whether they’d seen her in the few days preceding her murder either alone or in company. Or if they’d seen anyone, male or female, acting suspiciously on Thursday afternoon or any of the preceding days. Other uniforms were strung out along the beach from West Wittering to Bracklesham Bay, outside the Reynolds’ rental house, showing the same photograph and asking the same questions. He had PCs on the roads in and out of the Witterings, stopping all the cars, others going from house to house. He was leaving no stone unturned, and still they had turned up nothing useful.

‘Nothing,’ the PC said, hastily adding, ‘So far, sir, so far,’ in response to Marilyn’s crestfallen look.

West Wittering car park was routinely packed to capacity throughout the summer weekends, the kilometres of white sand a magnet for holiday-makers and day-trippers from London. This afternoon, though, it was barely a tenth full, murder bad for business, only the ghouls drawn by it. He drove until the tarmac road that cut through the car park petered to a sandy cul-de-sac, then parked. It had been here, at the far end of the beach car park, that he had first set eyes on Carolynn Reynolds clutching Zoe’s lifeless body and howling. Great playacting, he’d always thought, the woman as cold as a dip in the Solent in January. Hypothermia-inducing cold.

‘What have you found?’ Marilyn asked, ducking under the ‘Police – Do Not Cross’ tape a few minutes later to join his lead CSI, Tony Burrows, in the dunes on the deserted peninsula.

‘Nothing,’ Burrows muttered. He looked tired and windswept, his bald spot sunburnt to a wince-inducing smoked salmon. ‘Or everything.’

Marilyn raised an eyebrow. ‘Everything?’

‘A bin-lorryload of discarded food wrappers; assorted kids action figures; one green-and-purple Furby; three beach towels; two pairs of ladies knickers and a pair of gents boxers, stripy – quite natty ones, actually; a pink lacy bra, courtesy of M&S’s Autograph Collection, whatever that is; twelve condoms at the last count; and a significant amount of faeces.’ He shuddered. ‘Both dog and human. Makes me never want to sit on a beach again.’

Marilyn smiled grimly. ‘Sounds like the Generation Game, Brucie.’

‘And next on the conveyor-belt …’

‘Is some luck.’ He couldn’t imagine being lucky on this case, however much he crossed his fingers and promised God he’d be an upstanding, clean-living citizen in exchange for a break.

His gaze moved past Burrows to survey the deserted dunes, still taped off, still officially a crime scene. Nearly forty-eight hours since Jodie Trigg’s body had been found and a few hardy journalists were hanging around outside the cordon, hoping for a juicy tit-bit, testament to how high profile his Zoe Reynolds debacle had been, how Jodie Trigg’s identikit murder had them smelling ‘massive circulation’ blood. At least the seagulls seemed to have worked out that they’d get no joy here and had moved on.

‘I can’t afford to fail this time, Tony,’ he murmured.

Without making eye contact, Burrows laid a slightly awkward hand on his shoulder. ‘Everyone fails, Marilyn.’

Marilyn nodded grimly. ‘Only the once though. Only the once – and I’ve had my once.’

46

Workman and DC Cara crunched side by side up the gravel drive, past a lime green Lamborghini, to the front door.

‘I thought those cars only existed outside Harrods,’ Workman said.

‘Or in my dreams,’ Cara replied.

He had started off his police career in Traffic because he loved cars, he’d told Workman as they trudged, sweating, from house to house, past Mercedes SLs and SLKs, top-of-the-range BMWs, a couple of Porsches, all in silver, grey or black, muted, distinguished tones, expensive statements, but not tacky ones. The owner of the Lamborghini wasn’t so circumspect.

‘If you save half of your salary for the next ten years, you might be able to afford this,’ Workman said to Cara, indicating a metre-by-metre patch of flowerbed by the front door.

‘How long for the Lambo?’

‘Until you’re my age.’

‘Another half-century then.’

She met his grin with a roll of her eyes.

They had already visited twenty houses – palatial residences, more accurately – on the bankers’ ghetto of West Strand, houses that fronted on to the beach and would leave no change from £5 million. So far they’d had no joy in finding anyone who had seen Jodie Trigg, either alone or with her killer, on Thursday afternoon. Most of the houses were owned by weekending financiers and their families, and the few who had been in residence on Thursday hadn’t been looking out of their windows at school girls from the cheap end of town passing by on the beach.

Was it really possible for a nine-year-old girl to walk to her death on a summer afternoon and for no one to notice?

47

Jodie Trigg’s small bedroom was dominated by two single beds, both covered in purple duvet covers scattered with pink and white butterflies, both neatly made up. The bed by the window must have been the one that Jodie had slept in as the other was crammed with stuffed toys – all cuddly cats, Jessie realized after a moment, in different sizes and colours, all tucked side by side under the duvet, their fluffy heads resting on the pillow. No dolls in the collection on the bed or anywhere else, she noticed, thinking of the plastic doll in its pink nylon ballerina dress that had been left by the dead little girls’ sides. What had been the significance of the dolls? Significance for the killer, Jessie thought, not for the child, or not for Jodie at least.

Had the same been true for Zoe? Carolynn had told her, in one of their sessions, that Zoe had hated dolls and Jessie had had no reason to disbelieve her, not then, at least. And now? Had Marilyn asked her that question, received an answer? Pulling her mobile from her pocket, she pressed voice record and spoke into it, reminding herself to check with Marilyn about the dolls.

Sliding her phone back into her pocket, she opened the single wardrobe to reveal an interior that reminded

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