Good Girls Don't Die Read Free

glanced at his watch. ‘There’s a cafe on the quay. We could grab an early lunch if you like.’
    Grace hesitated. It was a friendly gesture, but she was reluctant to get involved in too much personal chat on her first day. Over the weekend, as she’d made a start on unpacking her boxes in the anonymous rented flat, she’d promised herself that she’d begin slowly: watch and learn what people were like, who was who, how and where she might best fit in.
    ‘Not sure I’m really hungry yet,’ she replied, and was both relieved and mildly disappointed when Lance didn’t seem to mind being turned down.
    She let him lead the way, turning right into the High Street and walking down towards the river. Grace paused to peer along side turnings that became prettier as the water came into view. More redbrick terraces similar to Polly and Jessica’s rented house were interspersed with older and more charming pink, white or blue-painted facades with rounded bay windows and pointed dormers set into pitched roofs. One or two that had higgledy-piggledy half-timbering looked older still. Some boasted railings in front but most opened straight off the quiet streets.
    Two girls – they looked Chinese – jogged past in expensive running gear. Grace found them incongruous in such a very English setting, but supposed that Wivenhoe, only two miles from the university campus, must be a pleasant place for students to find accommodation. On the way here, Lance had explained the transport links Polly might have used: there was a bus to the university and regular trains to Colchester – and on to London – from the station at theend of Polly’s street. A few students would presumably own cars, and Grace had also noticed half a dozen men in helmets and Lycra shorts speeding along on bikes.
    Several people sat with drinks outside the pub on the quay, and a variety of boats were moored along the riverbank. Wivenhoe lay at the neck of an estuary that opened out into the North Sea – she had consulted an OS map before they left the office – and was surrounded by miles of mudflats, creeks, woods and gravel pits. Rationalising any kind of search for Polly would be a strategic and logistical nightmare.
    ‘Uniform were right to prioritise this one, don’t you think?’ she asked Lance.
    ‘Dunno. She’s over eighteen, fit, healthy, solvent, no apparent mental health problems. The weather’s been good, no accidents reported. If she wants to go AWOL after exams, no reason we shouldn’t let her.’
    ‘But not using her phone for more than forty-eight hours – for someone Polly’s age that’s like severing an artery.’
    ‘She’ll probably get some cash out today, and we can all stand down.’
    Grace frowned at him, perplexed by his tone. ‘Is that what you think?’
    ‘Nope, just keeping an open mind.’ Lance looked coolly at her, and she felt somehow put in her place. She reminded herself that she was no longer a detective inspector, just a sergeant again, the same as him. And, with a sinking heart, she hoped she wasn’t supposed to take any other meaning from his remark.
    ‘Seen enough of the neighbourhood?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Right. Let’s go back and speak to Jessica. See if she does know who the mysterious lover-boy is.’
    Grace followed Lance back up the High Street, hoping irrationally that this time Polly herself would be there to open the front door.

TWO
    Dr Matt Beeston’s office was situated above one of the first ‘squares’ they came to after walking from the car park across a wide expanse of rolling green parkland that included two large ornamental lakes. Like the concrete and plate glass of the university Grace had attended, these buildings, too, had failed to blend into their setting in the way the architects must have hoped, and, fifty years on, the campus still looked like a stage set for some futuristic Sixties movie.
    Dr Beeston, too, looked ill-suited to his box-like office, where broken vertical