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Number ninety-seven Foxberry Road loomed over Erika as she pulled up outside It was at the end of a long line of terraced houses, three storeys high, running down from Brockley train station
She peered up at the top o years previously she’d rented the top floor flat fro cold winter As well as the shock of a new city and the loneliness of the sparsely furnished flat, a masked intruder had broken in and nearly killed her
‘You know you could save yourself a lot of hassle and answer your phone, Sir,’ said Erika when he opened the main front door
‘Hello to you too And I’m not your boss anymore, so you can drop the Sir’ He wore thick pyjama bottoms and a faded Ho a bottle?’
‘Yes and no’
‘You better come in’
The shteen eneric IKEA furniture Erika avoided looking in the open bathroo roolas-Brown had scaled the back wall of the building, punched out the extractor fan and opened theThat night she had very nearly died as he wrapped his hands around her throat She had only been saved by her colleague, DI Moss She thought of Moss, she ues in the Murder Investigation Team at Lewisham Row
This sharpened Erika’s resolve as Marsh indicated she should sit on the sofa He went to his phone and switched it on, then moved to fill the kettle Erika sat
‘Late on Friday I salvaged four million pounds worth of heroin from the bottom of hayes quarry We’ve linked it to…’
‘Jason Tyler Yes I saw Good work, Erika’
’Thank you The marine unit also found human remains half buried in the silt on the quarry bed It’s unrelated to the Tyler case…’ Erika went on to outline what she knew so far
‘Jesus You found Jessica Collins?’
Erika nodded ‘As of yet, no one has been assigned as SIO’
‘I can sense that you are about to cut to the chase,’ he said opening the tiny fridge and pulling out a bottle of milk
‘Yes I need your help please Make me SIO on the Jessica Collins case’
Marsh paused with theit into two s
‘Have you spoken to your Superintendent?’
‘Yes’
‘He said no Didn’t he?’
‘Yes, he did Paul, Jessica Collins lay at the bottom of a water filled quarry for twenty-six years She was eleven when she vanished Her killer is still on the loose…’ Marsh took a deep breath as the kettle boiled and clicked off, the steaan to strea room ‘Paul You should have seen her, the skeleton Part of the head was caved in, bones were broken She’d been wrapped in plastic and chucked in the water We don’t know if she was still alive when she went in It looks like she was still wearing the sa’