Alex nodded in acknowledgment. Beside her, Chloe did the same.
‘I will speak to Mr Sibley about this myself. The last thing we need is negative attention. I’ll tell him you’ve been formally reprimanded, although clearly that’s an exaggeration. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here. Please don’t make it something I’ll regret.’
‘Sir.’
Chloe and Alex left Harry’s office in silence, neither willing to be the one to break it.
‘I don’t want to talk about it again,’ Chloe said, once they were in the corridor.
‘But—’
‘It’s not your fault. I should never have involved you.’
Alex didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to let Chloe down, but she didn’t want to have to be the one to help her chase a mystery that was never going to be solved. The only people who knew what had truly happened that night all those years ago were Luke and Emily. All truths had gone to the grave with them.
‘Boss.’
Alex was distracted from her thoughts by DC Mason. Chloe sidestepped him, barely acknowledging her colleague in her desperation to get away.
‘OK?’
‘Forensics has come back with the results on the two sets of prints found at the pub. One of them is a match with Lola Evans.’
‘And Sarah?’
Dan nodded. ‘She was there.’
Alex felt her heart miss a beat. A surge of fear for Sarah Taylor overwhelmed her. ‘And the blood?’
‘Nothing yet. Said they’ll try by the end of tomorrow.’
Alex sighed. She hoped for Sarah Taylor’s sake that the blood would be identified as Lola’s.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The forensics department was better than its word and the following morning returned a result on the blood samples taken from the pub. Two different blood samples had been collected from the room where they now knew Lola Evans and Sarah Taylor had been held. One was a match with Lola Evans.
Sarah Taylor’s sister was called into the station for a blood test, accompanied by the police officer acting as family liaison. His presence alone had previously been enough to send the family into a tearful panic about what might have happened to Sarah. There were things the Taylor family still hadn’t been told. They were unaware that Lola Evans had been held in the room where they now knew Sarah had also been held. They didn’t want to give them reason to worry any more than they already were doing; at least not until their fears were justified.
The family was aware that fingerprints had been found at the scene and were being analysed against belongings taken from Sarah’s bedroom at her flat. The match that had been found was something Alex was about to have to inform her of. Alex sat with Laura in one of the interview rooms.
‘I’m so sorry to tell you this, but one of the sets of prints lifted from the pub is a match with Sarah’s.’
Laura Taylor had seen the news and knew all about Lola Evans. No one needed to be told that Sarah’s disappearance was being investigated alongside the murder case. Alex had barely started speaking before the other woman was reduced to a trembling wreck.
Vulnerable young women, Alex thought. Lola Evans. Sarah Taylor. Now Laura. All victims of the hands life had dealt them. Or maybe not. Life hadn’t chosen this for them: a man had. A man possessed by the kind of evil Alex knew she would never begin to understand no matter how long her career.
Alex had sat through the strip club CCTV footage that Dan had flagged up. He was right: Lola hadn’t left alone. A camera at the front doors had picked her up leaving the building at just after 2 a.m. She had walked from the main doors of the club alone, but had met with someone as soon as she was outside. A man had been waiting there for her and it seemed Lola had been expecting him. The footage was grainy and the man was wearing a hood pulled up, though there was a partial shot of his face when he turned to greet Lola. Dark features. Much taller than Lola’s five foot four.
Was this the man who had taken and killed her?
Did this same man now have Sarah?
Laura Taylor sat sobbing, her long hair hiding her blotchy, tear-stained face. She looked so very much like her sister, and the thought of their physical similarities was unsettling. For a short while, Alex found herself unable to look at Laura without seeing Sarah’s face. It made her all the more determined to find her alive.
‘We’re doing everything we can to find Sarah.’
‘But she was definitely there? In that building. You know that for sure?’
Alex nodded.
As Laura Taylor cried – as her tears grew louder and pierced through the silence of the room – the officer assigned as family liaison stood by her side helplessly, seeking Alex’s eyeline for some sort of sign as to how he should handle the situation.
Alex put a hand on the young woman’s arm. ‘We mustn’t assume the worst. Although Sarah’s prints were there, there’s nothing to suggest she has been injured. It’s likely whoever has taken Sarah was panicked by the boys getting into the building. He might have just moved her. You need to stay strong for your sister, OK?’ She looked up at the family liaison officer. ‘Could you get Laura a cup of tea, please?’
The young woman looked at Alex once the FLO had left the room. ‘I know what he did to that other girl. What if he’s done the same to Sarah?’
Alex took Laura’s hand in hers. ‘We have to believe he hasn’t. For Sarah. OK?’
She let go of Laura’s hand and passed her the box of tissues from the desk. Her own words sounded so convincing when she spoke them aloud like that.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Connor Price had been brought into the station by uniform and was sitting in the holding area looking agitated. He followed Alex through to the interview room, making no attempt to hide his annoyance at having been called there for a second time that week.
DC Chloe Lane was already in the interview room. She sat with her arms folded across her chest and avoided Alex’s eye as she entered the room. She was clearly still smarting from that morning’s meeting with Superintendent Blake. Alex guessed that much of what the young woman was experiencing was acute embarrassment. She had kept her past – she had kept herself – so expertly hidden, her backstory packed neatly away like a delicate keepsake, that to watch its wrapping torn away by careless fingers must have panicked her into the shame-filled silence which she now seemed so intent on maintaining. If she hadn’t known Chloe better, Alex might have thought her attitude petulant. But Chloe was just a young woman who had been forced to endure more than her life’s fair share of trauma.
No one could blame her for wanting to cocoon herself.
‘I’m not saying anything until a solicitor gets here,’ Connor said, taking a seat and folding his arms across his chest. His stance mirrored Chloe’s, an unspoken defiance reaching across the table between them.
‘That’s fine.’