was an L-shaped building, but it was over three floors. Grace’s team was on floor one, a large open-plan office with several other teams in operation besides Major Crimes. Luckily, she sat at a bank of desks in the far corner, which meant slightly less noise.
She was in the incident room at that moment. She rubbed at her neck, trying to ease the pressure. It was just before six that evening and she was waiting for an early team briefing to start. The crime was the first of its kind to be connected to a school in the city and the national press as well as the Stoke News were already all over it. TV cameras were outside both the school and the police station. Grace resented their intrusion as much as she welcomed it, in terms of its necessity for information sharing and gathering.
Nick had given another brief statement on camera and they had a team waiting to man the phones, hoping the public might ring in and give them a lead. All it took was someone remembering something from earlier that morning. Jogging a memory, recalling anything different.
On the whiteboard in front of them was the recent photograph Grace had commandeered from Lauren Ansell’s parents. The schoolgirl’s face stared back at them, so full of life. It was hard to think she was dead.
Conversation was going on around her as people piled into the room.
‘I spoke to so many girls today who are going to be scarred by the death,’ Sam said to Grace. She had been at the school most of the afternoon in the mobile unit. ‘I know once I get home this evening I’ll be giving Emily a cuddle, even if I have to wake her up. I need to feel her beating heart next to me, hold her in my arms.’
Sam’s daughter, Emily, was eight years old. Sam was divorced from Emily’s father, but living with a new partner, Craig. Grace knew lots of parents would struggle with the death of a child – she certainly would have if she’d had any. It brought home to people how this sort of thing could happen to anyone.
Even having no children of her own, it made her think of her half-niece, Megan Steele, who she hadn’t seen since her mother’s arrest. Megan was the same age as their victim, although thankfully not a pupil at Dunwood Academy. Not for the first time, Grace wondered whether or not it was appropriate to get in touch with her but, as usual, she decided it wasn’t.
She glanced across at Perry, who was deep in conversation with another officer.
‘Frankie, you’re back with us!’ Grace said, her smile wide as she addressed the keen and eager young man in uniform. She’d asked for him as soon as the investigation had started, knowing there would be long hours and few staff to spare.
‘I am indeed, Grace!’
Frankie was otherwise known as PC Mick Higgins. Mick was drafted in to help whenever they were busy, but as it often became confusing with their DI being named Nick, after their last murder investigation had finished she’d asked if he had a nickname.
Mick had grinned. ‘They call me Frank.’
‘Frank?’
‘It’s not because I’m a boring old fart,’ he insisted, ‘but because I’m a chip off the old block. My granddad, Frank, was a beat bobby for thirty years.’
‘Would you mind if we called you that? Or, better still, Frankie?’
It had stuck immediately. Grace was glad he was on their team again. She would have liked him permanently after Alex had been sacked last year. One day she was sure Frankie would make a great detective, but for now, she’d settle with getting him on the larger cases they dealt with.
‘Okay, everyone,’ Nick said as he came into the room and sat down at the head of the table. ‘Welcome to Operation Middleport. Just to let you know, we’ve not yet had positive identification that our victim is Lauren Ansell, but I will be visiting the morgue later this evening to confirm this. Let’s see what we have so far. Grace, do you want to start us off?’
Grace cleared her throat. ‘Lauren was sixteen years old. Found strangled in a field near to her school. She was with a class, out cross-country running. According to her friends, twins Caitlin and Courtney Piggott, she’d lagged behind to tie her shoelace and they’d carried on walking. When she hadn’t rejoined them, they’d doubled back and found her unconscious, possibly dead by this time. We can’t be certain.’
‘Neither twin is known to us,’ Nick said. ‘But do you think it’s something they could have done and are covering up? Maybe an argument over a boy, or something silly.’
‘We can’t rule it out entirely until forensics are back.’ Grace shook her head. ‘Perry spoke to Caitlin and Courtney Piggott.’
‘I don’t think they had anything to do with the murder, because their teacher saw them come around the corner without Lauren,’ Perry said. ‘There wouldn’t have been much time to hurt her before or after that. They all have clean slates, too. Pleasant girls according to their headmaster and the teachers I spoke to. Lauren seems to be well liked, no obvious signs of being a loner.’
‘There were a fair share of teens outpouring their grief and there are flowers galore outside the school gates on the railings,’ Grace added.
‘Caitlin mentioned another teacher’s name, Jason Tranter,’ Perry continued. ‘Said that Lauren had a crush on him. I spoke to him briefly, asked him about it – he was quite embarrassed.’
‘How old?’ asked Nick.
‘Mid-thirties. He’s a good-looking fella; I reckon lots of the girls might like him. He also runs the school youth club.’
‘Okay, thanks, Perry. What else do we know about the parents?’ Nick looked at Grace.
‘They divorced nine years ago when Lauren was six. Her father, Richard Ansell, lives in Derby. I spoke to him first on the phone when I informed him of the death. He was in a meeting with several people at the time of the murder.’ She checked over her notes. ‘Lauren lived in Stanley with her mum, who has since remarried. Alan Gillespie. No more children.’
‘Did she visit her father?’ asked Sam.
‘Yes.’ Grace nodded. ‘She went regularly every other Friday. Everyone seemed to think everything was going okay for Lauren. She was doing well at school, had lots of friends and a happy home life.’
‘Both the twins and Thomas Riley suggested that Lauren didn’t get on with her step-dad,’ Perry said. ‘Should we look into it?’
Nick nodded. ‘And we have no CCTV outside the school?’
‘No,’ Sam replied. ‘Neither the lane nor the fields are covered. I’m going through the footage from the school cameras, but it’s very doubtful that our suspect would walk past the school to get to the fields, unless brazen or stupid. Although it has been known.’
‘They could have come on foot from any number of places,’ Perry added. ‘We’re searching out home CCTV from surrounding houses that back onto that field, seeing if anyone has any personal footage.’
‘The search team will widen their area tomorrow to cover the surrounding fields where Lauren Ansell was found,’ Nick continued. ‘They’re due to go across the lane and search the field opposite. Our killer could have run quickly across the lane and in the opposite direction.’
‘They could have run along the hedge in
