It was clear that if he was doubted once more, he’d blow.

Vincent turned his head a fraction towards the constable. His voice took on the tone people use with children or idiots, but politely:

“All right. Let’s make sure.”

For a heartbeat, Sam’s look turned grateful at last, someone was listening. Vincent dialled the mortuary where Anna’s body was being kept and raised the phone to his ear. Just then Chris came through the door: a grazed cheek, swollen eyes. He tried to speak, but Sam, with a sharp gesture, told him to shut up. Chris rolled his eyes. Meanwhile Vincent was speaking into the receiver:

“I need you to check something. It’ll sound odd, but… is Anna Lord’s body where it should be?”

He fell silent, listening. Sam and Chris froze two pairs of eyes fixed on his face. After a few minutes the answer came. Quick and sharp: the body was gone. Vanished. Vincent straightened. A nervous rustle came down the line sounded as if the duty man had knocked a chair.

It struck Vincent as curious that in all the time Anna’s body had been in the mortuary, there had been no post-mortem. A flock of theories went through his head, one of them about a stolen body, but the idea that she’d simply got up and walked away wouldn’t wash. Through the speaker he could hear the duty man feverishly tapping at a keyboard.

“We’ll check the cameras now,” came the nervous voice down the line. “I’ll let you know the moment we find anything!”

Vincent lowered the phone and slowly turned his gaze on the lads. He jotted their names down, just in case. The constable slapped his palms against his thighs, feeling a complete idiot, though he’d never admit it. Sam, swallowing his words, burst out:

“We saw her about an hour ago! We were coming out of the Makkeller bar. She was coming from the back entrance!”

Vincent frowned. The Makkeller had already come up twice tonight. He pivoted and left the station almost at a run. Sam and Chris watched him go, bewildered.

“Can I sleep here?” Chris asked hoarsely, sinking onto a bench.

The constable looked at him as if a pigeon had started talking. And Sam’s face all but said, ‘stop embarrassing me.’

***

The street by the Makkeller’s back entrance was lit, as ever, by a single pathetic lamppost. Shadows hummed around. Vincent stopped. Ahead of him a couple were having a go at each other—punk or biker types, some brand of outsider; Vincent didn’t know enough subcultures to tell. Esther, tall and pale, one eyebrow shaved and her features striking, rolled her eyes wearily.

“Enough. You whine like a teenage girl. It’s not a turn-on,” Esther said, arms folded, bored.

Vincent studied the girl, trying to place where he’d seen her.

The bloke, catching Vincent’s look, yelled, “What are you staring at?!”— spit flying from his mouth.

"Shit… Let’s get out of here. He’s a bobby!"

Esther yanked the man by the hand. He didn’t even have time to process it. They vanished into the dark. Vincent didn’t move. The bar sign already had his attention.

Inside the Makkeller, a different life held sway: loud and close-packed. At the counter sat Ayden, a twenty-something—tall, comically long-limbed, with amber eyes and chestnut, slightly wavy hair. On his left arm, ruined with scars, a black abstract tattoo sprawled, almost covering the ugliness.

He wasn’t handsome in any honest sense: no film star, no window-dressing, no model. And yet, when he sat with one elbow on the bar, it felt as if the place arranged itself around him, the way a stage arranges itself around an actor.

And here came the unsettling thing: there was no beauty in him, but there was the feeling of a statue. He could have been a David, only not from an art academy, from a nightmare. The bar light slid across his face and, for a second, it turned almost smooth, almost regular, almost… Life seemed, for a moment, to cut him some slack and sketch in a halo—then thought better of it.

A glass of whisky stood in front of Ayden. The last millimetres of his cigarette were smouldering. He ran his fingers across his temple.

Vincent walked past without looking at him. The young man didn’t lift his head either, though some inner needle gave a small jab. Vincent went over to the bartender a striking woman with burgundy hair cut just below her shoulders.

“May I see the CCTV footage from the last couple of hours? I’m looking for a missing girl.”

She gave him a look that said, “Who the hell are you?”

He blinked. Yes too hasty. Vincent produced his warrant card. She leaned in to study the document, then smirked.

“Lord… Isn’t your family the one everyone’s talking about right now?”

Vincent clenched his teeth, but kept his face set.

"Please. I really need your help. It’s a matter of life and death."

She sighed and nodded.

"If you’ll come with me."

Ayden lifted his gaze at the very moment Vincent headed for the staff door. His fingers tightened on the glass. At the next table two girls sat together. One leaned towards the other:

"That bloke just bored a hole in me with his eyes. He’s into me, a hundred percent."

She had no idea he wasn’t looking at her at all, but at Vincent, who was standing behind her.

The second girl narrowed her eyes.

"That face is familiar… Wait. I’ve seen him on the telly, I’m sure of it. Maybe he’s a musician?"

She blew Ayden a flirtatious kiss. He raised his head slowly, uninterested. Then, pointedly, like giving the middle finger, he lifted his ring finger, the wedding band catching the light. The girls gasped.

"Wanker…"

Ayden gave only a faint smile and drained his whisky. A minute later he was already walking out of the bar.

***

Vincent sat in a small room with monitors. The glow from the screens washed his face pale, almost ghostly. He scrubbed through the footage until Sam and Chris came into shot, leaving the bar. He nudged it on a little further. And then:

A figure running, wrapped in a sheet. It looked like Anna. He froze.

"Is that her…?"

The words were out before he could stop them, tearing through a dense darkness inside him. He tipped back in his chair, almost lost his balance, then rose sharply.

"Thank you for your cooperation," he said to the woman. "You’ve been very helpful."

Vincent was about to leave when his eye caught on a staff photograph on the wall. A Christmas group shot. In the foreground, a fair-haired girl deliberately spoiling the shot: she bit her lip, went cross-eyed, and with a single gesture brought everyone around her to life. The smile was warm, the gaze wide open. Vincent stepped closer; the woman seeing him out stopped beside him.

"Draws the eye, doesn’t she? Rose, our favourite. She worked here. She hasn’t been in touch for ages…"

He stared at the photograph for a long, heavy moment. The girl in it looked the brightest and happiest of the whole staff.

"May I ask you a couple of questions?" Vincent said, turning to the woman.

Rose, the very one whose lifeless body had been found in Hyde Park. There was nothing left of the living, happy girl but a cold outline; her story had ended before dawn.