‘Please… help me.’
Dani reached out and grabbed Ana’s arm. The young woman flinched but then acquiesced as Dani pulled at her and coerced her into the porch. Dani quickly opened the porch door and flicked on the hall lights and soon she and Ana were both safely inside with both the front door and the porch door closed and locked behind them.
Yet Dani wouldn’t feel relief yet. Was the house really empty?
‘Ana, whose blood is that?’
Dani looked her up and down. The red on her face and her neck and her hands was dried and cracking. The black puffer coat she was wearing – surely too big to be hers – also had several large patches on it where the material looked duller than the rest – stained?
Ana didn’t answer the question but a tear rolled down her cheek.
‘You have to help me,’ she said.
‘I will help. But you need to talk to me. Are you hurt?’
Another tear escaped and Ana shook her head, but the shake slowly turned into a nod.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she said. ‘I had no choice.’
‘Had no choice? Ana, what’s happened?’
‘Alex. I think… I think he’s dead. I think I killed him.’
What was Dani supposed to do in that situation? Perhaps the sensible thing would have been to arrest Ana and take her to the local station, and then sleep on it. Or even to call the cavalry in and get them to take over while Dani gathered her thoughts and waited to brief Easton, McNair, Jason – whoever – in the morning.
Dani hadn’t done any of that. The simple fact was that Ana, for some reason, had sought out Dani in her hour of need. Whatever she’d done and for whatever reason, she hadn’t run away, she hadn’t gone to anyone else, she’d come to Dani for help. And Dani would give it, because Ana could be the key to the police unravelling everything.
The clock on the dashboard flicked over to two a.m. Ana, in the passenger seat next to Dani, was still shivering, despite the multiple layers of clothes that Dani had given her after her quick shower to remove the dried blood. But not before Dani had taken swabs of the blood, along with the bloodied clothing, which she’d packaged away to give to the Forensics team when she caught up with them.
Dani still didn’t know for sure whose blood it was, or what injuries Ana herself was suffering from. Her face was bruised, she had a thick and cracked lip, and her right eye was black and badly swollen. Plus she had hobbled through the house like she was several decades older than she really was, clearly in pain with each step, but she was still yet to explain to Dani exactly what had happened. Although she had given enough. Which explained why they were now on the road.
Not that Dani was doing this completely gung-ho. She’d already called for back-up, and they’d be meeting with them sooner or later. The car Ana had arrived in remained on Dani’s street. Alex’s car, apparently. The FSIs would get their chance to comb over that. But not yet. Dani had a bigger priority.
‘How did you know where I lived?’ Dani said. A question which had been bugging her since the moment she saw Ana.
‘Alex. There was a message on his phone from Victor. Victor was finding out about you. I think because he knows you’re investigating him.’
That made sense. Though it did also worry Dani. She was a target of Victor’s now too.
They rattled along the A5 dual carriageway at speed. She didn’t have lights or sirens but the roads were dead and she wouldn’t waste time sticking to the speed limits now, despite the many speed cameras.
‘You came this way?’ Dani asked.
‘I… I think so,’ Ana said. ‘It’s hard to remember. I was… I was too scared to think properly.’
With Ana remaining scatty, so far Dani was working largely off instinct. Ana had said she’d driven for about half an hour. Had followed signs for Sutton Coldfield. She’d claimed the road signs she’d seen along the way – on the main roads at least – also included Lichfield, Birmingham. Had remembered that the nearly full moon, big and bright on a night with intermittent cloud, was up in the sky to her right.
That was enough for Dani to figure the basics. Ana had travelled from the north and west of Sutton Coldfield. A pretty vague area still, although it was consistent with the location, between Brownhills and Cannock, where Silviu Grigore and his as-yet-unknown accomplice had been stopped three days previously, on their way to dispose of Jane Doe’s body.
That spot was only a mile ahead of them now.
‘What else can you remember?’ Dani said to Ana without taking her eyes from the road. ‘Tell me from the beginning. Whatever you can.’
‘It was… underground. I think. Or at least inside the ground. Like in the hill.’
‘A cave?’
‘No. Maybe. A bunker? The entrance was tiny. Wet and cold. A tunnel.’
‘A tunnel? But of earth, mud? Or brick? Concrete?’
‘Not brick. But hard. Concrete, I think.’
‘And when you came out into the open?’
‘I had to squeeze through the branches. It was dark. I just remember trees, everywhere. I followed a path.’
‘Tarmac? A hard path?’
‘I don’t think so. It brought me to the car. Alex’s car.’
‘Were there other cars?’
‘There was space for others. But it wasn’t a car park.’
‘Just a clearing in the woods?’
‘I… think so.’
‘And then what?’
Ana shook with terror. Dani frowned.
‘That was when I saw him. It.’
‘Who?’
‘There was a hill. Off to my right when I came to the car. A figure standing right at the top, looking down on me.’
‘But you didn’t see his face?’
‘It was too dark. He was too far. All I saw were his clothes, moving in the wind.’
‘Clothes? Like what, a scarf?’
Ana looked confused. As though she couldn’t explain what she’d thought she’d seen. Or at least not without sounding like a lunatic.
But what had she seen?
‘I just knew I had to escape.’
‘Then you got onto a road?’ Dani said. ‘What did you see first?’
As Dani asked the question they passed over the spot where Jane Doe’s body had been recovered.
‘Some signs. But I can’t remember where to. I wasn’t thinking properly. Then there were houses. But not for long.’
‘What about this road we’re on now?’ Dani said. ‘Do you recognise it?’
She slowed down. Past the spot they’d recovered Jane Doe’s body, they were now entering the unknown, and Dani didn’t want to risk making a wrong turn and throwing the whole search off-course.
‘I don’t think… wait, yes!’ Ana said, pointing into the distance. ‘That roundabout. I came from that way. I saw that pub.’
Dani turned right at the roundabout. The small village of Norton Canes lay ahead of them. The start of the sprawling Cannock Chase was only a few miles further ahead – twenty-six square miles of rugged countryside and forest. Ana’s description thus far, and the fact that Silivu Grigore and his accomplice had been carting Jane Doe’s body in this direction, convinced Dani that they were on the right track. But would Ana remember enough to get them to the exact spot? If not, how on earth were they going to find what they were looking for in such a vast area?
Unfortunately for Dani, she was left with that exact issue a little over ten minutes later as she pulled the car over to the side of the A460, one of several roads which bisected the Chase. Dark forest surrounded the unlit road, the car’s headlights struggling to make an impression.
‘Ana?’ Dani said.
‘I’m sorry. I just don’t know.’
Dani thought for a few moments. Ana said nothing more. Dani sighed, then took out her phone to make the call.