Woman in Black Read Free Page A

had a shape that looked as if she’d had children but hadn’t lost all of the weight.
    Cole continued to speak after the shouts had quietened down. ‘I’m positive you’ll all get to know DS Cornish in time but, for now, let’s crack on. A severed hand was found on the edge of Piccadilly Gardens yesterday morning.’ He pointed behind him at the enlarged images from the CCTV cameras. ‘These are the best images we have of the person who left it. As far as we can tell it is a white woman who is around five foot six or so. As you can see, there isn’t an awful lot to go on.’
    He looked towards Jessica, raising his eyebrows. She took the hint, explaining they were pretty sure the person had scouted the location and was most likely local to the area, given their apparent knowledge of the camera positions.
    Reynolds spoke next. ‘We spent large parts of yesterday compiling a list of murder victims around the country who had been found with a missing hand. There weren’t many and nothing matched the right hand we discovered so we moved on to lists of missing people. Obviously this was pretty long to start with, even just locals, but we had some initial lab results through yesterday evening that helped narrow things down. We now know the hand came from a man likely in his late twenties or early thirties. Aside from indications it had been frozen before being left, we don’t really have much else to go on in terms of who it came from. There are almost sixty names of men between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five from this area who have been reported missing in the past twelve months. The only way of matching anyone from that list to the actual hand is by contacting one of their family members and asking for a swab so we can test the DNA. For now, this seems pretty impractical and an enormous drain on resources so we’re going to go through the media first.’
    Cole picked up again, strolling across the stage and then walking back to his original position. ‘Our labs are still doing tests and we might get more results at some point today or tomorrow. From the camera stills, you can see the hooded person who dropped it was wearing gloves, so we’re not expecting any fingerprints. Given the planning that looks as if it went into the choice of location, I don’t think any of us are expecting much more in the way of evidence we can work with from forensics. As Jason said, we don’t have the resources to contact family members from all those missing people at the moment. It would be a long shot anyway, given we would be assuming it belongs to someone local who has been reported missing. For now we’re going to release these stills to the media and ask for a hand…’
    He was cut off as the assembled officers collectively started to laugh.
    He raised his voice to talk over them. ‘All right, all right. You know what I mean. We don’t have a clear facial image but perhaps someone will recognise something about the outfit? I’ve already been in contact with someone from the BBC and they think it will make it onto the local news this lunchtime. The press office are drafting a full release that can go to the others.’ He paused and looked at Jessica and Reynolds to see if they had anything to add. When it was clear they didn’t, he spoke again. ‘Does anyone have any ideas?’
    Jessica knew some of the best leads they’d had over the years had come because of random suggestions from officers in briefings such as this. Some senior detectives would prefer ideas to be brought to them in private so they could take partial credit but Cole wasn’t one for pecking orders. As it was, everyone seemed as baffled as they were. There were a few questions about the finger that was missing from the hand and a couple of thoughts about what could have happened to the rest of the body – and whether the person it came from was still alive – but no one really knew anything.
    When the ideas had dried up, Cole shushed everyone