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the wall and on white noticeboards, with dates and names scrawled on in green.
    No one spoke, so Sam said, ‘I’m DC Parker. I’m here to see DI Evans.’
    Everyone looked towards the back of the room, to a woman speaking on the telephone. She glanced up at him and then carried on with her conversation, so he took in what was around him. There were posters on each wall of four teenagers, two of them not even eighteen. He recognised them because they were posted in every police station in the county. In the Incident Room, they felt more prominent, alongside more pictures and larger images from the posters.
    The sounds in the room seemed to recede as he got closer to them, to look more carefully, the chatter replaced by that crushing sadness whenever he thought of what the families must be enduring. Four young women from different parts of Manchester, with no connection between them that had been made public, and all of them missing, presumed dead. The last woman went missing two months earlier. There must be a pattern. It was just a question of seeing it.
    But they were all so very different. Two of them were white, one of them tall and redheaded, the other brunette, her hair long and curly. There was a young black girl, only fifteen, although the flirt to her smile made her seem older, along with an Indian girl, the dark lushness of her hair giving a glow to her photograph. What weren’t people seeing?
    There were footsteps behind him. DI Evans. He turned to her. She was small and petite, with short grey hair and some steel to her smile.
    ‘Sam Parker?’
    ‘Yes,’ he said, and when he saw the slight flare of the nostrils, he added, ‘ma’am.’
    ‘I’m Mary Evans,’ she said. ‘Call me Mary in here. I’m glad you could make it.’
    ‘I know, I’m sorry,’ he said, guessing that he had already taken too long. ‘I’m on a rest day.’
    ‘You’re here now. Follow me.’
    She walked past him and led him away from the Incident Room, along the corridor to a smaller room that seemed to serve as her office. There was a dirty coffee cup and a framed picture of a young woman. The office looked temporary though, because there were lever arch folders in a pile by a cabinet that were browned with age, as if she’d had to clear out the remnants of the previous occupant before she could use the room. The papers on her desk were strewn around, and he had to fight the urge to reach over and stack them neatly, so that she would find it easier to read them.
    ‘Sit down,’ Evans said, pointing to a chair that looked on the verge of collapse, the legs starting to splay. It swayed beneath him as he sat down.
    She stared at him for a few seconds, and he fought the urge to shuffle in his seat. ‘Is it about the four missing women?’ he said, and pointed to the room next door. ‘I saw all the posters.’
    ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said. ‘Have you heard of Ronnie Bagley?’
    Sam’s mind flicked through the files in the cabinet next to his desk, picturing it like an address book, a list of names, and then when he came up with nothing he tried to skim through all the villains and wasters he had dealt with through the years. Finally he shook his head. ‘No, ma’am. It doesn’t sound familiar.’
    ‘He is to your brother.’
    Sam was confused. ‘Joe?’
    ‘Yes, Joe Parker. He’s a defence lawyer, right?’
    ‘Yes. Used to be with Mahones. With Honeywells now.’ He frowned. ‘What does this have to do with me?’
    Evans hesitated before she spoke, staring at Sam, as if she was trying to unsettle him, remind him who was in charge.
    ‘I want you to get some information from him,’ she said eventually.
    ‘In relation to what?’
    ‘One of his clients.’
    Sam’s eyes widened. ‘You want me to spy on my brother?’
    ‘That’s one way of putting it.’
    Sam exhaled loudly. He wasn’t sure he was going to enjoy the rest of the conversation.

Eight
     
    Joe had collected Monica from the office and driven straight