‘But he’s been in the UK over the past few months…’

‘Been?’

‘He left three hours ago on a Eurostar train to Paris.

‘Shit. Oh, shit. Get in touch with Interpol. Erm, we need to bring him in.’

‘Okay Boss. How are things going with Laura?’

‘Slowly, we’re trying to get her to talk, but I don’t know how much she’s going to divulge.’

Erika hung up the phone and was about to go back inside, when it rang in her hand. It was Isaac Strong.

‘I’ve finally had the results come back on the soil samples we took from the plastic Jessica Collins was wrapped in,’ he said. ‘As well as being soil and silt samples consistent with what would be found at the quarry, there was another type of material which was found within the plastic. When I sent the soil away to the forensic geologist I also included the lower jawbone from Jessica’s remains, where the material was swabbed from between the teeth where is had become lodged.’

‘What’s the material?’ asked Erika becoming impatient.

‘It’s from a type of bivalve mollusc native to the area around the Gower Peninsula in Wales, also known as the Penclawdd cockle. Jessica was dropped into the quarry wrapped tightly in the plastic, it created a seal that only the water and microscopic organisms could get through…’

‘The quarry was searched in the weeks after Jessica went missing, so whoever put her in the water either kept her alive…’

‘Or killed her, disposed of the body and then transferred the body to the quarry.’

‘Laura was away with her boyfriend Oscar when Jessica disappeared,’ said Erika. ‘They went to the Gower Peninsula in Wales.’

 

 

67

 

 

AUGUST 7TH 1990

 

 

* * *

 

The air was warm, and a breeze floated off the sea shore towards Laura and Oscar Browne as they sat beside the fire. It was a cool night, and the sky was a vast canopy of stars above them. They were the only people for miles, sitting on the sand in the small, secluded bay in the Gower Peninsula near Swansea.

‘Do you want some more?’ asked Oscar holding up a bottle of wine. Laura leaned forward and let him top up her mug. She thought how beautiful he was, bathed in the fire light. He stood and stretched and went over to the pile of driftwood he had collected earlier in the day, with the help of Jessica.

When they’d arrived, Jessica had been confused but excited to see the caravan with its view of the bay twinkling in the sunlight. The Gower Peninsular was stunningly beautiful, and this little bay was heaven itself; rolling grass and heather with rocks peeping out, which led down to a vast sandy beach where the sun glittered on the sea in the distance and the wet sand was dotted with rock pools.

 

* * *

 

Laura had wanted everything to be perfect, so she sent Jessica and Oscar down to the beach so she could quickly made the Caravan home. She made up the small bed for Jessica at the front of the caravan, under the window where she could see the sea, and at night look up at the stars. She tucked her favourite teddy bear in under the covers. They’d rented the caravan was rented from an advert in the back of a guide book, and being a woman who loved her creature comforts, Laura was pleased to read that the caravan had its own electricity. When they’d arrived with ice cream, and frozen beef burgers they’d discovered that the electricity came from a noisy petrol powered generator, which had taken some of the romance from the air when it roared to life, but outside the caravan it was surprisingly muffled, and from down on the beach you couldn’t hear it

When Laura finished making the bed, she’d stood up and brushed her hair from her eyes and peered out of the window. Oscar and Jessica were down on the sand in bare feet, he had an armful of wood and she was poking around in a rock pool. She jumped back with a scream and a giggle, holding a stick, and on the end of it was a large crab… Her long blond hair was loose, and she still wore the party dress. A pang of guilt came over Laura. Clothes were going to be a problem for her, they’d probably have to go into Swansea tomorrow and get her something else to wear, but she was with her daughter for a whole weekend, and she got to be her mother, a role she had been denied and made to feel guilty for so many years.

 

* * *

 

When Jessica had returned from university, a month previously, the powerful maternal feeling she’d had for Jessica had returned. She longed to spend some time with her daughter during the summer, but Marianne had been harsh. She’d broached the subject one afternoon when everyone else was out, and it was just her and Marianne. She approached her mother in the laundry room at the back of the house and asked if she could take Jessica out the next day, into London.

‘No! Now you need to get over this,’ Marianne had snapped, pulling clean laundry from the tumble dryer. ‘She’s happy, if anyone is going to take her anywhere, it’s her mother, and in case you’ve forgotten I am her mother!’

‘You are not.’

‘I am! You’re what’s called a laissez faire mother,’ Marianne had snarled. ‘You whine and moan about not seeing her, but you’re perfectly happy to take the freedom, going out on the town, spending time with boys… she’s only a few years younger than when you fell, but Jessica is not going to make the stupid mistakes you made. You were nothing better than a common whore, you were still a child! I don’t know what possessed you to open your legs to that boy. I hoped it was a mistake a one-off, but your behaviour over the years shows me there’s an evil in you.’

‘By that you mean that Jessica is a mistake! If I made a mistake then Jessica is that mistake!’

Marianne had turned with real fury in her eyes and slapped her hand around the face. Laura had reeled back and fallen over, hitting her head on the edge of the door to the laundry room. She lay there for a moment in shock and reached up to her head and her fingers. They had come away covered in blood. She looked back at her mother’s. She was unconcerned, and had gone back to unloading the tumble dryer. She was humming, actually humming as she removed the rest of the clothes. She was a heartless bitch.

It was then that Laura had made her plan to take Jessica when she went away camping with Oscar. She’d lied to Marianne that they were leaving on the 6th August, when they were planning to go a day later.