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non-existent as the tea lay still like a cold, stagnant pond.
    “What do you know about her personal life?”
    Joshua puffed his cheeks out. “Only that she had a boyfriend.”
    Brian looked down at his notes. Danny. “And this boyfriend. Did Nicola ever talk to you about him?”
    Joshua smiled and shook his head.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “Nothing. Oh, nothing’s funny,” he said, sniffing. “Her boyfriend? I dunno. I saw him storm in here one day kicking up all this commotion. She seemed upset and weird whenever she saw him or mentioned him. Always dead cynical, like. I dunno, I might just be looking into things too much. I dunno.”
    Brian put pen to paper and expanded his doodle. Should he risk it? Screw it. “This is all very good, Joshua. But I sense that you had feelings for Nicola that might go beyond your work?”
    Joshua looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He reached into his pocket. “You’ve got that wrong, and you’re running down the wrong track.”
    “Well, you certainly seem a bit defensive. All I’m saying.”
    Joshua planted a photograph onto the table. It was a picture of him and another man with a streaked quiff, both dressed in suits. They were signing a piece of paper in what looked like a registry office.
    He held out a silver ring. “Been in a civil partnership for a year. Very happy in it. I love him, he loves me. Like I said, you’re running down the wrong track.” He smiled again.
    “I have to ask these questions,” Brian said. “Just procedure, y’know?” In his gut, he felt punched. He was getting nowhere.
    “I know. I understand you’re just doing your job. But it’s tough, y’know? She…‌Nicola. She was just so…‌so normal. I don’t understand why anyone would want to do this to her. She was just an ordinary girl, you know?”
    Brian pulled another details card out of his pocket as his phone buzzed. “Like I say, if you have anything else to tell us, or any of your colleagues have anything to say, give us a ring, all right? Sorry about your loss. And sorry, I have to take this.” He handed the card to Joshua and pulled the phone to his ear.
    “What is it?” he asked.
    “Brian, you need to get down to Danny’s as soon as possible,” Cassy said.
    “What‌–‌what’s going on?”
    Cassy sounded out of breath. “He’s gone. Hasn’t been seen since yesterday afternoon.”
    Adrenaline rushed through Brian’s body. “I‌–‌I’ll be right there,” he said, before running out of the room and down the stairs.
    At least he’d finally got his five flights of exercise for the year.

Chapter Five
    It seemed like forever ago that driving with the siren on had last excited Brian.
    He used to love it, whirring through the traffic, filled with youthful excitement and adrenaline. Now, it was just routine. The sound grew irritating over the years. In the films, sirens were a sign of an impending chase‌–‌a high-tempo shoot-out with a group of crooks. In Preston, sirens were usually due to a Chihuahua terrorising some neighbours, or something along those lines.
    He shot through the parting traffic as the old hospital emerged in the distance. It used to be sprawling inside, full of life. Now, it was an empty shell, ghostly and abandoned. A thick film of dark-green moss coated the red brick, which was wearing away, on the side of the clock tower. He’d dealt with a few druggies and delinquents in there, but nothing too serious.
    Brian pulled up outside the grey brick house on the opposite side of the road to the hospital. Cassy stood in the garden with an elderly woman. Looked too old to be Danny’s mother. Maybe a grandparent or a neighbour.
    He walked over to Cassy and the other woman. The woman folded her arms over her grey cardigan. A massive mole sprouted out of her left cheek, and her scraggy, unkempt grey hair clung to the sides of her face like an animal with separation anxiety. Cassy held her hands out, trying to calm the woman