Anna parked in Quay Street and she and Holder walked up under the overhang of the Gloucester county offices. The police station, a seven-storey concrete-and-glass monstrosity, cast a cold, architectural shadow over the simple domed beauty of the Crown court entrance opposite. Slack met them and took them upstairs. Within minutes he’d furnished them with strong tea and put them into a tiny room with a glass wall looking out onto the busy squad room. Sunday was forgotten and at least ten people were at work. It came as no surprise to Anna. The Hopkins Case was now a murder investigation for Harris and his team. With a killer at large, the danger for the local community had increased incrementally, and the public hadn’t even seen the body yet, or made the connections to Cooper, to Emily Risman… to the Woodsman.

With the door of their room closed, Anna and Holder could see the bustling activity and conversations taking place through the glass wall, but the soundproofing was excellent. Occasionally, someone in the squad room would glance in, wondering what it was that kept them so engrossed on the TV monitor.

Thankfully, no one in that workaday room could see what they could.

No one in his or her right minds would ever want to.

A dog team had found her in desolate woodland just four miles from the Hopkinses’ property. In a place that had been searched some days before. One handler had noticed activity from a couple of magpies as he’d made his way through a copse, his dog quickly repaying his sharp-eyed observation. The SOC video showed the layout. A narrow path led up to a crest, which rapidly descended into a bowl surrounded by naked ash and beech. From the approach, there was no way of knowing that such a depression existed in the landscape beyond. But the killer obviously knew.

The camera led the way down to the body and Anna was struck instantly by the similarity to Emily Risman’s SOC photos. The arrangement of branches and sticks forming a wooden tent over the body stood out. This time, a circlet of twigs entwined the crown. Someone had edited the video and the scene shifted to some time later, when the forensic team had done their preliminaries, to a point where the sticks had been removed. The cameraman was by necessity a true pornographer, visually probing all exposed parts of the victim’s body. This was his thankless role in the CSI team; finding and zooming in on every stab wound and bruise.

The similarities between Nia and Emily stood out as vivid and stark. Nia was also on her stomach, her lower half also covered with leaves, her face turned to one side, left arm half raised, pyjama bottoms pulled roughly down around her ankles. Anna knew that if she counted the stab marks, they’d number the same as were found on Emily’s body.

‘It’s the same. Exactly the same,’ she said finally.

‘You all right, ma’am?’ Holder asked.

‘As well as anybody after seeing that,’ said Anna. ‘The branches over her body. Has anyone given them a thought?’

Slack shrugged. ‘Half-hearted concealment maybe.’

‘I’d say he wanted her to be found,’ Anna shook her head. ‘Evidence of sexual molestation?’

Slack nodded. ‘There is bruising on the thighs but no semen. He used a condom.’

‘Knife?’

‘Four-inch blade. Same as with Emily Risman. Same number of times.’

Holder, sitting next to Anna, winced. He looked grey under his normally glowing brown skin.

‘Bathroom’s on this level, through the swing doors and take a left.’

Holder got up, mumbled some thanks and hurried through the door.

Anna watched him leave with a sympathetic grimace. ‘They didn’t tell him about this stuff at the academy. Preliminary forensics?’ she asked.

Slack consulted a file. ‘Remnants of adhesive on the wrists and mouth. Probably from tape. Strangulation was not fatal but prolonged. The ground was badly trampled. It looked as if he played cat and mouse with her, or she tried to get away. The blood spatter is all over the place.’

‘Time of death?’

‘Late yesterday evening.’

Anna squeezed her eyes shut. Nia’d been alive all this time. Hidden away. She swallowed down the frustration and hot anger. It wouldn’t help.

Slack continued, ‘No adhesive on the ankles but evidence of chafing on the left as if she’d been tied. He didn’t want her to get away, but didn’t want to restrict her movements either.’

‘Carried her to the killing ground. Easier to do if they’re not completely trussed up,’ she said, before exhaling loudly and reaching for the A4 pad she’d been scribbling notes on.

‘And, like Beckie, she was dosed up on ketamine and something called thiafentanil. A narcotic analgesic used by vets.’ Slack shook his head. ‘Do you need a copy of the video?’

‘No. Just send me through a few stills.’

‘Harris asked if you’d give him a ring once you’d finished here.’

She tried to read Slack but failed. She outranked him through nothing more than luck. If he was resentful, he was keeping it under wraps. She liked to think that catching Nia Hopkins’ killer was more important to him. Unlike his senior investigating officer.

‘Where is he?’

‘At the scene. He has a mobile.’

Slack reeled off the numbers as Anna dialled.

Harris answered with a barked hello. He sounded tired and brusque and blunt. ‘So, what do you think?’

‘My opinion is that we’re looking at an organised killing.’

‘You think whoever did this planned to kill this girl from the outset?’

‘Of course he did. Drugging Beckie. Abducting Nia to a place he clearly chose. He knew what he wanted to do, presuming this is not a copycat?’

‘No way. This is the sodding Woodsman. It’s Cooper,’ Harris said. ‘And don’t try telling me anything different.’ He killed the line and Anna pocketed the phone. His vehemence was understandable and all the more unwelcome for it. He wasn’t thinking clearly at this point. Though the similarities were obvious between Nia’s and Emily’s murders, there were differences, too.

Emily had not been hidden away and then killed. Her death had occurred on the day she’d gone missing. The abduction was a new departure. Why had the killer kept Nia? There were obvious reasons, despicable and harrowing ones that she didn’t need to dwell on, which the autopsy might reveal. But there may have been more practical and devious reasons, which she had yet to think through.

Anna saw no point in quizzing Harris further at this point. He’d hardly been receptive up to now, and, judging from his reactions on the phone, the drawbridge was most definitely up.

‘Is he happy?’ Slack asked.

‘Couldn’t you hear the hysterical laughter?’ she replied.

They both swung round at the noise of the door opening. Holder, looking a lot less grey, walked in.

‘Sorry, ma’am.’

‘Don’t be. I’d think a lot less of you if you hadn’t thrown up. I was a whisker away from it myself.’ Anna turned to Slack. ‘We’ll want all the evidence and files duplicated, obviously.’

‘No problem,’ Slack said. ‘I’ll make sure of that. You know the way out?’

Back in the car, Holder looked confused. ‘So, are we investigating this case, too, ma’am?’

‘No. But we need shared access now that there are so many similarities. Slack and Harris know how this works.’

Holder nodded, a deep frown creasing his brow.

Anna snorted. ‘Don’t ever play poker, Justin. Come on, out with it.’

‘Something Sergeant Slack said, ma’am. When he phoned through with the news, he said that DCI Harris wanted to pick Neville Cooper up for questioning.’

‘And so it begins,’ she said, and the smile that graced her lips bore no trace of amusement.

---

They drove back to Bristol in the darkening afternoon, Anna unable to shake off the despondent mood that had settled over her. There was no denying it might be the Woodsman, but that didn’t immediately incriminate Cooper, and she desperately needed to investigate her other leads. What if the killer killed again?

As she drove, Anna found herself hoping that Slack and Harris wouldn’t have shown Nia’s body to the parents in that state, although experience told her that someone must have made the identification since Nia’s Rupert the Bear pyjamas did not constitute enough in the way of confirmatory evidence. She assumed it would have been Chris Hopkins. How would he cope? How did anyone survive such a thing? You didn’t. But if you were lucky, if you had others you could care about, you endured.