Jessica held her breath as she pressed the button to display the earliest one: ‘Got him’.

The second was even more chilling: ‘Will wait til its dark then meet you at the shed’.

Jessica slid the face down on the phone and put it on the side table before turning and dashing into the hallway. The two piles of mail were still on the floor and she picked up the smaller one. The top letter was a glossy pamphlet addressed to ‘Ian Sturgess’, a similar one underneath was for ‘Ben Sturgess’. Jessica flicked from one to the other quickly before reaching a letter addressed to another person she had spent the past few weeks struggling to find. The shiny leaflet was clearly some sort of junk mail but the name on the front was printed in tidy black characters.

‘Glenn Harrison’.

23

Still holding the letter, Jessica made for the kitchen. As Deborah hadn’t gone upstairs or into the living room, it was the only place she could be. She found the other woman sitting on a stool staring out into the garden. Most of the light had gone and the only illumination was from the neighbouring houses. ‘Deborah?’

The woman turned; her eyes were red but she wasn’t crying. ‘Sorry, I—’

‘Who’s Glenn Harrison?’

Deborah shook her head slightly, wiping one of her eyes. ‘Who?’

Jessica held up the letter and pointed to the name. ‘Glenn Harrison. This letter was for him, you put it in a pile with the other junk mail.’

Deborah blinked furiously. ‘Oh yes. It’s a bit of an odd story. When we first moved into our old house when we were married, we kept getting mail for this “Glenn Harrison” person. We assumed he lived there before us but there was no forwarding address and the house was sold at auction. We kept loads for about a year but ended up throwing them all away eventually. What we started to do was that whenever we had to sign up for something where you knew you’d end up getting junk mail or phone calls, we gave the name “Glenn Harrison”. That way, if we got a letter for him, we knew it could go in the bin. We’d have all these companies calling up wanting to talk to “Mr Harrison”. It was only for stupid things, not bills or anything like that.’

‘Why would he still be getting letters here?’

Deborah shrugged. ‘I don’t know. When we divorced, we sold the place and got separate mortgages. I guess Ian did a similar thing with the name and his new address? I’ve picked up one or two in the past when I’ve been looking after his house. It’s like that all the time now with junk mail and phone calls, especially if you do anything online. I do these survey things on the Internet for a bit of extra money but they’re all for “Glenda Harrison”. It was just a little joke we had between us.’

Jessica nodded. ‘Can you wait here for a bit? I have to make a call.’ Without waiting for Deborah to ask anything else, she walked through to the living room, closing the door before handing Rowlands the letter and pointing to the name.

His open mouth said it all. ‘Wow.’

‘Did you find anything on the other phone?’

‘I didn’t really look.’

Jessica nodded. ‘Call the station. We’re going to have to get people here to search the rest of the house plus experts to take the phones away and any laptop he might have. Someone’s going to have to take Deborah in too, if only to question her about her husband.’

The constable realised the implication. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To the allotment.’

‘Didn’t they already check it over?’

‘I want to see it again for myself. There was a text message about it. I think Benjamin was working with someone and they took Isaac to the shed. Make sure forensics take that phone. We need to get the number traced.’

The constable looked back at Jessica nodding, then it dawned on him. ‘But we came in my car . . .’ He tailed off as Jessica raised her eyebrows expectantly. ‘Seriously? But you’re a dreadful driver,’ he pointed out.

‘I am not. That’s a myth, largely spread by you.’

‘You’re really going to take my car?’

‘Look at it this way, if you get it back in one piece, you haven’t lost anything. If I crash it then you were right all along. Either way, you win.’

Rowlands reached into his pockets. ‘I win if you crash my car?’

‘Yes.’

Jessica held her hand out and the constable placed his car keys in it. She pocketed them.

‘Cheers, Dave. Is there a torch in your car?’

‘In the boot. I started keeping one in there after we went to the allotment the last time and it was getting dark. Why?’

‘Why do you think? Because it’s dark.’ Rowlands groaned. Jessica was about to leave before she turned back. ‘Don’t tell anyone where I’ve gone until they get here. I want a head-start.’

It took Jessica some time to finish sliding the seat forward and adjusting the mirrors before she could leave but she took extra care driving across the city back to the allotment. She was hampered because the levers for the windscreen wipers and indicators were on the opposite side in her vehicle. Each time she tried to indicate, she sent the wipers flying across the window at full speed, then tried to correct things while steering at the same time. Other than that and the annoyance of the roaring exhaust her colleague had purposefully had fitted at some point, the rest of the journey was quite smooth, even though she heard on the radio that part of the M60 had been closed, with traffic standing still on the opposite side of the road as she drove along Stockport Road.

Jessica had to go via the station first to collect the key for the allotment shed but she knew anyone important would already be on the way to Benjamin Sturgess’s house so there would be no one around to question her.

Jessica remembered the route to the allotments from the previous time, parking outside the metal gate. She walked to the back of the vehicle and fumbled in the dark, using the light from her phone as she struggled to unlock the boot. It took a while before she realised the handle she had to pull to open it was actually what she’d assumed was simply the manufacturer’s logo. Jessica was relieved to see the torch Dave mentioned was something suitable: heavy with a wide white beam which lit up the entirety of the boot.

She locked the car and swung around to face the gate. It wasn’t that high but the beam from the torch showed a strong-looking padlock fastened to one side. Jessica climbed the gate and landed with a splash on the other side. She could feel water flowing over the top of her shoes into her socks and winced as she shone the light down to see her foot had gone straight through the top of a lightly iced patch of water into a brownish puddle. Jessica stepped steadily out of the water but the squelching sound made her cringe a second time as she walked slowly along the edge of the plots towards where she knew number sixty-one was.

She could feel a breeze blowing sideways across the open land and, having not expected to spend the final part of the day somewhere like this, she could feel her teeth chattering in the cold December air. Even as a rational adult, Jessica struggled not to think of what was in the dark while she walked. The combination of the wind, the temperature, the night and the noises that came with it felt creepy in a way she knew it shouldn’t. She could feel her sodden sock sliding forward in her shoe with every step but tried to ignore it as she reached the turn where she knew the path led to plot sixty-one.

Jessica had not been back to the allotment since finding the list. After that, a handful of officers had investigated the site and she could see the plot of land next to the shed had been thoroughly excavated. Mounds of dirt were placed at the side, crystallised by the frost. She headed straight to the shed, taking the key she had signed out of the evidence store and putting it into the lock. Jessica had seen the reports of the team finding nothing of interest at the site. There was certainly nothing buried in the immediate area, while, exactly as Izzy had pointed out at the time, the interior was strangely empty.