Daphne’s hands immediately flew to her mouth. Roy’s look of consternation and concern changed to dread and disbelief.

‘Johnny… Angelica… No… Surely not…’

‘Surely,’ Tomek said.

And don’t call me Shirley.

‘But how? When? Why?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m hoping your son can answer those questions for me. When was the last time you saw him?’

Roy removed his gloves and set them on a nearby surface. ‘Not since he left the other day. Like I told you. Did you find him at the pub?’

Tomek nodded and explained that they’d subsequently taken him to the hospital.

‘Have you tried there?’ Roy asked.

Fucking hell, they were going round in circles.

Tomek confirmed they had, then asked, ‘Do you have any idea where he might be? Any idea at all?’

Johnny’s parents looked at one another, eyes wide, mouths open.

Then they both shook their heads and said no, they had no idea where their son could be.

But Tomek did. At that moment, he knew exactly where to find him.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

‘So this one, this one is one of my favourites,’ she explained. ‘It’s cut from my favourite stone, sapphire.’

‘Handmade?’

She nodded politely. ‘Yes. Everything you see here is handmade by me. I have a little workshop out the back where I craft my little creations.’

The woman placed the ring on her finger and held it up to the light, admiring it for a moment. ‘You’re very talented.’

‘Thanks.’

Rose had heard enough. This woman was a time waster. Plain and simple. Interested in one thing and one thing only: wasting Rose’s time. Over the years, she had developed a knack, a canny ability to sniff out the shit from the “I’ll pay anything for this shit!” and she could usually see them a mile off. This woman, however, had given her cause for the benefit of the doubt. There had been something about her that had made Rose second-guess her instincts. Perhaps it had been the designer fashion, or the freshly bleached blonde hair, or the husband who was clearly punching above his weight, drooling behind her every step, but as soon as she had bared her teeth at the price tag attached to the ring and started asking her fucking inane questions, Rose had decided the woman’s time was up. Time to get out and come back when they could afford her jewellery. She took the ring back from her and started to treat them with contempt, to ensure they knew that she’d sussed them out. After a few more interactions, they finally got the hint and started to leave. Rose showed them the way out.

‘If you need anything else, you know where to find me,’ Rose said behind a forced grin. The couple quickly receded onto the busy high street, melting into the backdrop of other pedestrians. As she shut the door behind her, she whispered to herself, ‘Fucking idiots,’ and made her way back to her crocheting.

She’d finished the angel doll that she’d made in memory of Angelica, and was now moving on to her next creation: a small police officer, complete with blue hat and blue uniform, even if the image she was using looked more like Postman Pat than Mr Plod.

She was in the middle of getting her equipment out when the shop door opened. Before greeting the customer, she inhaled deeply, switched on the pleasant, customer-facing smile that was growing increasingly hard to do, then turned to face the newcomer.

She froze.

There, standing in the doorframe, was her husband. The man she felt she barely knew, his shoulders hunched, towering, domineering.

Rose’s immediate thought was not for her safety, but for the safety of her creations. The man was a walking ape, and from the pale, haggard, slightly yellow cheeks in his face – not to mention the stench of alcohol seeping from his pores – he was still drunk.

‘You,’ he said.

She didn’t think it was possible to slur a one-syllable word, but somehow he found a way.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ she retorted. ‘Get the fuck out of my shop. You’re not welcome here.’

But he didn’t heed the warning. Instead, he shut the door behind him, slammed the door bolt into place, then locked the deadbolt. The sounds echoed throughout the shop like gunshots, ricocheting in her ears.

And then it stopped.

The two of them were separated by only a few feet. Him, outweighing her three to one. Her, without a phone beside her or the reactions to move faster than him.

Johnny made the first move. Despite his inebriated state, he covered the shop floor in almost a single stride, clattering into the display cases on the way, and was on her in an instant. Without hesitation, he grabbed her shirt by the collar, yanked her away from her chair, and dragged her out of the back of the shop by her hair. Rose screamed as searing pain flared on her scalp. There was nothing she could do, nothing she could think to do other than hold Johnny’s hand to lessen the fiery pain.

After fiddling with door handles at the back of the shop, they entered a small hallway. The door to their right led to the flat upstairs, where Rose had spent almost every night for the past few months. And yet she had very little to show for it. There was no carpet yet. The floor was messy and covered in tools and sawdust. The walls needed sanding, skirting boards applying, and plaster scraping over the surfaces. The lights, radiators and kitchen appliances all needed an electrician to visit, as did the wall sockets and extractor fan. The only thing that did work, however, was the water. She had plenty of running water, and the most advanced room in the flat was the bathroom.

But Johnny didn’t seem to care about that. He didn’t seem to care about anything other than hurting Rose.

As soon as the front door to the flat slammed into the adjacent wall, he threw her down on the floor and straddled her. His immense weight pressed her down and kept her there. He was far too strong for her.

And then he wrapped his hands around her throat. Immediately, she felt air expel from her throat and lungs. Then she felt her breathing tighten, her throat crush, her lungs collapse.

‘You fucking bitch!’ Johnny yelled. ‘You had to fucking find out, didn’t you? You had to fucking ruin my life! I will never forgive you!’

There was a demonic look in his eyes. The same one she had seen once before. When they’d first got together and Johnny had protected her from some creep on the train after a day out in London. The anger and fury had been directed at someone else that time, but it had been there all the same. At the time, she’d foolishly mistaken it for safety, a form of protection. Now she realised that same level of protection was killing her, rapidly suffocating the life out of her. And there was nothing she could do about it.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

If there was one thing Tomek hated most about his hometown of Leigh-on-Sea, it was the parking. He was absolutely, unequivocally, a hundred per cent certain that he had lost over a day of his life trying to find a bastard parking space, particularly along Leigh Broadway. And now, today of all days, there was nothing. He had driven round, up and down, in and out, for five minutes, trying to find somewhere suitable. Until eventually, he had pulled rank and mounted the pavement outside the shop. He was out of the car in an instant and hurrying towards the front door of the jewellery shop.

It was locked.

On the two occasions he’d been there, it had never been locked. He checked the time – 13:37.

The middle of the afternoon. Whitaker’s should have been open. The displays were still complete in the windows, so where was Rose?

Tomek banged and banged, but he knew it was futile. That he was too late. That Johnny was in there somewhere. He cupped his face to the glass but saw nothing, just an empty shop.

And then he remembered the flat above. Tomek craned his neck skyward, in the hope that he’d see the two of them chatting amicably through the glass, but he knew that wasn’t a possibility.

Johnny was angry, livid even. He’d killed before, and he could very well kill again.

Behind Tomek was a group of uniformed constables who’d followed his movements. Two of them had just parked beside him and were in the middle of disembarking their vehicle when he ordered them to try the back of the shop. In the meantime, another pair of officers had arrived on foot. One of them was carrying an enforcer, a large battering ram designed to destroy even the strongest of doors. The constable raised it high into the air, and with the helping hand of practice and a good set of muscles, let gravity do the rest. The door only required one hit before it buckled and gave way.

At once, Tomek and the rest of the constables flooded into the shop, squeezing past one another, fighting for first entry. The inside was empty, desolate. At the back of the room, Tomek noticed an open doorway. He headed straight towards it and came into a small hallway that reminded him of his own flat – cramped, old, and smelling of damp. The door to his immediate right was open, and there, in the hallway, he heard sounds of discomfort and struggling.