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inside the baton’s main shaft. She pulled out the grip extension and walked back to the bed. Taking Henry’s right hand, she folded his fingers round the extended grip, after which she folded the fingers of his left hand around the baton’s side handle — she knew from watching Henry on stage that he was right-handed. Placing her own gloved hands over Henry’s, she squeezed his fingers tightly, making sure they made good, firm contact. She then pushed the grip extension back inside the body of the baton and returned the baton to its bag.
    Now all that remained were Henry’s clothes, which she had left folded on the end of the bed. Henry had been carefully chosen for a number of reasons, one important one being that since he was only a little taller than Amelia and was slim with well-toned muscles, his clothes would fit her reasonably well.
    Before putting them on, she removed her bra and replaced it with a tightly fitting sports bra. Her breasts weren’t large and the elasticated cotton made a good job of flattening her. Under Henry’s pullover and jacket, there would be nothing to be seen.
    She pulled on his jeans, tightening the belt to compensate for Henry’s larger waist size, and then the pullover. Checking her reflection in the wall mirror by the desk, she wound the hair from the blond wig onto the top of her head, pinned it in place and pulled Henry’s baseball cap down over the top, the piled-up hair helping to pad out the cap. Under the wig, she was wearing a tightly fitting skullcap to minimise the chance of any of her own hair ending up on Henry’s clothing or at the crime scene she was about to create.
    Before slipping on Henry’s shoes, she popped in some heel lifts, which made them surprisingly snug, but then, she had large feet. Finally she put on the linen jacket and scarf and looked at herself again in the mirror. Adjusting the cap so that it covered more of her face, she shuffled around in the clothes until she was comfortable before packing all her gear back into the holdalls. Last on her list were Henry’s car keys and phone: both were lying on the desk.
    Back in her room, she dropped the unwanted holdall and looked at her watch. Twelve fifty; time to move. Using Henry’s phone, she dialled Miruna’s number. It answered almost immediately.
    “Yes?”
    “Zis is Klaus. I—”
    “This is not same phone.”
    Amelia nodded in approval; the girl was sharp. To reassure her, she gave the number of the Nokia she’d called from earlier, adding, “That one is out of credit.”
    There was a brief pause as the girl decided.
    “OK.” Her tone was businesslike. “Sometimes police try to trick us.”
    “Don’t worry, I have no love of the police. I am slightly early. Are you ready?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good. I’ll be at the spot we arranged on Forest Road in about ten minutes. The car is a dark green four by four. I’ll flash the lights once as I approach.”
    “OK, when I see car, I come onto street. Stop in darker place between street lights.”
    Amelia ended the call and pocketed the phone. She took a deep breath. Now for the fun part.

 
    C hapter 7
    Monday 2 June, 8 a.m.
    T o make sure that she wasn’t the last to arrive for the briefing on Monday morning, Jennifer set three alarms, but unlike the previous day, she had been awake and up making tea before any of them sounded.
    She was amazed to find that Derek Thyme was once again in the incident room before her. A reformed character? — she doubted it. She was about to ask him about what progress he had made when DCI Hurst marched in followed as usual by Rob McPherson.
    Hurst cut straight to the chase.
    “Morning everyone. As some of you will know, we made a certain amount of progress yesterday, and once the pm’s done this morning, I’m expecting a lot more.
    “As far as background on Miruna Peptanariu is concerned, the girls either living with her or working the same patch that she did have been tight-lipped, which would indicate