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It was her internet searches which had spiked Terry’s interest; several tiled the Jessica Collins murder, its wikipedia entry, and searched for information on the Collins fa onto HOLMES the UK police database She’d had no luck logging in, her access had long ago been revoked, so she hadon the case called DI Crawford, as ex-colleague

Gerry had listened to the calls, and at first DI Crawford had been cold with her, but it became apparent they had a history, they had been lovers, and for a time it had been serious

She had asked if she could use his login for the HOLMES database, he’d refused her that but he did say he would keep her up to speed with the case Gerry had reported this back to his boss during a late night phone call, and it was decided that the surveillance of Amanda Baker would be increased

It was dark and raining when Gerry saw Ahts downstairs A few ht cao out and then left the car He h the darkness to the front roomIt opened easily and he climbed in He worked fast, he had two options; conceal a s device in the roo device with a SIM card Using a loatt torch he saw the mess inside the room anddefunct s He used a chair and quickly fitted the s of the smoke detector It was voice activated with a battery life of several days

He flicked off the light and moved into the hallway The landline sat on the table, its red charging light glowing in the dark As he reached out to take the handset from its cradle, the stairs creaked and he froze He moved quickly and found the doorway to an e room, just in time as she reached the bottom of the stairs

She creaked past hiht ca and a crackle of a foil sheet of pills The light flicked off and she rumbled past, and back up the stairs

He ca the handset apart and inserting a s device

He paused in the hallway His eyes had grown used to the dark He noticed just how steep the stairs were He h the front ,back into the darkness

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Erika slept fitfully, and in her drea dark waters of Hayes Quarry The moon was full, and as she slowly sank down, the bottom of the quarry stretched out, lit up like a s nu The silt billowed up around her clouding her view, but then it cleared and her mother’s body appeared She was dressed in the patterned housecoat she hen Erika and her sister were little, the strings of her apron suspended in the water out behind her, the skin on her face was pale and it flaked away until she dissolved to silt

She then saw her late husband Mark His body pale, and still dressed in his police uniform with the bullet proof vest When she ca the bullet holes in his neck, gaping like raw dough She tried to reach out and touch him, and as she sank down into the silt beside hirey, she saw Jessica standing on the bed of the quarry, but she wasn’t a skeleton She was dressed for her friend’s birthday party; her long blond hair floated around her head like a halo, the entle undercurrents Her patterned sandals hovered above the silt Under her arift, a small square of black and white polka dots Erika could now see there were a row of houses on the bottoh the water When Erika reached Jessica, she was close to the house with light shining She turned and srab at Jessica, to pull her up to the surface, but as her fingers closed around Jessica’s tiny ar the bones underneath The skin then fell away fro eye sockets

Erika ith a yell, her sheets soaked with sweat, but shivering It was still dark outside her bedroomand the clock beside her bed showed it was four thirty a under the hot water for a long ti to warm her bones, which still held the chills of the cold water in the quarry When the water finally ran cold she dried, dressed in her thick robe and cah a stack of files John had flagged for her attention, and she made some coffee and sat doith one labelled "AUG 1990 - OCT 1991 AMANDA BAKER"

She read with interest details of Amanda’s role the search in the days and weeks after Jessica’s disappearance It began with a door-to-door in Avondale Road, which drew a blank Of the sixty houses on the street, residents of twenty-nine of them were away on holiday In addition, the residents of a further thirteen houses were out on the afternoon of August 7th In the rehbours ere at ho

Al, DCI Baker had officers conduct a house-to-house on Avondale Road At first light on August 9th a large team of officers and local volunteers

In the following days, Aardens of Avondale Road searched, and where earth had recently beenover, she sent forensics in with aat the bottoarden at number 34 It was the house of a local councillor, Bob Murray They also discovered that Bob had briefly been at houst 7th, between 2p He ell-respected in the local community, but he was one of the few people who couldn’t account for the full two hour period when Jessica left ho Despite protestations that he was innocent, and that twenty arden of number 34 was excavated All they found was the body of a decaying cat A stray that their housekeeper had buried at the bottoe