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herself for whatever was coming. Blinding light in her eyes. More warm air on her neck. A soft moan. Rattling chains. What? What was it going to be?
    ‘I can hear your elf-like footsteps, arsehole.’
    There was a bang. The sound of something heavy being dropped.
    ‘Stop messing around and put the fucking light back on!’ she shouted.
    A pale blue bulb popped and glowed, then another. They got brighter as the power seeped through the circuit, gradually illuminating the long-forgotten boiler room. Jessie looked around. She was all alone. Curled around her feet lay the lifeless body.
    Jessie sat high up on one of the spectators’ benches. She’d watched the last of the police officers leave and was just waiting for Moore to phone her with the all-clear to move the body. She looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps. It was Sarah Klein.
    ‘I didn’t know anyone was still here,’ said Jessie.
    Sarah Klein sat down on the thin wooden seat next to her. ‘I can’t go out there.’ She looked at Jessie with red-rimmed eyes. ‘Just look at me.’
    ‘Ms Klein, did P. J. Dean really recommend me to you?’
    She looked sideways at Jessie. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I thought – hell, what does it matter what I thought?’
    ‘What statement did you make?’
    ‘I told you, I couldn’t go out there. Your boss did it.’
    They fell into an awkward silence. Jessie stared down at the empty pool and imagined what it musthave looked like in its heyday. Line upon line of Italian marble tiles. Chlorine and laughter rising off the warm water. Sunshine streaming through the now filthy domed glass.
    ‘It’s a work of art,’ said a voice above them. Jessie and Sarah Klein jumped. ‘Do you know, that pool never leaked a fluid ounce of water since the day it was built? Not one. That’s real craftsmanship. Something to be proud of. Seeing it reduced to this … Well, it isn’t right, is it?’ He moved down the terraces. ‘Give me a shout when you want to go, and I’ll lock up.’
    ‘Thanks,’ said Jessie.
    ‘Who is that?’ whispered Sarah Klein.
    ‘The caretaker,’ Jessie replied quietly.
    ‘She isn’t here, you know,’ said the moustached man, looking back at them.
    ‘No, I don’t think she is either,’ said Jessie. Anna Maria didn’t look so lacking in streetwise that she would climb into a drug hovel for some spliff. In all likelihood she’d never been here. She was probably unaware such a place existed. In an area where space cost £60 per square foot, a disused building of this magnitude was unimaginable.
    ‘How do you know?’ asked the missing girl’s mother.
    ‘I’d have heard her.’ Jessie and the actress exchanged mystified glances. The caretaker looked back at the heavy set of keys in his hand. ‘Let me know when you want to leave.’
    He climbed down the benches and disappearedthrough the double doors that led to the foyer.
    ‘What a strange man,’ said Sarah Klein.
    ‘Eccentric but harmless, I think.’
    ‘All mad people are harmless until they slash you with a razor,’ the actress said dramatically. ‘Maybe he did it.’
    ‘Did what?’
    ‘Killed my daughter.’
    ‘I don’t think so. The truth is, I don’t think your daughter’s dead,’ said Jessie. ‘And I’m not sure you do, either.’
    The actress didn’t say anything.
    ‘I don’t even think you believe she’s been abducted,’ said Jessie, pushing a little further.
    Sarah stared straight ahead. Finally she spoke, very quietly. ‘I did at first.’
    ‘But not now?’
    She shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. According to your colleague, she hasn’t spent any money. That isn’t good, is it?’
    ‘Not necessarily. She might be staying with someone – a boyfriend … ?’
    ‘I’ve rung everyone.’
    ‘Everyone you know.’
    Jessie watched the actress swill the thought around in her head, then dismiss it. ‘There is too much coverage of her disappearance. Even if someone had lent her a large sum, surely they’d