The car gave a small jolt as the handbrake came off, and shot backwards with a jerk. She got to the car window and was tugging frantically at the door as the guy got the keys into the ignition. Rose saw what he was doing and scrambled to her feet. By now the man in the mask was in the driver�s seat of the Yaris. Her hair flew up from the scalp, her elbow made contact with the roof and she rebounded, whip-like, falling away from the car and landing on her knees. Her hip slammed into the boot of the neighbouring car, catapulting her upper torso sideways over it, as if she was made of rubber. Her right arm flew up, a piece of jewellery snapped and beads scattered, catching the light. The man grabbed Rose�s arm, cartwheeling her away from the car. He says, �Get down, bitch.� She didn�t recognize the voice and she�s not sure if he had an accent or not because he was shouting.� �He said three words.� The local inspector � a tall, austere guy in uniform who must also have been standing outside in the cold, judging by his red nostrils � nodded at the monitor. The grin didn�t change or fade as he got close to her. To Caffery that was the creepiest part of it � the rubber mask bobbing along as the man raced towards Rose. He was tall and broad, in jeans and a Puffa jacket. The sunlight behind her flickered and she lifted her head to see a man running fast down the ramp. Before she�d begun loading the bags, she�d put her keys and the ticket to the car park on the front seat of the Yaris. Rose had spent the afternoon browsing the clothes boutiques in the centre of Frome, and had finished the excursion with the family�s weekly food shop in Somerfield. She was the type who would be sensible enough to carry an umbrella or tie a scarf around her head if it was raining, but it was a clear, cold day and her head was bare. She was dressed in a short dark jacket made of something heavy � chenille maybe � with a calf-length tweed skirt and low pumps. She was the wife of a C of E minister and she was in her late forties, though on screen she looked older. Even so, he couldn�t fight the cold pinch of dread the image gave him, knowing what was going to happen next on the film.įrom the statements taken by the local officers he knew a lot already: the woman�s name was Rose Bradley. Jack Caffery was an inspector with eighteen years of the hardest policing in his pocket � Murder Squad, in some of the country�s toughest inner-city forces. At the back of one of the vehicles � a Toyota Yaris � a woman stood with her back to the camera, loading groceries from a trolley. The screen showed cars ranked in painted bays, winter sunlight coming through the entrance ramp beyond them, bright as a floodlight. The opaque timecode graduated from black to white and back again. The picture had the typical graininess of a low-end CCTV system, the camera trained on the entrance ramp of the car park. Everyone glanced up as Caffery entered, but he shook his head, opened his hands to show he had no news, and they turned back to the TV, their expressions closed and serious. They stood in a semicircle, holding cups of machine coffee, some of them still in their Tyvek suits with the hoods down. Then, already cold in spite of his overcoat, he went upstairs to the manager�s tiny office where the local officers and the forensics guys were watching CCTV footage on a small colour monitor. He walked past the road blocks, the flashing blue lights, the police tape, the onlookers gathered in huddles with their Saturday-afternoon shopping bags peering to catch a glimpse of the forensics guys with their brushes and bags, and stood for a long time where the whole thing had happened, among the oil leaks and abandoned shopping trolleys of the underground car park, trying to soak up the place and decide how anxious he should be. (The fifth book in the Jack Caffery series)įor more information on Mo Hayder and her books, see herĭetective Inspector Jack Caffery of Bristol�s Major Crime Investigation Unit spent ten minutes in the centre of Frome looking at the crime scene.