Tomek felt a nudge in the back. He hadn’t realised it, but he’d stopped moving, and the nudge in his back was Chey accidentally walking into him.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Chey muttered.

‘Probably not the best place for blasphemy, Chey,’ Tomek retorted as he moved around the body, keeping a wide berth around Angelica’s limbs and the wings.

He and the rest of the team walked along the stepping plates that had been placed down by the forensics team. It was now that he examined her body in more detail. A face to a name. A naked body matching with what he’d seen from an Instagram post and a recent photograph from the family. In neither of those did Angelica Whitaker look as skinny and malnourished as she did right now before him. The digits of her rib cage were as prominent as the sun in the sky, her pelvis jutted out like the two church spires, and her cheeks looked as though she had either been born with astonishing genetics or had had a lot of Botox and work done to them. From the photos on her social media accounts, her body was supposed to look nothing like this. What was even more confusing was that there were hardly any indications of livor mortis. Tomek had no idea how long she’d been dead for, but judging by the pasty colour of her skin, and the smell that had started to form, it had been longer than a few hours, which indicated to him that she’d died on the night she’d gone missing. By that point, some twenty-four hours later, all of her blood should have started to sink, succumbing to the effects of gravity, and pooled at her lowest point. But along her back and the backs of her thighs, there was very little sign of that. Not as much as he would have expected.

Lorna Dean echoed his thoughts.

‘I would expect to see a lot more,’ she said, her fiery ginger hair burning through the fabric of her suit. ‘Even for someone of her size.’ There was a slight hint of jealousy in her tone as she said it. ‘I also can’t see any physical lacerations or wounds to the exterior, meaning there’s no obvious cause of death.’

‘Could she have overdosed?’ Tomek asked, casting his mind back to the CCTV footage from the night she’d disappeared, and Adam Egglington’s hand hovering over her drink on two occasions.

‘Possibly.’

Tomek crouched down. The joints in his knees cracked and creaked as he rolled forward on the balls of his feet, wrestling against his inner balance. He ran his eyes along Angelica’s body, this time hoping the new angle would give him a different perspective, a different inclination of the way she’d died. As Lorna had said, there were no physical marks on her body, no stab wounds, no puncture marks in the crooks of her elbow – nothing. Her skin, her muscles and everything about her exterior were perfect, emitting a soft glow underneath the white light. Which indicated the cause of death had been internal. That she’d possibly overdosed, or suffered a stroke or heart attack from whatever Adam Egglington had tried giving her – and quite possibly succeeded in. Though Tomek didn’t think any of that was likely. Rather, this was the work of someone else. Someone who had inflicted death upon her in a different way. And he wanted to know how.

‘Where’s all this blood come from?’ Chey asked as he reached out a finger to touch it.

‘Don’t!’ Rory Stevens yelled, his deep baritone voice bouncing off the walls. ‘Why would you want to touch it?’

‘To see if it was still wet.’

‘Or you could simply ask the fucking question. There’s no need to be putting your hand into things. Did you do that a lot when you were a child? Putting your hand in the toaster when it was on, maybe? Playing with knives? Jesus fucking Christ, mate⁠—’

‘Watch it,’ Tomek interrupted, pointing towards the altar. ‘Matey’s listening.’

Rory’s brow furrowed beneath the top line of his hood. ‘I think he’s got bigger demons to chase, don’t you?’ Then he pointed to the angel on the floor. ‘I can tell you that the blood’s dried, so you don’t need to touch it. Just use your eyes, please. We’re all adults here. I’m confident we’re all capable of that.’ He moved his finger to the angel wings beside Angelica’s body. ‘We’ve taken several samples of the blood. Hopefully it’s all from the same body, otherwise that might make things a little tricky. We’ve removed skin samples, discovered some hairs, dusted for prints, searched for fibres and trace evidence, and everything is photographed and documented. We’ll send it all off for examination as soon as possible. We’ve also surveyed the entry points, and the bags of canisters that were left on the floor. It’ll need a second opinion, but the bolt cutters we found on the floor look too small to have been the ones to break the lock over there.’ This time he pointed to the wooden door at the other end of the church. ‘Suggesting that the killer brought the body in through there, but couldn’t close it.’

‘Where are her clothes?’

Rory shrugged. ‘We’ve searched high and low, but no sign of them.’

Tomek nodded thoughtfully. ‘Any footprints or fingerprints by the door?’

‘A couple. Some clearer than others. When they get back to the lab, we’ll run them through IDENT1. Should have some news for you on that one by the end of the day.’

Tomek’s version of the end of the day was different to other people’s, and now that their missing person investigation had just been upgraded to murder, there would be no end of the day: the days would blur into one and roll into the next, without an end point in sight. Not until they could find their killer.

‘Any fingerprints anywhere else?’ Rachel asked as she manoeuvred around Chey and moved towards Angelica’s head. ‘Any on her body?’

Rory shook his head. ‘None.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘I can get the team to check again, but we used two different methods.’

Rachel crouched down beside Angelica’s head. ‘The killer must have used gloves of some description then. I’d imagine it’s almost impossible to drag the body in here without so much as a fingerprint.’

Nobody said anything as she tilted forward, zooming in on Angelica’s face.

‘And they’ve put make-up on her,’ she added.

‘What do you mean?’ Tomek asked.

‘Different make-up.’

‘How so?’

‘Bloody hell,’ she continued, talking to herself. ‘It’s better than anything I’ve ever been able to do. I know I don’t wear a lot of it, but⁠—’

‘Rach,’ Tomek interrupted sternly.

The constable noted the intonation in his voice and explained. ‘I was looking at the photos her friends took from their night out, and in them, Angelica wasn’t wearing any lipstick. But now she is. Her eyelashes weren’t caked in mascara, but now they are. Her cheeks weren’t tinted a hint of red, but now they are. And her eyebrows…’ She zoomed in closer again. ‘They look like they’ve been threaded, or shaped slightly.’

Tomek considered this. He made his way around her body, coming to a stop on the other side, opposite Rachel. He looked the detective in the eye.

‘Could she have done this herself after she got home?’

‘In twenty minutes? Not a chance. Maybe if she’s a professional, but I don’t think so. And I’ve seen flight attendants before – they like to take a long time to do their make-up, especially when they’re working. Besides, it takes me a good hour to look like this every morning and this is only half decent.’

‘Half decent? You? Never,’ Tomek said.

‘Shut it.’

He didn’t need to be told twice.

‘Whoever’s done this has taken some serious time and care and effort to make her look this way. They would have had to spend a long time with the body. Either someone’s infatuated with her, or they’re a little fucked in the head.’

‘Or both,’ Tomek added.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Rose Whitaker had closed her jewellery store early so that she could be with the family to hear the latest news. The four of them, with Tomek and DC Anna Kaczmarek, the team’s family liaison officer, were gathered in Daphne and Roy’s sprawling living room. They lived over thirty minutes away, in the quaint town of Witham, near Brentwood, a location made famous by the reality TV show, The Only Way Is Essex. Despite the appearance of wealth – with their Barbour coats, Joules bags, Ralph Lauren polos, and Nautica trousers – Roy and Daphne lived in a modest two-bedroom house. The property was built in the nineteen hundreds, and featured oak beams across the ceiling, tiled flooring from a local stonemason, and a brick fireplace. In the living room were two sofas, facing a small television in the corner of the room. Along the walls were several model aircraft perched on shelves, and photographs of Roy and Daphne throughout the years; photographs of them in different countries, with the year and location engraved in the picture frames. Tomek quickly counted fourteen. Fourteen countries that he’d only dreamt of going to. Mauritius. Bali. Thailand. Australia. New Zealand. And several more. And that was just in the living room; there had been dozens more in the hallway, stairs, and in the kitchen. Sitting alongside them, above the fireplace, were various artefacts and relics from each country that they’d brought back with them. Most interesting was a small wooden instrument in the shape of a maraca that had been painted with red, yellow, and white spots. Beneath it was a small plaque that read, South Africa, 2003.

Tomek was in the middle of staring at it when a tea was placed into his hands. He thanked Daphne, then took a quick, polite sip as Daphne returned to her seat and placed a hand on her husband’s knee. From left to right were Rose, Roy, Daphne, and their son, Johnny, all wedged into the same four-seater sofa. On the end, Johnny sat tilted forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped together, his left knee bouncing repeatedly, eyes fixed firmly on Tomek. It was clear to see from his pained expression, his narrow eyes and his pursed lips, that he was fighting back the tears. That he already knew what was coming. Seeing the family members sitting next to one another, Tomek wouldn’t have said that they were related. There was no resemblance between Johnny and either of his parents. The man was physically much larger than his father, with broader shoulders, thicker tree trunks for legs, and more defined muscles. His nose was thinner, ears slightly pressed against his head, and his skull was an oval shape compared to Roy’s and Daphne’s circular skulls. Not to mention Johnny’s balding hair that must have skipped Roy’s generation. On the whole, Johnny Whitaker was blessed with the good looks that his father had never had. The same had applied to Angelica too.

‘How was Dublin, Johnny?’ Tomek asked, taking the man aback.

‘Dublin?’

‘Yes. Rose said you’d been away for work.’

‘Ah, right.’ He turned coy, nervous. ‘It was… fine. Just a routine trip. Nothing too exciting.’

‘Great.’

Now that little catch-up was over, Tomek cleared his throat and prepared himself to say the same thing he’d said hundreds of times over the years, the same words that never got any easier.