in search of Perry to see what he’d found. Whenever anything like this happened, she was reminded that he was a good second-in-command, getting everyone to come to him with details of what had been said, seen, suggested. She could imagine how upset he’d been when she’d pipped him to the post for the sergeant’s job last year. He would no doubt be promoted soon.
It was at times like this she remembered her team back in Manchester. DS Gus Banks, her line manager then, and the formidable DC Sandy Princeton, who she’d worked alongside. Sandy’s nickname was the Oracle, as she had a memory that could recall anything from cases gone by.
Grace could see both Sandy and Gus in Sam and Perry; she felt very lucky to work with them. She could have ended up with a lot of backstabbing and prejudice after what had happened last year when the truth had come out about her relationship with the Steele family. Things could have been so much worse, but instead, most of the team had stood by her. They’d lost one colleague when DC Alex Challinor had gone rogue on them and this now left them a man down. Sadly, Alex hadn’t been replaced owing to budget cuts, so they were always begging uniform to help out.
‘Anything new?’ she asked when she found Perry grabbing a quick coffee in the hall that was now serving as a canteen. It had been set up to accommodate both the public and the emergency services.
Perry shook his head. ‘No one from the class seems to have seen anything – at all.’
‘I guess our killer depended on that,’ Grace acknowledged. ‘It was a brave move to attack our girl in such an open space. Let’s hope the press release brings us something.’
Perry told her about Lauren’s friends and about speaking to Thomas Riley.
‘Did you see Teagan Cole?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I spoke to her earlier. Sophie Bishop, too. They were all close friends.’
‘What did Teagan say?’
‘That she and Sophie were back in school when they heard about what had happened.’
Grace updated him on seeing Teagan on one of Lauren’s photographs.
‘It’s a coincidence,’ he reassured her. ‘Not someone out to get you.’
She glanced at him over her paper cup as she took a sip of tea that she’d been given. ‘I hope so.’
They sat in silence, each with their own thoughts. At the next table, a group of uniformed officers had come in for a break. Their heads were as low as their voices as they huddled close together, rather than upset anyone around them with a badly placed comment or observation.
‘So, are we looking for a killer with a motive?’ Grace asked after a few moments. ‘Or someone who’s out for a bit of fun with us?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Someone playing a deadly game.’
‘Nothing would surprise me in this job,’ Perry admitted.
The mobile police unit had been set up outside and Sam had come over to help coordinate all the people they needed to speak to. Grace discovered that Sam had booked lots of appointments for the following day too, to wrap up anyone they’d missed. It was a tedious exercise, not only because there were a lot of kids, but also because most of them would know nothing. Yet someone somewhere might have noticed something suspicious and they didn’t want to miss anything that could be right under their noses.
The next three hours were taken up with speaking to staff and the pupils who had stayed behind to talk to them until parents had arrived, collating any of the house-to-house information for further action and responding to the general public as speculation about Lauren Ansell grew. Grace was hoping it would be possible that the formal identification would take place that evening, although that would very much depend on forensics.
Finally, after a press release had gone out, they were ready to go back to the station around five p.m. There was nothing more that could be done at the school that day and it was only fair to let the teaching staff go home. They needed rest. They would be devastated and it would be a long day for them tomorrow. All media attention would be on them and their school. Grace hoped there were no hidden secrets that were going to crop up and take them away from the real investigation. The public were always quick to assume the worst, and all kinds of dirty laundry might be aired, however irrelevant.
As she left the school grounds with Perry, Grace could see her partner, Simon, hovering around by the gate.
Even though their relationship was new, they seemed to have a non-spoken agreement to be mutually respectful of each other’s roles. They talked about ongoing cases, but there was nothing to push either of them to answer questions that they didn’t want to. Each had a job to do, maintaining a professional standard as well as keeping their relationship healthy. Grace hoped it continued, as she thought a lot of Simon.
From the look of him, he was finding this distressing, too. His shirt had sweat patches under the arms despite the cool day, his tie was askew and his choppy blond hair even messier than usual.
‘Thanks for the tip-off this morning,’ he said, taking her arm as they moved away from the crowds. ‘I couldn’t believe it. Even more harrowing when I knew the victim.’
She gave a faint smile. ‘How’s Teagan?’
Grace had only managed to have a very quick chat with his daughter when his ex-wife had turned up to collect her.
‘Still devastated, but at least she’s at home now.’
Since she and Simon had become an item, Grace hadn’t gelled with his daughter at all. Each time they met was a little harder than she’d anticipated, despite her best efforts. Teagan seemed to blame Grace for her parents splitting up, but Simon and his wife had been separated long before she’d met him. Even so, Grace was the first woman he’d formed a relationship with and that made her, in his daughter’s eyes, the spawn of the devil.
Simon ran a hand over his chin, stubble already forming since his morning’s shave. ‘I can’t believe Lauren’s dead, Grace. I’ve known her since she was five years old. She and Teagan met at nursery school.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she appeased. ‘It’s going to affect a lot of people, even if they didn’t know her. No one wants to send their child to school and not have them return.’
‘Worse, I can’t stop thinking that it might have been Teagan. She was in one of the other groups of girls to come down the lane.’
‘Hey now,’ Grace soothed, giving his hand a quick squeeze. She wanted desperately to kiss him and allay his fears, but she couldn’t do either here.
‘They’re having a meet-up in the youth club this evening,’ Simon said. ‘Teagan asked if it was okay to go along. When I said I’d prefer her to be at home with her mum, she accused me of putting my job first.’ He gave a half-smile. ‘I’ll be on call for a while now this has happened. It can’t be helped.’
‘You have to make people aware. Whereas we need to catch whoever did this so they don’t do it again.’
In the background, Grace could see Perry waving for her attention.
‘Time for me to skedaddle,’ she added. ‘We’re
