The Lost

So where was the public appeal for information? It was like they didn’t want to keep the story in the news.

Like they were embarrassed.

She still hadn’t been able to get any official comment on what Colley and McKinney had been doing at the warehouse. At the time everyone had assumed it was some kind of op, which would explain all the secrecy. But why would a firearms officer be involved in something like that? Colley seemed like a straight arrow, but she’d begun to hear rumours about McKinney. Rumours that he hadn’t been exactly squeaky clean, that he’d been under some sort of cloud when he’d been killed.

And then there were the victims.

Daly was sure they held the key. To a large extent they’d been overlooked, reduced to faceless ciphers, unidentified and apparently unmissed. Daly knew she’d been guilty of that herself, too busy focusing on McKinney and Colley at first. And when she’d tried to follow it up, Giles, her editor, had lectured her about how ‘more dead migrants’ didn’t sell newspapers or attract advertisers, and told her not to waste any more time on it. As far as he was concerned, Slaughter Quay was old news.

But Daly didn’t see it like that. It had been the look on Colley’s face in the hospital when he’d talked about trying to save the young woman called ‘Nadine’ that had brought it home to her. OK, he’d thrown Daly out soon afterwards, but even so. There was a real human tragedy here that was being overlooked. And if it turned out that any of the three anonymous victims weren’t more of Giles’s ‘dead migrants’, then it would blow the whole trafficking theory out of the water.

Bloody Giles would have to let her run with the story, then.

So Daly had started digging. There hadn’t been much to go on, but she’d started sifting through missing persons websites, looking for anyone reported missing around the same time who matched the victims’ admittedly vague descriptions.

She’d surprised herself when she’d found someone.

The police refused to confirm it when she’d approached them, but they hadn’t denied it either. She took that to mean they wanted to verify the ID with DNA, or whatever, before making it public. Which gave her a narrow window of opportunity to beat them to the punch and get the name out there first.

But to do that, she needed something more concrete than she had at the moment. That was why she’d gone to McKinney’s memorial service. She hadn’t exactly misled Colley when she’d told him one of the victims wasn’t an illegal migrant. If she was right, she’d only be pre-empting the official announcement, and she’d wanted to see how he’d react. His surprise had seemed genuine, and for a second or two Daly had thought he was finally going to open up.

Then that bitch of a policewoman had interrupted.

Sighing, Daly checked her watch. She’d spent all afternoon trying to track down acquaintances of the missing person who might — might — be one of the three warehouse victims. But they’d all refused to talk to a journalist. There was only one left to try, and they’d finally agreed to meet her that evening. So screw you, Giles. The downside was it would mean another late night, and another phone call she really didn’t want to have to make.

One she’d been making all too often recently.

As the ringtone sounded, she kneaded her eyes with a thumb and forefinger. She stopped when it was answered, giving a smile that was as forced as it was unconscious.

‘Hi, Mum, it’s me.’ Her shoulder slumped along with the smile. ‘I know I did, but I’ve been held up at work. No, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be. Has she been OK? Yes, I’m sure you have, but... Well, is she there? I know it’s late, that’s why I’m—’