Hit and Run - [9]

Marta shivered in the chilly Manchester night. She listened again. No sound from the other rooms, or downstairs. Everyone asleep. What could she do? Nothing. Maybe Rosa had worked longer, got held up? She tried to settle herself with the explanation but knew it to be feeble. She turned the light off, closed her eyes and pulled the cover up over her head. Resorting to prayer, she rattled off a decade of the Holy Rosary, not because she particularly believed any longer but because the rhythm of the words brought some comfort, distracting her a little from her worries about Rosa.

*****

Janine rang Connie en route to the press conference, while refreshing her make-up in the women’s toilets. She examined her reflection: not bad given her broken nights. Concealer disguised any shadows beneath her large blue eyes.

‘Connie, it’s Janine. There was an accident outside school this morning,’ she told the nanny, ‘a little girl got knocked down. Tom might be upset when you pick him up.’

‘Did he see it happen?’

‘No, thank goodness. But some of them did, it’ll be all round school.’

Janine put her make-up away and slung the bag over her shoulder.

‘How’s the little girl?’

‘Don’t know; she’s in intensive care.’ She used her free hand to open the door. Richard was still waiting for her in the corridor with an official release from the press office. She took it from him, began scanning it as they walked briskly towards the conference room. ‘And I’ll be working late, so-’

‘You know I’m going out?’ Connie interrupted.

‘Yes. I’ve asked Pete to come over for six-thirty.’ Pete was her main fallback now. Her stalwart neighbour and good friend Sarah had moved away for a better teaching job and her parents were getting past the point where she felt able to rope them in as babysitters. Pete worked as an air traffic controller at Manchester Airport. His availability depended on his shift pattern but it only took him twenty minutes to get to Janine’s from work.

‘How’s Charlotte?’ Janine asked Connie.

‘Fine. Sleeping a lot.’

‘Not at night, she isn’t,’ Janine muttered.

Journalists with notebooks, cameras, microphones were gathered waiting for them. Richard and Janine took seats behind a table at the front of the room. Janine read from the prepared statement, ignoring the flashes from the welter of technology pointed at her.

‘This morning the body of a young woman was recovered from the River Mersey. We’re treating the case as murder. She is a white woman, believed to be in her twenties, five foot six inches tall, with a slim build and long dark hair. We think she also has an identifying mark on her right thigh. We would like to appeal to the public to help us find out who she is. If you know of anyone answering that description who has gone missing, then please ring in straight away and let us know.’

She paused and then invited questions.

‘How was she killed?’ A young reporter with severe black clothing and hair to match.

‘How long has she been dead?’

‘Was she drowned?’

Others joined in and Janine raised her hands. She would take them one at a time but there was little she could add to the information she’d already given them. The questions and her ‘no comment’ or ‘we can’t say at this point in time’ were part of the familiar jousting between the force and the media. Keeping relations sweet was essential: inappropriate or inaccurate coverage could seriously hamper their efforts while responsible reporting could generate help and vital information from the general public. All a matter of balance. And Janine reckoned she was good at balance, juggling home and work, seeing all sides of a story keeping the plates spinning. Must be circus blood in my veins, she thought wryly as she nodded to the journalists.

The rest of the afternoon flew by in a whirl of activity, mainly setting up systems to support the enquiry and ensuring everyone knew how to process data so it would be most useful. Information from the teams out in the field would pass to officers here. Everything would be entered in the computers and the most salient facts written up on the boards in the incident room.

At four-thirty Richard took a call from the forensic science lab. ‘She hadn’t been drinking and no evidence of recreational drugs,’ he told Janine.

‘What did we have on stomach contents?’

‘Just partially digested coffee and biscuits.’

‘So she’d not been wining, or dining, or clubbing it.’

Richard began to add the notes to the boards. ‘Domestic then?’ He paused and looked at her, marker in his hand.

‘It’s unusual,’ Janine shook her head, ‘most domestics, they panic. If they do cover their tracks it’s token. This – the weights, the river, the face – it’s very extreme. I know we can’t rule anything out but I reckon there could well be more to it.’

Richard cocked his head inviting her to elaborate.

She shrugged her shoulder. ‘I don’t know. We’ll just have to find out, won’t we?’

Chapter Four

Marta knew as soon as the policewoman on the television news began speaking. She felt the skin on her face contract, her ribs tighten, her tongue thicken in her mouth. A falling sensation, as though the ground had staggered beneath her. She was alone in the sitting room, the other girls busy working. They had been jittery all day, ever since Marta told them Rosa hadn’t come back. No one had said very much, just asked the same questions as Marta had: where can she be, is she all right, what has she done?