‘Am I reacting the way you expected now?’

Dawid considered a beat. ‘Well, I mean, at first you did – you wouldn’t let me speak. But now… now, no, which makes me think a part of you’s come to the same conclusion.’

Tomek didn’t respond.

‘I should have come clean,’ Dawid continued. ‘I should have said something sooner. But, look, nobody’s perfect. I hold my hands up and admit that I fucked up. And for that, I’m sorry.’

‘And so you should be.’

Tomek hung up the phone without waiting for a response, then headed towards the flat.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The water is warm against my body – our body. We’re cocooned in the tub together, like two caterpillars entwined in one another. Angelica’s resting on me, between my legs. Our bodies have become one. Her head rests heavily against my shoulders, the full weight of it dangling over me. I like the pressure it brings. It feels comforting, like she is the one protecting me. My darling angel.

On the side of the tub is a bar of cinnamon-infused Aleppo soap, one of the kindest soaps for the skin. Only the best for Angelica. The slab is big in my hands, but I don’t expect there to be anything left at the end of tonight. I expect it all to be gone, rubbed gently yet thoroughly into her skin. First, I bring the shower head over her body and douse the top of her in a thin layer of water. Now, with her skin moistened, I begin massaging the soap into her. Starting with her shoulders, running it over the bone, gliding across her skin, all the way down to her arms, her hands, her fingers, where I scrub the suds and bubbles beneath her nails. Every part of her, every inch of her body needs to be cleaned. She must look angelic, perfect.

When I’ve finished with the arms, I move towards the breasts, my hands kneading them like dough, playing with them a little, running my fingers over her nipples, titillating myself in the process. I suppress the urge to climb atop her and suckle on them, chew on them with my teeth.

I can’t. I’ve had my time for that. I mustn’t be greedy. Mustn’t spoil the cleaning process.

But it soon becomes difficult to complete it like this, with her atop me. I must get out of the bathtub and continue my work from outside, much as I don’t want to.

Now I have a better view of her lying in the water, perfectly still, eyes closed, her body floating. This time there’s no rise and fall of her chest, no pulsating of the veins in her neck, no movement beneath her eyelids. She is perfectly still. All mine. She has given herself fully to me, after all this time. Finally.

The next part of the cleaning process proves tricky. I have to keep one foot in the water while I do the rest of her body, massaging the contours of her limbs and muscles with the soap, rubbing it deep into her pores. When I get to her vagina, I reposition myself and her so that her legs are spread. It’s awkward, but I make it work. For this part, I put a glove on and go in deep; the soap bubbling away inside her.

But the real fun is with her toes. Her little piggies. Her cute little piggies that slip and slide in my fingers like little sausages. I suckle on them, tasting them, licking them before cleaning them again. She has the most perfect feet, and I can’t wait to paint them, to dress them up as perfectly as they deserve. She’s going to look so beautiful for when they find her.

If they find her.

My darling angel Angelica.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Before nine o’clock the following morning, Lorna Dean, the Home Office pathologist, had completed Angelica Whitaker’s post-mortem. But it wasn’t until several hours later that Tomek and the team received the results.

‘You didn’t have to come all this way,’ Tomek said as he took them from her.

‘It’s because I missed your face, obviously. I just can’t get you out of my head.’

Tomek froze as he held the papers in his hand, staring into her eyes, his mind completely blank. A second later, Lorna burst into laughter, slapping him on the arm, unable to control herself.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so scared in my life,’ she said. ‘And I never had you down for someone so gullible, either.’

‘Funny. There’s a comedy show down at the Cliffs tonight. Are you performing? Think I saw your mugshot on the billboard down there.’

‘Sadly, I’m fully booked,’ she said.

Tomek unfolded the documents, and as he began to read, Lorna placed her hand over the notes.

‘Part of the reason I came down is because I wanted to discuss my findings with you in person,’ she explained.

‘And the other reason?’

She didn’t answer.

‘I’ll grab the team,’ he said awkwardly, then left the room to save his blushes as much as her own. A few minutes later, the five of them were in the major incident room, looking up at Lorna expectantly. Tomek had no idea what was coming, but it had been all he could think about since finding the body. Wondering what the killer had done to it. How she’d died. Why she looked so malnourished and… empty. He was looking forward to hearing the answers.

Lorna was sitting at the other end of the table, like she was being interviewed. She cleared her throat before beginning. She spoke without the need for notes or commentary, as though she’d rehearsed it beforehand.

‘Firstly, I want to cover the cause of death, as I know that’s what you’re all itching to understand, and then I’ll cover some of the weirder, more peculiar points about this victim. Though, by the way, I must preface what I’m about to say with the following: you might want to keep some of the information about Angelica’s death away from the family. As a mother myself, I don’t think I’d want to know everything I now do about what happened to her.’

The atmosphere in the room cooled as everyone took a moment to heed her warning.

She continued: ‘As I said, first, her cause of death. At first I thought it was alcohol or blood related. I thought she’d maybe drunk too much, been drugged, or had some sort of embolism, but there was nothing of the sort. It stumped me for a good hour, and it wasn’t until I rolled her onto her front that I saw it.’ Lorna wagged her hand in the air at Tomek to pass the manila folder she’d given him. He slid it across the surface and she caught it with the palm of her hand, her nails clicking on the table. She removed all the sheets and laid them out in front of her. Then she picked up one and handed it to the person nearest.

Oscar took it gently and inspected it. Then he passed it round until eventually it reached Tomek. At first he didn’t know quite what he was looking at, and even after being told to rotate the page one-eighty, he still didn’t know what it was an image of.

‘Looks like a leg,’ he said.

‘That’s because it is a leg,’ Lorna responded. ‘More precisely, it’s the back of Angelica’s right leg. What you’re looking at there is the crease in her knee. Notice all the lines and indents where the joints meet?’

Tomek had no clue. And no matter how many times he tried looking at it from different angles, he still had no idea which way was up. It was like looking at a sonogram for the first time and confusing it with a Rorschach test.

‘Ten points if you can see the wound.’

Tomek set the photograph on the table in the hope that the light above might miraculously cause the wound to appear like it was in invisible ink. But there was nothing. No puncture wound, no stab mark, no bullet hole. Nothing to suggest that there was a wound there at all.

‘Are you having us on?’ he asked, sliding the picture across the table in frustration.

‘I wish. But no.’ Lorna reached for it, then held it up to them and pointed to a small black dot on the back of Angelica’s knee.

‘That’s a mole, isn’t it?’ Rachel asked.

‘That’s what I thought at first. That’s why I didn’t give it much of a second thought. But when I ran my finger over it, I noticed it was a hole.’

‘A hole?’ Rachel repeated.

‘Yes, a hole, not a mole.’

‘Like that TV show!’ Chey said excitedly.

His excitement was met with muted, confused stares.

‘You know the one. Is it cake or real food? Where people make cakes to mimic real-life objects.’

Tomek looked at him, deeply unimpressed. ‘You watch that shit?’