Emily left the car up in the multi-storey car park off Tib Street and crossed Oldham Road to Afflecks.
She remembered her old stomping ground so well. Every couple of months, she would hop on the train with her mum from Preston to Manchester early on a Saturday morning. It was a day out for the girls, away from their dad, away from everything.
One of their first stops was Afflecks, to pick up some new clothes and accessories to impress the other girls at her school. Lunch was always in Yang Sing and afterwards they wandered around Primark, Market Street and the Arndale, checking out the shop windows and trying on as many outfits as they could.
Lovely days, a time she would remember for the rest of her life.
She stood outside the old building for a moment, looking up at the yellow and pink painted sandstone. It had been spruced up a bit since she used to come here. In fact, the whole area had been tarted up and rebranded as the Northern Quarter. Gone were the dingy old pubs and textile importers and exporters, replaced by fashionably distressed cafes serving artisan espressos and homemade biscotti, sleek bars with a range of obscure cocktails, and incredibly expensive restaurants where the cute and trendy could waste their hard-earned money looking cool and collected.
Afflecks was still the same though. Next to the entrance, the painted wall still held the delicious description of what waited inside: Afflecks. The eclectic arcade of the geekily hip and the lovingly handmade and the skilfully pierced lip, not to mention our treasures and trinkets and tokens, so come in, dear friend, we’re unique and we’re open.
She smiled to herself and walked through the entrance beneath a riot of fading Christmas decorations. Inside, it still looked the same. Sure, the names above the shops may have changed, but the atmosphere was still there; more a market than a shopping mall, selling everything and anything for the young boy or girl on a visit to the big city.
She remembered she had her first piercing here. Only her left ear, the nose was to come much later. After an age of gentle and not so gentle persuasion, her mum had finally agreed. Thirteen-year-old Emily had climbed the stairs to the shop on the third floor, sat down in the chair and waited in expectation for the sharp pain of a piercing. Instead there was a slight click, a dab of rough-smelling alcohol and the words, ‘That’ll be six ninety-nine, love.’
Touching her ear, she could feel the slight indentation of the piercing. She didn’t wear earrings on the job, though, they weren’t safe. What if some nutter grabbed hold of one and ripped it away during a struggle?
She had given up a lot to be a police officer. Perhaps she should have listened to her parents and stayed as a management trainee. But she knew she would have hated every second. She loved her job, despite the Turnbulls of the world and the long hours and the shifts and the bloody sexism that still ran through the police like letters in a stick of Blackpool rock, even though they swore it didn’t.
She was a bloody good copper and now was the time to prove it.
She climbed the stairs, past the posters and stickers on the walls, past the fashion shops, the nail bars, the emo stores, the anime cafe, a display cupboard of skull merchandise, a tarot reader, a shop selling old cassettes and all the rest.
It was like she’d been transported back to being a fourteen-year-old girl who’d found her own private heaven. Bagsy was still on the second floor, close to a record shop, a crystal henge and the store’s resident poet.
Inside and outside, the shop was festooned with backpacks and bags; checkered, skate, cute and cool, emo, goth, skulls and punk designs looked down on Emily. She even recognised a skull backpack she had bought for school, only to be told it was ‘inappropriate’.
Luckily, before she could buy it again, the manager appeared. ‘Can I help?’
‘I’m DS Emily Parkinson, I rang earlier.’ She flashed her warrant card.
‘About the CLAK backpack?’
‘That’s it. You still sell them?’
‘One of our popular skater brands. Not as big as when Avril Lavigne was singing, but still going strong.’
‘Did you sell them in 2009?’
‘A long way back. I’m pretty sure we did.’
‘And you worked here when they did?’
‘Since it opened in 2004, love. This is my life.’ She pointed to all the bags and backpacks on the wall.
Emily pumped her fist. Sometimes the god of detectives smiled down on her. ‘You’re the owner?’
‘I am, love. Opened it years ago and the only time we ever closed was last year.’
‘Can you remember this backpack?’
Emily showed her the picture taken by Hannah Palmer at the lab.
‘Sorry, we’ve sold so many over the years.’
Emily frowned. It looked like a wasted journey. 2009 was too long ago.
‘But we’ve still got some of the inventory ledgers from back then – you can take a look if you want. I’m afraid I write everything down, a bit old school. I don’t trust computers, never did.’
Emily smiled. It looked like she would be spending a lot longer here than she thought. Hopefully she would resist the temptation of the backpacks. ‘Thanks, that would be great,’ she finally answered, following the woman into the storeroom.