Cole was sitting behind his desk with Jessica, Reynolds and Cornish in three chairs across from him. The office hadn’t changed much from when DCI Farraday had occupied it the year before. Two of the walls were glass-fronted, the others decorated with various photos, awards and certificates.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Cole added.

‘Yes, no worries.’

‘Okay, well, I know Jason and Louise have been elsewhere so I wanted to catch everyone up to where we are. Our resources are pretty stretched at the moment. Jessica?’

Reynolds had just told the room that the investigation into Christine Johnson’s disappearance was going nowhere. They’d had no useful tip-offs and no idea where she had gone. The media attention her case was getting was detracting from Jessica’s and she wasn’t sure if it was a good thing.

‘Yes, sorry,’ Jessica said. ‘As you know we discovered a second hand just outside of the town hall on St Peter’s Square yesterday. There were no fingerprints or anything else found on the first hand and we’re still waiting for any results back on the second. We have no idea who either of them belong to. Each hand had its ring finger cut off. The finger belonging to the first was mailed here but we’re yet to receive anything from the second.’

Jessica paused for breath. The DI and DCI were both watching her but Louise was looking at the frames on the wall. ‘Our only lead is CCTV images of the person who left it,’ Jessica continued. ‘We know it was someone wearing a black cape who, given their height, shape and the fact they were wearing low heels, we’re pretty sure is a woman. We have no clear photos of the person’s face but it seems obvious whoever it is knows where the cameras are.’

‘When are the test results due on the second hand?’ Reynolds asked.

‘Any time now, I guess. I thought it might have been this morning. I’m not really expecting much though – whoever left these knew exactly what they were doing.’

‘Any suspects?’ he added.

‘As many as you’ve got for your disappearing act,’ Jessica replied with a wink. ‘There was a woman, Vicky Barnes, whose son Lewis went missing a month ago. The mother reckons her lad’s girlfriend, January, owns a black cape like the one in the camera footage. The girl has a record for DV but the hand didn’t belong to her boyfriend. She’s been bailed but there’s no reason to associate her with anything really.’

‘What about the finger that arrived?’ Reynolds asked.

‘All we know is that it belonged to the first hand. There were no fingerprints or skin samples or anything on the envelope. Well, except for mine.’ Jessica looked sideways towards Cole but he didn’t react. ‘We know it was sent through a local post box but there was no saliva or anything on the stamps.’

‘Were they those self-adhesive ones?’ Cornish asked, acknowledging Jessica for the first time.

‘Yes, Royal Mail have really screwed us with those things. At least with the old lickable ones, the stupider criminals would give themselves away. Either way, we have nothing. The address was printed out. We’ve asked the labs to look into specific types of ink and printers, which they’ve said they’ll do but the guy I spoke to said there’s very little chance of finding anything that could be unique. We . . .’

Jessica was interrupted by the phone ringing on Cole’s desk. He held his hand up to indicate for her to stop talking and then answered it. Jessica thought he was as disconcertingly calm on the phone as he was in the field. All she could hear from the one half of the conversation was a series of ‘yes’, ‘okay’ and ‘I see’ responses. It could have been his wife calling to ask what he wanted for tea or the Prime Minister phoning to talk about a serious domestic terrorist incident. Either way he kept a perfectly straight face.

When he put the phone down, he scratched his chin and looked directly at Jessica. ‘That was your test result.’

‘Did they find anything?’

‘Actually they did but I’m not sure it’s what you would be expecting.’

Jessica felt her heart jump slightly. ‘What?’

‘The second hand belongs to Lewis Barnes.’

Jessica was speechless for a moment. She stared at her boss, who met her eyes. ‘Really? How do they know?’

‘They already had a swab from his mother to test the first hand. The person I spoke to said the DNA samples were stored in the same file so it automatically threw up the match.’

Jessica pushed back her chair and stood quickly, confused and excited in equal measures. ‘We’re going to have to go and pick up January. We let her go but she’s the only suspect we’ve got. She’s even got the bloody cape.’

She knew she was speaking too quickly. All she could think about was the fact they had let the girl go. It wasn’t anyone’s mistake as they had no reason to keep her but the media and ultimately the public wouldn’t see it like that if it turned out January was involved. A lot of things didn’t make sense, such as the fact she would have been released and then gone back to the streets to leave the hand, but that could all be figured out once she was returned to custody.

Cole’s demeanour hadn’t altered and Jessica struggled not to be frustrated by his steady voice. She wanted to shout as if it would make things happen quicker. He was perfectly calm as he spoke. ‘If you take a team to her flat to pick her up, I’ll apply for a warrant to search her property. Bring her back for questioning but leave an officer there to wait for the Scene of Crime team to arrive.’

Jessica didn’t need telling twice. She turned and raced down the stairs two at a time, feeling the adrenaline flowing through her. Once they had January in the cells they could try to connect her to the first hand, even though they didn’t yet know who it belonged to.

Jessica dashed through to the main floor and first found DC Diamond. ‘Iz, are you busy?’

‘A bit, not really.’

‘I need you to start looking at something. On our list of missing persons is the name “Lewis Barnes”. Find out what you can about him – where he’s worked, where he went to school – that type of thing, then check that information against anyone else registered as missing. The second hand belongs to him and I’d be stunned if there wasn’t a connection to the first.’

Izzy took the request in her stride. ‘Is there anything I’m looking for specifically?’

‘A man between twenty-five and thirty-five. Lewis was thirty, so anyone he went to school with would be the same age. Don’t worry about women and don’t worry about former or current workmates who are much older or younger. Use whatever officers you need as long as they’re not trying to track down Christine Johnson. That’s the priority around here but anyone else is fair game.’

Jessica had only worked with her for a short while but knew Izzy was the type of officer who would get things done. After the conversation, she grabbed Rowlands plus some uniformed officers who were milling around, including the one who had chased down and caught January a few days before. They again took two marked cars to the woman’s flat but, unlike their previous visit, this time they used the sirens and flashing lights.

Jessica sat in the passenger seat as one of the uniformed officers drove but barely waited for the car to stop before opening the door and dashing towards January’s flat. Members of the public who were visiting the adjacent shop stopped to watch as she hammered on the front door. The other officers caught her up as she knocked aggressively for a second time.

Rowlands caught her eye as he arrived. ‘Bit of déjà vu, this.’

Jessica ignored him, taking her phone out from her suit jacket pocket. ‘Come on, answer,’ she muttered irritably as it rang. Cole soon picked up. Before he could say anything, Jessica jumped in. ‘Did you get the warrant?’

Cole spluttered slightly at her abruptness. ‘Not yet. We’re talking to a magistrate now, it shouldn’t be long. What’s going on?’