Substantial Threat Read Free Page B

landlord knew her only as Miss Smith. A media campaign, including an item on
Crimewatch UK
, produced no leads whatever. Her DNA, dental records and fingerprints were also dead ends. No one on the national missing persons register fitted her description.
    Which was bloody amazing, Henry thought, because her age had been estimated at just fourteen.
    No one had missed a fourteen-year-old girl. Fourteen. A prostitute. Now murdered. And nobody knew who the hell she was?
    But Henry was not surprised. He had long since stopped being surprised at anything. He knew how ruthless and uncaring the world was.
    â€˜Thanks very much, Mr Fleming,’ Henry said to himself under his breath, ‘for giving me a no-hoper of a case.’
    It was 5.45 a.m and Henry had to be at Blackburn Magistrates Court at ten to see how his murderer fared during the remand hearing. He stifled a wide yawn and crept upstairs, knowing the household did not stir until seven thirty. He checked his daughters again to see if they were sleeping soundly, his fiercely protective parental instinct roused by the thought of a fourteen-year-old girl missing and murdered. If either of his two went, he knew he would never rest until he found them. The thought made him judder.
    He slid back in bed, ensuring he did not rouse Kate. She murmured something and turned over, taking the duvet with her.
    With a wry smile, Henry closed his eyes, then thought about his cold case. If only for the sake of some parent out there, he would give this one his best shot in the time he had available . . . then within seconds he fell into the sleep that had been eluding him for the last couple of hours.

Two
    R ay Cragg surfaced from sleep with a storming headache, but did not have any time to brood about it. He had some serious work to do, a busy day ahead. He groaned as he rolled out of the same bed he’d been sleeping in since the age of ten: single, narrow, with a deep indentation down the centre of the mattress into which his thin, wiry body fitted perfectly. It was the only bed he could ever sleep comfortably in.
    Once on his feet he staggered a little to keep his balance until the blood made it up to his brain. He kicked some discarded clothing out of the way and lurched out on to the landing dressed only in the ragged, loose underpants he slept in. On the way to the main bathroom he passed his mother’s bedroom. The door was slightly ajar.
    Cragg paused outside, listening. Then, unable to resist, he peeped in.
    Deep asleep, his mother lay splayed on the king-sized bed, naked, the duvet only half-covering her. There were numerous roach ends in the ashtray on the bedside cabinet and the sickly-sweet smell of stale cannabis hung in the air. Cragg shut his eyes momentarily as the sight of his mother’s pubes made him shudder. Next to her was the bulk of some sleeping guy, breathing deeply but not quite snoring. On his bedside cabinet were two used condoms half-wrapped in tissue. Cragg had no idea who the man was. Didn’t particularly want to know. Didn’t actually care either, because he loved his mum. So far as he was concerned she could do anything, or shag anyone, so long as it made her happy.
    The only thing Cragg would not tolerate was any bastard who dared slap her round. Two guys had suffered for doing that in the past. One had even thought he could do the same to Ray Cragg.
    A knife plunged into the guy’s left buttock had made him squeal and think differently.
    Cragg closed the bedroom door quietly. He padded barefoot along to the bathroom, had a piss, a power shower, then shaved, although there wasn’t very much to shave off, even at the age of thirty. His almost pure-white blond hair, cropped right back to his skull, frustrated the life out of him. Sometimes he thought he would never get any facial hair other than odd tufts here and there which reminded him of Shaggy in
Scooby Doo
.
    He left the bathroom annoyed by this thought and also because he