D Devlin - The Present - The must-read Christmas Crime of the year!

‘I’ve started to feel I owe these victims something,’ he said once to Anna. ‘It doesn’t feel like investigative journalism any more, it feels more like a moral obligation. Where CID have thrown in the towel, I feel it’s my job to pick it up again, to reopen the cases, to see that these victims receive at least some sort of justice.’

He began making contact with dark and shadowy people deep in the underworld, people who could furnish him with clues and leads with which to track down old killers.

And then – something happened. Something between Miles and a man he had gone to meet. Miles disappeared. It was as if he had vanished from the face of the earth. No trace of him. No word from him.

And then, two weeks later, the police had come to the After-Dark offices to say that they’d found him. Miles had been discovered roaming the streets of the suburbs, half-starved, dishevelled, mistreated, and barely coherent. During the slow period of his convalescence, he would tell nobody where he had been or what had happened to him. He declined to give a statement to the police. He refused to reveal anything to the Guv. He would not even divulge anything to Anna, though she would spend hours at his bedside in the hospital and then later visit him at the rambling Hampstead townhouse he had inherited from his mother and where he lived alone.

Physically, Miles recovered. But, psychologically, he remained fragile, too much so to return to work at After-Dark. Anna would visit him and was always shocked at how vulnerable he continued to appear, how anxious he was at the most innocuous sounds in the street outside, how reluctant he was for her to leave him alone again when it was time for her to go.

From time to time she would ask him gently, ‘Miles – what happened to you?’

Only once did he ever break his silence about the matter. Looking at her intensely, forcing a sad smile, he had said, ‘I got too close.’

‘Too close to what, Miles?’

‘I got too close,’ he had repeated softly. ‘And I learnt my lesson.’

And that was all he ever said about his nightmare.

It had been a salutary lesson to all the team working at After-Dark. They all of them diced with danger in the course of their investigations. Any one of them could end up like poor Miles Carter – broken, traumatised, or worse. If Anna got too close to the Santa killer, and if she was careless, and if she took one wrong step and put herself in excessive danger, then …

Pushing her fears out of her mind as best she could, she pulled into the car park of the police station where CID was holding its press conference. Parking up, she took a moment to check her reflection in the rear-view mirror, examining her oval face, her keen eyes, her strong nose with its slight Roman arch, the generous mouth, the blonde hair scraped back and held in a messy bundle behind her head.

‘You won’t end up like Miles,’ she told her reflection. She spoke firmly, with conviction. But all the same, there was still a hint of fear in those reflected eyes looking back at her.

Anna headed into the police station and was directed to a cramped, drab room which was to house the press conference. There were no seats provided, so she jostled her way through the press scrum, getting as near to the podium as she could manage, fighting to keep her ground until the conference began.

Waiting for things to start, she examined the police handout she had been given, but there was nothing on it that she wasn’t already familiar with. Dominating the handout was the photo of Ben and Sharon Steiner on their wedding day, beaming into the camera without a care in the world. The whole country knew that photo by now; it had appeared in every newspaper and flashed up time and again on the news.

But despite the familiarity, the picture still chilled Anna’s blood. The innocence in the faces of that couple was painful to behold. In that joyful moment when they’d posed together in the sunshine, they’d had no idea – not even an inkling – of the agony and horror that would suddenly descend upon their lives without warning, of the fact that one would disappear overnight and the other would be left dead in a pool of blood.

A door opened suddenly and a man in a dark suit strode up onto the podium. He was tall, well built, with dark hair and angular, very serious features. His keen, rather piercing eyes surveyed the room as if trying to pick out an individual face from the crowd. When that intense stare fell upon Anna he seemed to pause and scrutinise her with particular interest, or maybe even hostility. Did he recognise her as the hack who had humiliated CID the previous summer on account of the Underwood case?

Anna refused to be intimidated. She held his stare, unblinking, for what felt like minutes but could only have been a heartbeat or two – and then the man turned his attention elsewhere, checked his notes, tapped the microphone, and addressed the room:

‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending this press conference. My name is DI Jim Townsend of Middlesex CID, B Division, and, as I’m sure you are aware, I am the officer charged with heading the investigation into the recent disappearance of Ben and Sharon Steiner. Now, before I update you as regards the current state of the investigation, I feel it necessary to address certain criticisms and accusations which some amongst you have made against CID in recent months in relation to the abduction of Josh Underwood.’

And now he surely shot a cold glance at Anna.

‘Our professionalism and integrity was called into question on account of that case,’ DI Townsend went on. ‘I have no intention of rebutting those accusations point by point so I will restrict myself to saying simply this: CID is, and always will be, dedicated to each and every task assigned to it. In the current case, myself and my investigative team are totally committed to discovering the whereabouts of Sharon Steiner, and, as far as is humanly possible, returning her safely to her family and loved ones. We are no less committed to apprehending whoever was responsible for the brutal murder of Sharon’s husband Ben. Our investigation is being carried out with rigour, dedication, and with the utmost professionalism. Any and all accusations to the contrary are unfounded and unjustified.’

‘DI Townsend, why have the forensics samples taken at the crime scene not been properly analysed yet?’ Anna called out.

The other journalists packing the room poised themselves expectantly for an answer.

Townsend turned his cold stare back towards Anna and said: ‘I am not at liberty to discuss forensics reports publicly at the current time.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because such information may prejudice the ongoing investigation.’

‘Assuming you had such information,’ Anna said boldly. ‘Detective Inspector Townsend, I have a source inside Middlesex CID who has informed me that the forensics samples taken from the crime scene were contaminated due to mishandling by an inexperienced forensics team.’

‘Untrue,’ Townsend said bluntly.

‘And I have also been informed that CCTV footage from security cameras in the vicinity of 19 Elm Crescent – footage which almost certainly would have contained images of whoever attacked and abducted the Steiners – was not seized as evidence and has since been erased.’

‘Untrue,’ Townsend repeated, an edge of anger creeping into his voice.

‘And what’s more, Detective Inspector, that same source revealed to me that basic investigational procedures were not followed by you and your officers when you first arrived at the crime scene …’

‘Untrue.’

‘… resulting in evidence gained at that time being declared inadmissible in any subsequent trial.’