‘No, I was wondering how you’d got on sniffing around the rowing club.’

‘Well, it smells like shite, that’s for sure. I went through those membership lists and started to get together a few potential names. They have a website that tallies all of their results going back years, so I’ve been cross-reffing. I don’t want to start phoning everyone because then the word will get around, so I’m trying to find a certain type of member. The ones who row in the main teams are going to be quieter than a City fan after derby day, so I’m trying to find people who were members of the club but not mentioned. There’s bound to be someone who’s annoyed at being left out.’

‘Find anyone yet?’

‘I only started yesterday afternoon?’

‘So what are you doing taking days off then?’

‘All right, bloody hell, they told me you were a nightmare.’

‘Who told you?’

Archie’s muffled cough revealed nothing. ‘You know . . . they.’

Jessica let it go. ‘When are you back in?’

‘Tuesday.’

‘Are you working part-time?’

‘Ha ha, very funny. United are playing this afternoon, so I—’

‘Whatever, just get something sorted and we’ll talk on Monday.’

Jessica hung up just as Archie’s muttered protests were getting abusive. She knew it was harsh but that was the way things were. The fact that she was turning into one of the inspectors she used to complain about wasn’t lost on her either. What a cow.

With that sorted, her notes filed in the bin and a cheeky Hobnob from her desk drawer devoured, Jessica went through to the stupidly named sergeants’ station, where Izzy was having an agitated phone conversation with her other half. She swiped a pile of cardboard document folders away from the space in front of her and offered an apologetic smile as Jessica sat and waited on the corner of the desk. As Izzy lowered her voice to use a very rude word, Jessica picked up the tattoo robbery case file and started shuffling through the information. The original version of the photograph she’d shown to Bex was at the front and she stared at the tattoo, knowing that if it had been etched onto her body, then she would have done whatever she could to get rid of such an obvious glitch.

Izzy soon hung up and turned to Jessica. ‘Sorry – you’d think I somehow managed to have Amber by myself, like some sort of immaculate conception.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, aren’t you off?’

‘I’m always hanging around.’

‘Like a bad smell?’

‘Something like that. I wanted to go through these photos. How closely did our guys look at this?’ Jessica pointed to the fuzzy part of the tattoo on the robber’s wrist.

Izzy took the photo and looked at it again. ‘I flagged it up straight away but they had already seen it. They said it had to be a problem with the camera footage because the tattoo doesn’t look like that on the other pictures.’

Izzy slid out the images they had from the other robberies and showed Jessica what she meant. In those, the scythe shape on the robber’s lower arm connected perfectly with the dark line as it reached his wrist. Jessica took each photo and peered at them closely. She had only had the single photograph the evening before, which she’d taken on a whim. Neither Jessica nor Adam had tattoos but one of Adam’s friends at the university where he worked had a keen interest in them. She’d hoped he might have something useful to add but had forgotten to take it out of her bag, only remembering when she met Bex.

She thought back to that morning: the tattoo on the dead woman’s back and the sodden conditions. Jessica held up the most recent photo again. ‘What day was this taken?’

‘Monday.’

‘What was the weather like?’

Izzy shrugged. ‘Probably raining. It usually is.’

Jessica tried to remember. Monday had been her last day off and she’d celebrated by going to Tesco and then sitting at home watching daytime television. It definitely had rained because she’d got wet lugging the shopping bags back to the car. She also remembered watching the news the previous night with Adam where the weatherman had promised it was going to be a dry day. The fact that most of their advance forecasting seemed to involve looking up and guessing was beside the point.

‘Why?’ Izzy added.

Jessica chewed on her bottom lip, thinking. ‘Is there somewhere we can find out what the weather’s been like for each day there was a robbery?’

Izzy peered at Jessica for a few moments but didn’t ask the obvious question; sometimes it was best to let potentially mad ideas run their course.

Between them, they found a website that contained an archive of weather for the region. After cross-checking the details with the dates of the first three off-licence thefts, Jessica picked up the final photo again, staring at the same smudge as before.

‘What are you thinking?’ Izzy asked.

‘The first three robberies were committed when it was dry. On Monday, it was due to be clear but it rained. When we saw the very first photo of the robber, we thought this would be one of the simplest cases ever, didn’t we?’

Izzy nodded. ‘Yes, because the robber was clearly stupid – if you had markings so distinctive, you’d do everything you could to cover them up.’

‘When we put these pictures out, we thought we’d get a call from at least one member of the public. The few we did have were from the usual nutters and well-meaning people who’d got things wrong. We wondered how no one could have noticed such an intricate mark on someone’s wrist – but what if it’s not a proper tattoo? What if someone drew that onto themselves and then deliberately left their sleeves up to throw us off?’

Izzy thought for a moment and then a half-smile crept across her face. ‘It would have to be non-permanent, otherwise it’d be noticed the same as a normal tattoo. So when it rained unexpectedly, it smudged slightly?’

‘Exactly.’

10

Although Jessica now had a theory about Izzy’s tattoo robbery case, they didn’t have the officers to start working on it. Identifying the body in the woods had been simpler than it could have been and, instead of spending a day or two waiting for a positive ID, officers were now busy delving into the victim’s background.

While Jessica was at the rowing club on Thursday night, trying to figure out what had happened to Damon Potter, Cassie Edmonds had gone out. When she hadn’t returned home, her boyfriend, Carl, assumed she’d stayed at a friend’s house and then gone straight to work the next day. On Friday evening, he’d gone out with his mates, got back to their shared flat late and guessed she’d gone out too. By the time he’d woken up hung-over on Saturday morning, the realisation that she hadn’t replied to any of the text messages he had sent and wasn’t answering her phone had hit. He called her friends, only to be told that none of them had seen her since Thursday evening. That was when he’d called the police and, after being asked about any distinctive features she might have, he’d described the tattoo on her back.

That was his story and, at least for now, they had no reason to doubt it. Well, no proof anyway – doubt was always the first thought.

With someone dispatched to formally take the boyfriend’s statement, and a couple more officers trying to confirm his alibi, Jessica’s day off that wasn’t stretched into the afternoon.

By the time she arrived at the dead woman’s flat, Cassie’s best friend Jade was helping the police while trying to avoid going to pieces. She invited Jessica in, streaks of mascara lining the area around her eyes and red raw rings in the bags underneath from where she’d been rubbing her skin. She held the door open, sniffing and trying to suppress more sobs, then led Jessica into her living room. Celebrity magazines were scattered on a table and some dance tune thump-thump-thumped from a set of speakers in the corner.