‘That’s brilliant work, Iz. I’m on my way back now. Call the brother and I’ll go pick him up.’

The woman at the other end of the phone paused for a moment. ‘There might be a problem with that . . .’

7

Jessica’s heart sank. ‘What’s wrong?’

Izzy spoke confidently and fluently. ‘The man who’s missing is Ed Marks and it was his brother Charlie who reported it. Ed comes from around this area but, according to the notes we have, Charlie lives in London.’

Jessica knew the news wasn’t as bad as it could have been but it meant the chance of picking Charlie up and getting a swab off to the labs to potentially identify the first hand wasn’t going to happen that day.

‘It’s fine, Iz. That’s really great work. I’m on my way back now. Can you leave Charlie Marks’s details out for me and keep looking – there could be somebody else with a similar connection. I’ll call the brother when I get back and we’ll set him up to visit a police station near to him.’

Even if the man lived in London, he could give a DNA sample locally that the labs down south could process and send through.

As Jessica drove back to the station, she couldn’t help but be impressed by the almost ruthless efficiency of Izzy’s work. Some officers complained and stomped their feet when given tasks, others tried to delegate as much as they could, but the new recruit just got things done. Once again, Jessica found her colleague’s competence and attention to detail almost intimidating.

Back at Longsight, Jessica walked briskly through to her office. DS Cornish wasn’t at her desk and Jessica assumed she was out trying to track down Christine Johnson. Because of the intensity of her own case, she hadn’t been involved in the hunt for the missing MP’s wife but that seemed intriguing too.

On Jessica’s desk was a printout of Edward Marks’s missing persons report, which she read. The man’s brother Charlie did live in London. He had been unable to contact Ed on the phone and called the police to report him missing approximately a month ago. Give or take a day or two, he had disappeared at the same time as Lewis Barnes.

Jessica picked up the phone on her desk and called the contact number they had for Ed’s brother. The man answered on the second ring.

‘Hello, is that Charlie Marks?’ Jessica said.

‘Yes, who’s this?’ said a man’s voice.

‘My name is Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel and I work for Manchester’s Metropolitan CID division . . .’

Before she could continue, the man cut in. ‘Have you found my brother?’

‘That’s what I’m calling about, we’re not sure. It’s a bit complicated.’ Jessica felt a little stuck because the first hand might not belong to Edward Marks and the fact he had been to the same school as Lewis Barnes and had gone missing at roughly the same time could be a coincidence. She didn’t want to jump in and tell Charlie they might have found his brother’s severed hand without having more to back it up.

‘I don’t want to say too much,’ she continued. ‘I wondered if you might be able to visit your local police station in the next day or two? If you tell me which one it is, I’ll make the arrangements so you can just go in and out.’

‘Why do you want me to do that?’

Jessica sighed. ‘I don’t want to talk out of turn but we’d like to take a mouth swab from you. It gives us DNA we can check . . .’

The man cut her off mid-sentence again. ‘Have you found a body?’

Jessica tried to keep her voice as level as possible. ‘Mr Marks, I know this is hard but I don’t want to tell you things that could end up not being true. I promise that, if you can work with me, I’ll tell you everything once we’ve tested your sample. I’m aware you don’t know who I am but if you can trust me on this it will be better for everyone.’

Charlie’s voice had been a little high-pitched throughout the conversation but the tone lowered slightly as he replied. ‘Okay but I’m actually in the process of moving back to Manchester. It’s been on the cards for a while. I’ve been selling off the bigger items I own down here and just have a few suitcases now. I’m catching a train in the morning and that’s it, I’ll be back in the north permanently.’

Jessica felt lost for words, stumbling over her reply. ‘Right . . . um, would you like us to pick you up from the train station?’

‘Have you moved into taxi services now?’ The man gave a nervous-sounding laugh as he spoke.

‘No, I just meant we could . . .’

For a third time, he cut her off. ‘No, it’s okay, I know. I think I would rather drop my cases off if that’s all right. It’s an early train anyway. If you tell me where your station is, I’ll be there by lunchtime.’

Jessica had little choice but to accept; it wasn’t as if he was under arrest, he was helping them out. ‘Yes that’s fine, just ask for me on reception.’

Charlie asked her to send him a text message with the address of the station so he had a record he could look at, rather than something verbal. She tried not to use her personal mobile phone for police business but sometimes it was unavoidable, especially as the force consistently seemed to be a few years behind the real world when it came to technology.

Almost a day later and Jessica was sitting back at her desk. Things hadn’t moved on since the identification of the second hand. Izzy and Dave were both trying to find a second link from Lewis Barnes to anyone else on their missing persons list. So far no other names had matched. Meanwhile, there had been no sign of January Forrester. She hadn’t returned to her flat the previous day and there had been no sightings of her. It didn’t help that even the local television channels and newspapers were fully focused on Christine Johnson. If it wasn’t for that, the press office might have been able to push to get January’s photo somewhere high up the news bulletins or near the front of the papers. As it was, the search for her was barely mentioned. January’s photo had been put on the force’s website and posted on social media networks but Jessica knew hardly anyone looked at those. She had once jokingly suggested in a meeting a few months ago that the best way to get the public to visit their website was to have a pornographic image at the top of each page. The idea hadn’t been warmly received.

If that wasn’t enough failure for one twenty-four hour period, the Scene of Crime team hadn’t found the black cape at January’s flat and had come away with little other than the slice of linoleum which might have a blood stain on it. Jessica spoke to one of the scientists the previous evening but they told her it would be hard to get a solid match given someone had tried to clean it and it would have likely been walked on many times since. If they could get something conclusive from the cutting, it wouldn’t be in a hurry.

Jessica was contemplating the state of everything when the officer on reception phoned to tell her Charlie Marks had arrived. At the front desk, a man she didn’t recognise was standing to one side, nervously moving from one foot to the other. He wasn’t very tall but his frame was lean and tight, as if it were mainly muscle with little fat. The mini heatwave was somehow still lasting and Jessica thought the checked shorts and T-shirt he was wearing looked a lot more comfortable than the suit she was in. He had short sandy hair that was tousled in a just-got-out-of-bed way some men seemed to prefer. Because of the shade, she couldn’t tell if it was bleached or his natural colour.

She held her hand out for him to shake. ‘Are you Charlie?’

‘Yes. Detective Daniel?’

The two shook hands and Jessica asked if she could take the swab. He had no objections and she passed the sample to an officer who would arrange for it to be taken across the city to the laboratories to be tested. Because Jessica had known a day ago they would be getting the saliva, she had already spoken to one of the scientists to tell them to expect it. With the first hand having already been tested, the person assured her it wouldn’t take very long for Charlie’s DNA to be compared to it.