said. ‘The budget doesn’t stretch to speculative stuff these days.’

      Carson looked surprised. ‘Doesn’t it?’ he said, grimly. ‘Well, I don’t fucking care about pulling back, because when we have another death on our hands, the case will get even more expensive. Tell forensic submissions that if they refuse to send anything off that later proves to be crucial, I’ll give their number to the next victim’s parents so that they can explain why they couldn’t afford to save their daughter.’

      The crime scene investigator looked at the floor, clearly not wanting to take Carson on.

      ‘We’re not looking at someone who hung around there, waiting for a victim,’ Joe said, his voice soft and quiet. ‘It’s a dumping ground. We’re looking for snags of cloth, that kind of thing.’

      The two police officers shook their heads. ‘Nothing like that, but if the body had been there for a while, he hadn’t, and his traces might have gone.’

      Carson turned away. ‘I guessed as much.’

      ‘So what now?’ Laura asked.

      Carson sighed in frustration. ‘Unless Mike Corley can tell you anything new, we wait for the phone call that gives him up, or for the post-mortem to yield something. Apart from that, we just hope.’

      Chapter Thirteen

      Jack was sitting in his car, writing the story on his laptop, his phone plugged into the side, acting as a modem. This way he could send the story straight to Dolby when he had finished. He was by the Whitcroft estate again, feeling like he was spinning plates as he moved between court and assignments, looking again for quotes for the feature.

      He sat back and stretched his fingers. The murder story was done. It was short, with just a description of the murder scene and the bare details from the press conference, padded with the ongoing grief of the Corley family. It told