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original case file. Its horrors were old: the photocopy of the driver's licence was actually more shocking, because here was the girl - alive and smiling. She still didn't have a future, but the licence gave her a past of sorts and the contrast was telling.
    I put the papers to one side.
    Five months without a fucking word, Sean. And this is what you do?
    There were a number of questions I wanted answered, many of them connected with who this girl was and why she'd been killed, but the ones that preyed on my mind most were to do with Sean.
    How he was and what he'd been doing. And why he hadn't delivered this envelope in person. The truth was, I really missed him.
    My first instinct was to contact him, but there was no obvious way to do that. Someone else lived in his flat now, and after two months his mobile number had started coming up dead. Now, a quick and casual phone call to the police confirmed that he wasn't working in the department anymore - did I want to leave a message? I said no, and hung up. I'd thought that maybe he'd returned to work and nobody had been able to find me to tell me, but apparently not.
    I went into the kitchen to make another coffee - the final straw, surely: the one that would send me into the street tap-dancing like a fool - and wondered what to do about Sean's delivery while the kettle slowly boiled. It was doubtful that he had sent me the information out of courtesy - he clearly expected me to act on it in some way. I thought it over. There was no point in me taking it to the police, as he could have done that himself, so more off-the record enquiries seemed to be in order. As to why he hadn't established contact properly, I'd just have to trust that he had a good reason. I was his friend, after all, and I owed him that much.
    Perhaps it would become obvious.
    I poured the coffee and took it through to the front room.
    A couple of simple calls, then. And to be fair, it wasn't like I had anything else to do with my day.
    Like most of the students in our city, Alison had travelled a long way to be with us. The address on her driver's licence was her parents' house, and they lived on the other side of the country in Bracken, where I guessed that she'd grown up. It took a little searching on the internet to get a phone number for them, and then ten minutes of planning before I decided what I was going to say.
    Then, I made the call.
    A man answered after five rings:
    'Hello?'
    'Mr Sheldon?' I said.
    'Uh-huh.' The line crackled a little. 'Who am I speaking to?'
    'My name is Martin Weaver,' I told him. 'I'm a detective. I'd like to talk to you about your daughter.'
    'Right. Go on then.'
    His lack of concern took me aback a little, but I tried not to let it register. Instead, I took my first risk, figuring that Sean must have been in touch with this man at some point.
    'I believe you spoke to one of my colleagues recently?'
    'No, not me.'
    'Oh,' I said. First risk taken and fucked up. 'In that case I must have been misinformed.'
    'It was my wife who spoke to him.'
    'Ah, right.'
    Her parents were a logical place to start, I supposed. Of course, living so far away, it was unlikely that they'd have much insight into Alison's life in the city; they probably wouldn't know that much about what she did and who she did it with, or even - given the realities of teenage alienation - much about who she was. But Sean had given me their address for a reason, and so there must be something here.
    Sheldon said, 'He rang up about a month ago. Sean something, I think. I don't know - my wife wrote it down. Said he was a policeman.'
    'That's right,' I said, and it occurred to me how strange it was.
    Their daughter had been murdered and the only people who had contacted them about it were men claiming to be policemen who actually weren't.
    I said, 'Could you tell me what he discussed with your wife?'
    It was an awkward question anyway - as by all rights I should already know - but I knew that Sheldon's irritation and