Your Life or Mine

by Vicki Bradley

  Loxton shook her head in annoyance. ‘Have they caught anyone?’

  ‘The staff were clueless,’ Gabriella said. ‘Under-resourced and stretched to capacity. It’s not their fault.’

  ‘It was definitely an inside job,’ Sarah said. ‘Gabriella, you should look at all the new hospital staff first.’

  ‘But how, in a maximum-security wing of Broadmoor, would a new staff member be trusted so quickly to be in that position?’ Loxton said. ‘Barratt’s been in there for two years and hasn’t exactly behaved.’ She shuddered, remembering his killing spree over a year ago when he’d murdered three inmates and a guard.

  ‘Do you think it was a mistake?’ Jane asked. ‘Barratt just seizing an opportunity?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Loxton said. ‘Barratt was always assessing different scenarios – his mind never stops, but this seems too lucky even for him. He must have had help.’

  ‘He probably charmed one of the guards,’ Gabriella said. ‘Remember that female guard being prosecuted for taking in drugs for a prisoner a few years back? Broadmoor Hospital is weirder than a prison. It’s not just the inmates who lose their minds in there. And Barratt is the most intense man I’ve ever met.’

  Loxton knew what she meant. Barratt’s attention was all-consuming, like a snake’s; mesmerizing and terrifying all at once. He had a way of getting under your skin and into your head that she couldn’t help but admire. His victims – sex workers, often medicated with heroin – had never stood a chance against him.

  ‘I heard they’re putting him back in isolation, in the most secure part of the hospital,’ Gabriella said.

  ‘Well, that’s something,’ Jane replied, but she took a large swig of her drink, and Loxton noticed that she was glancing around the room, as if checking to make sure Barratt wasn’t watching them.

  ‘Let’s get cocktails,’ Emma said. ‘I start nights on Monday, so I might as well make the most of my last bit of freedom.’ She waved at the waiter, a grin lighting up her face.

  Chapter 2

  Tuesday 25 January, 06:55

  The noise was deafening: a cacophony of voices and the usual chaos of Southwark CID as officers rushed from one side of the room to the other.

  Loxton walked over to Kowalski’s desk. He was sat with a woman in a smart dress suit who was around Loxton’s age, with long dark hair tied in a neat ponytail. Kowalski handed Loxton a coffee in a polystyrene cup and she took it gratefully.

  ‘This is DC Lena Trawinska,’ he said. ‘We worked together in the Polish police quite a few years back. DCI Winter was looking for a profiler for the series of sexual assaults we’ve had these past two weeks and I suggested Lena. She’s one of the best.’

  Lena smiled at him and then leaned towards Loxton in a conspiratorial style. ‘He’s biased; don’t listen to him. We met at police training school and I’ve got too much dirt on him. If you take me for a beer, I’ll tell you everything, and how, when I met him, he couldn’t even down a pint.’

  Kowalski looked flustered and Loxton tried to hide her smile. It was strange to see him so easily wound up. Usually nothing bothered him.

  ‘All right, Lena,’ Kowalski said quickly. ‘Loxton doesn’t want to hear about that. She’d much rather hear your opinion on our sexual assault case from last night. Do you think it could be one of your series?’

  Lena glanced down at the paperwork. ‘I don’t think so. My guy seems to be following a set pattern. It’s always parks late at night, which suggests he works in the daytime. Your case happened at two in the afternoon on a cut-through to the high street. The description’s slightly out too. But I’ll keep it on the possible list. You never know.’

  Kowalski sighed. ‘I thought it might be another suspect. Just our luck we’ve got two of them.’

  Loxton noticed Meera Patel in the corner of the office. Her face was pale and she hurriedly swiped away a tear. She must have had some bad news. Loxton would go over in a minute to talk to her.

  Then Loxton frowned as she took another look around the entire office. Something was off. Detectives were frantically working, but it was more than the usual buzz of stress. Loxton felt a creeping sense of dread rising in her as she sensed the adrenaline rolling off the people around her. Southwark CID was usually chaotic, but this was something else.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked Kowalski, motioning to the rest of her colleagues.

  Kowalski glanced up from the paperwork and threw a cursory glance around the room. ‘All hell’s broken loose, but that’s usual for this place, right?’

  Lena frowned. ‘I’d been told it was busy here, but this seems extreme.’

  The noise around them had reached fever pitch. She could see a uniformed officer in a heated debate with her superior, DCI Winter.

  Something was really wrong.

  Voices rushed at her, but she couldn’t make out what was going on. She walked over to DCI Winter and the uniformed officer, who were huddled together in the far corner of the office.

  The uniformed officer looked stressed. ‘The detective didn’t show up for her night duty.’

  And there it was. A police officer had gone missing. One of their own. Loxton felt the usual pulse of pain radiating in her temples. Too much caffeine and not enough sleep mixed with something sharper – dread, as she imagined the worst-case scenario, knowing that what you feared the most sometimes did come true.

  Loxton prayed she didn’t know whoever it was that had disappeared, but the police became a small world after you’d lived in it for ten years.

  ‘Who is it?’ Her voice was louder than she meant it to be and she felt her stomach clench as if in preparation for a blow.

  The uniform stopped speaking. Winter turned to her. ‘It’s DC Emma Robins. She didn’t arrive for the start of her shift with the Child Abuse Investigation Team last night at Camberwell police station.’

  Kowalski and Lena had joined her and she saw Kowalski’s face had paled. She closed her eyes for a moment and all she could see was Emma’s infectious grin and the smattering of freckles across her nose.

  ‘There’s got to be a mistake,’ Loxton said, lowering herself onto a chair as the world slid sideways, remembering with growing dismay the murder squad reunion two nights ago. All the girls back together.

  ‘We completed a welfare check at her flat on Southwark Park Road at 3am but she wasn’t there.’ The uniform’s face was grave. He was in his forties, had seen it all before, but not this. Not one of their own going missing. She could tell by his eyes – he was concerned, like they all were.

  ‘That’s not like Emma,’ Loxton said. ‘She’s never not shown up for work. She doesn’t just disappear.’

  Some officers in the police were haphazard about turning up for their shifts, one too many the night before to block out another disturbing case or another disastrous failed relationship.

  Sure, Emma liked to party, Loxton remembered her insisting on buying them all a round of shots on Saturday night. The way she could always keep a party going. But Emma was also hard working, determined and above everything else a team player. She wouldn’t have left her night duty team short. Not unless it was serious. Loxton found herself thinking of the reason they had all met up in the first place. Barratt escaping from Broadmoor. But he was back in the hospital, she reminded herself. This couldn’t be him.

  ‘Are they checking the hospitals?’ Kowalski asked, reaching for a phone.

  ‘It was done last night,’ Winter said. ‘I’ve asked Patel to give it another go this morning and she’ll be widening the search.’ Loxton remembered Patel crying. She’d already been told. She probably knew Emma too.

  ‘When did she go missing?’ Loxton asked.

  ‘We don’t know that yet,’ Winter said. ‘She was last in work four days ago. We need to get a timeframe, find out who was the last person to see her.’

  ‘I saw her on Saturday evening,’ Loxton said, and Winter looked surprised. ‘A few of us who used to work together in the murder s
quad had a reunion. We had a fair bit to drink, left around midnight and I watched her get the Northern Line southbound from Waterloo.’ Loxton flinched as she remembered the last time she’d seen Emma, waving at her as the tube pulled away and then rushing for her own train. She remembered there was something strange about Emma that night. But what was it?

  ‘Well, that’s a start,’ Winter said. ‘We can work with that for CCTV parameters. Does she have a car?’

  ‘She didn’t when we worked in the murder squad.’ Loxton logged on to a computer to check. ‘No car registered at her home address.’

  ‘Kowalski, I want you and Loxton to lead on this one,’ Winter said. ‘Emma lives in Southwark borough, so she’s our missing person case.’

  ‘Of course,’ Kowalski said. ‘We’ll go and search Emma’s flat, try to establish her contacts, where she might have gone.’

  ‘I’ll get someone else to take over this sexual assault,’ Lena said. ‘Don’t worry about that.’

  Loxton nodded gratefully. ‘Sir, has anyone spoken to Emma’s mum? They’re close; she might know what’s happened, although she’s not been well recently.’ Loxton remembered Emma saying her mum had started forgetting things, how it worried her. That she was going to look into a care home.

  ‘We’ve not been able to contact her mother yet,’ Winter said. ‘The details we have on the system are wrong. When you search the flat, see if you can find correct ones. Forensics should be there shortly to meet you.’

  ‘Is there anyone else listed as Emma’s next of kin on her police record?’ Loxton knew Emma was single at the moment. No significant other. She’d been complaining on their night out about reaching her thirties and not having met ‘the one’ yet. Loxton had told her being single was easier – no one else to worry about or to screw up your life.

  ‘It was just her mum listed,’ Winter replied. ‘The residents at the mother’s old address said they moved in about three months ago. We’ll try the estate agents they bought the place through; they should have some details on where the mother went.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘They should be open soon.’

  Hope rose in Loxton’s chest. Perhaps Emma had had to rush off to help her mum and had been unable to get a message to work. It didn’t sound like Emma – but, then, none of this did.

  ‘I’ll get a team together working on the CCTV from Waterloo and request cell siting of her mobile,’ Winter said as he turned from them and began directing the detectives around him like it was just another case. Loxton marvelled at Winter’s ability to carry on as normal, but then realized that she’d also gone into autopilot. It was easier that way, to focus on each next step, and to avoid remembering the missing person cases that she’d worked on that at first seemed innocuous but then turned quickly into tragedy.

  Once Loxton and Kowalski were out of the busy CID office, Kowalski turned to her. ‘Are you okay to lead on this?’ he asked. ‘Emma is your friend. You don’t have to come with me. You can swap with Lena.’

  ‘It’s fine. I can handle it.’ Loxton kept walking, refusing to let anything slow her down. She would work every hour she could to find her friend. Emma would do the same for her.

  PART 1 EMMA

  Chapter 3

  Tuesday 25 January, 07:30

  Emma’s home was a small, one-bed flat in a new build apartment block. Loxton and Kowalski had suited up in forensic coveralls, gloves and masks. She used the key that the uniform officer had given her to open the boarded-up front door, which they had forced to gain entrance a few hours earlier.

  It felt strange to be in Emma’s flat without hearing her voice, her laughter peeling through the rooms. Loxton had been here so many times before for dinner and drinks. Without Emma, the place looked dreary and cold.

  There were no obvious signs of a disturbance, but something didn’t feel right. The flat felt abandoned somehow. Emma’s red coat was missing and there was no handbag lying around. No mobile either. It was as if Emma had never returned home after their night out.

  ‘Got something,’ Kowalski called to her from the bathroom. She followed his voice and saw he was going through Emma’s bathroom cabinet. He pointed at a little pedal bin under the sink. Loxton examined the contents – a single blue toothbrush and a man’s deodorant. ‘Looks like a man stayed here recently,’ Kowalski said. ‘Did she have a boyfriend?’

  Emma hadn’t mentioned anyone the other night. Then Loxton remembered what had seemed strange about her. She’d been cautious about Loxton getting into another relationship after Alec Saunders. Was this man a mistake that Emma didn’t want people to know about? If only Loxton had asked Emma how she was doing. Why hadn’t she asked?

  Kowalski kept searching through the bathroom cabinet. He held up a packet of contraceptive pills, and then another with ‘Fluoxetine’ written on the box. The prescription labels said they had both been made out to Emma. Kowalski checked his mobile and looked surprised. ‘Fluoxetine’s an anti-depressant. Was Emma depressed?’

  ‘She didn’t say anything,’ Loxton said, thinking that it was true – you never really knew what people were struggling with when they were back inside their own private worlds.

  In the bedroom, they found condoms in the bedside drawer. ‘Looks like there must have been a recent boyfriend,’ Loxton said. ‘We need to find out who he is.’ She was confused that Emma hadn’t mentioned anyone. She was usually so open; she never seemed to censor herself, often telling them all far too much information. She was the most honest person Loxton knew.

  ‘There’s got to be something here.’ Kowalski rummaged through Emma’s drawers and Loxton stood watching in dumb silence. This was a friend’s home and here they were riffling through her belongings. It wasn’t right.

  Kowalski glanced at her and paused for a moment, pressing his lips together. Then he turned back to what he was doing and she forced herself to go over to the wardrobe. Time was ticking, and she knew every second counted.

  On the inside of the wardrobe door were a few photos, Blu-Tacked on. There was one of Emma and Loxton and their old team, all laughing together at a Christmas party. Loxton remembered the rich dinner and, later, the aniseed shots.

  She studied each photograph as if she would be able to see the clue to her friend’s whereabouts within one.

  Loxton spotted Emma’s mum in one image, somewhere sunny, and she realized mother and daughter shared the same infectious grin. They were so alike.

  She noticed a space where a photo had been taken down, remnants of Blu-Tac still visible. She walked over to the little wastepaper bin in the corner of the room and, sure enough, inside was a torn-up photograph. She crouched down next to the bin and picked up the two pieces, fitting them together.

  It was a photo of Emma next to a handsome man in his thirties with short brown hair and dark brown eyes. He had his arm wrapped tight around Emma’s waist and she was beaming at the camera. It looked like they were in a cocktail bar. Loxton didn’t recognize him, but the photo looked recent. Emma was wearing her red winter coat.

  Kowalski glanced down at Loxton and the photo. ‘Is this the boyfriend?’

  ‘Maybe an ex now by the looks of it.’ They didn’t have a name yet, but at least they had a photo of him. It was something.

  Loxton called Patel. ‘Meena, can you check Emma’s phone records? See who her top three contacts were in the last month. Looks like she had a recent boyfriend. We don’t have a name yet.’

  ‘Will do,’ Patel said. ‘Hopefully his phone’s on contract. I should be able to get you his name and address.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Loxton said. Why wouldn’t Emma have mentioned this man? Perhaps the break-up had been too painful to talk about. Loxton felt a chill run down her spine as she looked at the man’s smiling face, slightly distorted by the ripped edges.

  She checked the rest of the wardrobe. It was full of clothes, as was the chest of drawers. It didn’t look like Emma had packed to go anywhere; her wheelie suitcase was there, empty. Loxton riffled through the
wardrobe again. She couldn’t find a silver dress and heels anywhere. Or Emma’s red coat. She looked inside the wash basket and washing machine in the kitchen.

  ‘What is it?’ Kowalski asked, following her into the kitchen.

  ‘Emma was wearing a silver dress and heels on Saturday night, but they’re not here. It means she probably never made it back home.’

  Kowalski nodded. ‘We’ll call Winter if we haven’t found them by the end of the search.’

  They moved into the small living room and Kowalski held up Emma’s passport after checking the sideboard. He looked worried.

  ‘Where the hell is she?’ Loxton asked, feeling a growing sense of unease. It was getting harder to pretend Emma had just gone away for a few days. ‘And where are Forensics?’

  ‘There’s not much for them to do here,’ Kowalski said. ‘But they won’t be long.’

  ‘They can at least use luminol for any blood traces.’ Loxton felt a surge of anger as they continued searching. Something didn’t feel right about the flat, but she couldn’t quite say what it was.

  By the end of the search they knew for certain that Emma’s red coat, silver dress and heels were missing; there was no mobile, purse or bank cards and her warrant card wasn’t anywhere to be found. Emma’s work laptop had been on her coffee table. She wouldn’t have gone to her night shift without it. She would have needed it. From what they’d found so far, it looked like Emma had never made it back home on Saturday night.

  Chapter 4

  Tuesday 25 January, 10:00

  Loxton found an empty desk to sit at in the corner of the CID office, away from everyone else. She didn’t relish making this call. ‘Jane, it’s Alana. I need to ask you about Emma.’

  ‘Emma?’ Loxton could hear the sound of a washing machine going and the low murmur of a TV in the background. ‘Is she all right?’ Jane’s voice rose with concern. Police always imagined the worst; they came to expect it.