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Estate of all but a few people, none of whom came near as Sam quickened his pace to catch up with Mulvey. The PC was near the corner of the parking area now and, as Sam approached he gave the area a last cursory sweep with his torch before switching it off.
    â€œNothing here,” Mulvey said. “We’ll try round there.” He gestured to the corner of a wall which hid the service area for the flats and started off towards it without waiting for Sam.
    Mulvey wasn’t a Trainer PC like Yvonne Dunlop, and Sam had only been assigned to him for the duration of this search, but he already disliked the PC’s bossy, dismissive manner. A lot of regs didn’t rate the TPO scheme very highly, but at least most of them would act as if the TPOs were sixteen and not six.
    Flicking his torch on again, Sam ran it along the base of the wall as they moved. The brickwork was covered with dozens of graffiti tags, some harder to decipher than others, but one of the most common was
KB
in large block letters: Kaddy Boys. That was the gang you heard of most often when there was trouble on the Cadogan Estate.
    Sam followed Mulvey around the wall to the rear of the tower block – a place of power plants, ventilation systems, bin stores and maintenance sheds. There was an overflowing skip and a council storage container in one corner, illuminated by a single street light. All the lamps on the walls had been smashed.
    â€œOkay,” Mulvey said. “You start in there.” He gestured to a bin shelter. “I’ll work round to meet you from over there.” And with that he headed off towards the skip.
    Being away from Mulvey was fine with Sam. He raised his torch and carried it the way the other coppers did – gripped just behind the lens, handle resting on his shoulder so it could be swung down easily in self defence if necessary. Its weight was a comforting reassurance as he moved into the poorly lit entrance to the bin shelter.
    The place smelled of rotting food and some things far worse, despite the cold weather. There was litter strewn underfoot and the light of the torch showed four commercial refuse bins, all taller than Sam was. Around them there were a couple of broken TV sets, a Hoover and other abandoned household goods.
    Sam took all this in for a moment before moving further into the shelter. He was hidden from Mulvey’s sight now and it wasn’t a place he wanted to linger, but even so he made himself take time, probing the shadows round the bins with the torch, looking for anything that wasn’t just someone else’s discarded crap.
    He saw the shoe first: black leather, the low-cut sort with a flat heel. It was near a sodden cardboard box and on its own it might have been easy to dismiss as part of the general rubbish. But as he moved closer to get a better look, the light of the torch caught something shiny nearby. And when he redirected the light, Sam saw the brightly coloured fabric and embroidered sequins of a shoulder bag, Indian in design.
    His first instinct was to go further forward and pick the thing up, but he caught himself mid-step and stopped. He played the light over the bag one more time to make sure he wasn’t seeing things then turned and started away.
    Mulvey was looking round the skip twenty metres away when Sam called to him. He looked up, then came across quickly.
    â€œWhat’s up?” he said brusquely.
    â€œIn there,” Sam nodded. “There’s a shoe and a bag – it fits the description we got.”
    â€œShow me.”
    Sam led the way back into the bin shelter, treading more carefully now, then located the shoe and the bag with his torch.
    â€œWhat do you think?” he asked.
    Mulvey stared for a moment. “Have you touched them?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œRight. Hold the light there.”
    Sam did as he was told and Mulvey pulled a blue latex glove onto his right hand, then moved forward. When he got to the bag he