Rachel woke from a thick, dreamless sleep. The hotel window was screened with fiercely efficient blackout blinds, so it was impossible to discern time of day. Her watch said 10 a.m., but after a few seconds of muzziness she remembered it was still set to UK time. The clock radio by her bed told her it was five in Washington DC.

She opened the blinds and looked out. It was dark, and very quiet. To her left was the empty splendour of Pennsylvania Avenue, and the mysterious blank space to her right was the Ellipse. She ordered coffee and juice from room service and switched on the TV. Only local news was available until 6 a.m., when national network coverage kicked in, so she watched the WLJA anchors expressing concern about a collision on the I295, and horror at a house fire in Clarksburg. The repetitive bulletins were punctuated with weather forecasts from the toothy weatherman, Brad, who told her it was going to be thirty-nine degrees Fahrenheit and sunny.

She had emailed her contact at Interpol as soon as she landed at Dulles the previous evening, and at seven thirty there was a reply from him.

Rachel showered and dressed, and went down to the lobby carrying her sweater, jacket and scarf. The central heating in the building was set to sub-tropical, so within its confines it was impossible to wear anything warmer than shirtsleeves. The reception area was already teeming with people on weekend trips swigging the complimentary drip coffee, and busboys moving luggage on tall gilt trolleys. Rachel registered the doorman’s dismay with a smile as she stepped out onto the street in her T-shirt, then bundled herself into her warm layers on the pavement.

The air was sharply cold, but in contrast to London’s late-February drabness it felt powder-dry and bracing, the bare trees dark shadow puppets against a gleaming duck-egg sky. She enjoyed the brisk mile walk north along 14th Street, the pavements filling with runners wearing headphones and clutching take-out coffee cups. Arriving at Slipstream early, she ordered an espresso and sat in a corner with a copy of the Washington Post.

‘Rachel?’

She looked up to see a tall, tanned man extending a hand with a broad smile. ‘Robert McConnell. Rob.’

‘Thanks for meeting me at the weekend, Robert J McConnell,’ Rachel said, shaking the hand. ‘What’s the J for?’

‘Justin.’

She had a sudden, wrenching flashback to sitting in a bar in Edinburgh and asking Giles Denton the exact same question when they were embarking on a case together. It made her shiver, but she suppressed the thought instantly. She didn’t want to think about her brief liaison with child protection specialist Giles the previous summer, one that had hit major trouble almost as soon as it began. Not now; not ever. She wouldn’t be making a mistake like that again.

Rob sat down opposite her, tugging off a padded MA-1 bomber jacket with an Interpol logo on the left sleeve. Underneath he wore a fitted grey T-shirt which betrayed a gym addiction. Sod’s law that he’s really attractive, Rachel thought. A complication I really don’t need. He had grey eyes, slightly creased with tan lines in the corners, thick light-brown hair that sprung from his forehead with a life of its own. And, naturally, the standard issue good American teeth. He could have been a model for yachting apparel, Rachel decided. Despite herself, she shot a quick glance at the bare ring finger of his left hand.

He ordered filter coffee for himself and toast and jam for them both.

‘You need to eat at US mealtimes,’ he told her when she attempted a refusal, ‘Only way you’ll power through the jet lag.’

As they ate, he told her ‘I’ve got a written briefing note, but if it’s okay with you, I’ll just give you a quick summary so you can ask questions while we’re face to face.’

‘Go ahead,’ Rachel spoke through a mouthful of toast. Annoyingly Rob was right: she was feeling better now her blood sugar levels were heading up. ‘This jam is bloody delicious. Or jelly, I suppose you call it.’

He did not attempt to hide his pleasure at the way she was demolishing the food. ‘Glad I got that right. They make it in-house… Okay, so our victim is called Phoebe Stiles. Twenty-five years old, born in Weoley Castle, England.’

Rob pronounced it Wee-olly, making Rachel smile. He caught her smirk and paused. ‘Sorry. Go on.’

‘She was here on a temporary work visa. From what we know, trying to find film or TV work in Los Angeles. The LAPD will give you more detail on that. Her remains were found in a dumpster behind a Macy’s, very badly decomposed. The Medical Examiner estimated she had been dead between four and six weeks at that point.’

He paused again to let Rachel digest this. She put down her piece of toast.

‘There was no ID on or near the body, and the police had to rely on dental records. Fortunately, Ms Stiles had been seeing an LA dentist quite recently to get a set of veneers fitted, so a positive identification was possible.’

‘And the family have been informed?’

He nodded. ‘They’re on their way to Los Angeles now. The troubling aspect of this is that they claim to have had very recent contact with Phoebe, up to a few days ago. But from the condition of her remains, the Medical Examiner is one hundred per cent positive that this is an impossibility. But, again, they’ll be able to tell you more when you meet them.’

Rachel grimaced. ‘Family liaison work is really not my forte. But I’m definitely going to need to speak to them about the alleged recent contact with their daughter. It could generate a lead.’

Rob grimaced too, in sympathy. ‘There are a whole bunch of questions you need to ask. We were contacted because Phoebe was a non-US citizen, but another female victim around the same age showed up in San Diego a few months earlier – an American – and there are some striking similarities with the Stiles case.’

Rachel rested her chin on her hands, her interest piqued. ‘Really? That’s interesting.’

He drained his coffee and pushed a manila envelope across the table to Rachel. ‘There’s more detail in there. When do you fly out to LA?’

‘This afternoon.’

‘You’ll have a little time to read through this then.’

Rachel wiped the sticky crumbs from her lip with a napkin and their eyes met for an intense second.

‘Rob…’ Rachel interrupted her own train of thought. ‘Listen, thanks for this.’

‘Sure, no problem. Anything I can do; you have my email address, and my cell number should be on the email too.’

Rachel smiled weakly. ‘Great.’

For an insane split second she had been about to ask him if he fancied a drink later. But it really wasn’t relevant either way. Not only did she not have enough time in DC, but after Giles Denton she had vowed never again to become involved with someone working on the same case. That was her new, absolute rule.

He stood and held out his hand. Their eyes met again. ‘Good luck, Rachel.’

---

The three hours before check-out were spent sitting at the desk in her hotel room and reading through Interpol’s briefing note.

Phoebe Stiles. The name was familiar for some reason. Rachel took her laptop from her case and googled it. A huge hit of results, and a whole portfolio of images. A pretty, Cuprinol-tanned, fake-lashed blonde girl captured by paparazzi at D-list events, or as part of tabloid and gossip mag features. Of course. She was that Phoebe Stiles. A soap actress who had been sacked and then set off down the reality TV road, involving herself in more and more desperate attempts to take up column inches: drunken nights out, Instagram nudity, social media fights with rivals, on again-off again relationships with fellow reality show victims, plastic surgery and pregnancy scares. A career of sorts.

Rachel clicked on a tabloid headline: Why I’ll take LA by storm, by Phoebe Stiles. There was a photo of Phoebe, all duck lips, fierce brows and custard-blonde angel waves. She was, she said, fed up with the negative attention and lies of the UK press and was going to Los Angeles ‘to further my acting career.’ She had an agent there, and several projects were in the pipeline. She was excited about her future.

Rachel set up an alert for updates on her search, closed her laptop and zipped it into her case with a deep sigh. Phoebe’s future. Rotting in a dumpster at the back of Macy’s department store.