Dead Man's Footsteps

desiccated skin. ‘Do you see that U-shaped bone? It’s the one that keeps the tongue in place. It’s a possible indicator of the cause of death – the hyoid often gets broken during strangulation.’
    Grace absorbed this. He stared at the bone for some moments, then back at those perfect teeth again, trying to remember everything from the last examination of skeletal remains he had attended, at least a couple of years ago.
    ‘What about her age?’
    ‘I’ll be able to tell you better tomorrow,’ she replied. ‘On a quick assessment, she looks as if she was in her prime – twenty-five to forty.’
    Sandy was twenty-eight when she disappeared, he reflected, continuing to stare at the skull. At the teeth. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ned Morgan shining his torch beam one direction along the drain, then the other.
    ‘We ought to get an engineer from the council along, Roy,’ the Police Search Adviser said. ‘An expert on the city’s drainage system. Find out what other drains connect withthis. Some of her clothing or belongings might have been washed along them.’
    ‘Do you think this drain floods?’ Grace asked him.
    Morgan shone the beam up and down again pensively. ‘Well, it’s raining pretty hard and has been all day – not much water at the moment, but it’s quite possible. This drain would probably have been built to stop water flooding the rail track, so yes. But…’ He hesitated.
    Joan cut in. ‘It looks as if she’s been here some years. If the drain flooded, it’s likely she would have been moved up and down and would have broken up. She’s intact. Also, the presence of the desiccated skin would indicate that it has been dry here for some while. But we can’t rule out flooding from time to time altogether.’
    Grace stared at the skull, all kinds of emotions raging through him. Suddenly, he did not want to wait until tomorrow – he wanted the team to start now, right away.
    It was only with great reluctance that he told the scene guard to seal up the entrance and secure the whole site.

9
OCTOBER 2007
    Abby could not believe it – she needed to pee. She looked at her watch. One hour and ten minutes had passed since she had stepped into this bloody lift. Why? Why? Why had she been so bloody stupid?
    Because of the fucking builders downstairs, that’s why.
    Christ . It took thirty seconds to go down via the staircase, and that was good exercise. Why? Why? Why?
    And now this sharp, biting urgency in her bladder. She had gone only minutes before leaving the flat, but it felt as if she had drunk ten pints of coffee and a gallon of water since.
    No way, I am not peeing. I am not having the fire brigade turn up to find me lying in a puddle of urine. Not that indignity, thank you .
    She clenched her insides, pressing her knees together, shaking, waiting for the moment to pass, then looked up at the roof of the lift again, at the gridded, opaque lighting panel. Listening. Listening for that footstep she was certain she had heard.
    Or her imagination had heard…
    In movies, people pulled the lift doors open or climbed out through the roof hatches. But in movies lifts did not sway like this.
    The desire to urinate passed – it would be back, butfor the moment she felt OK. She tried to get to her feet, but the lift swung wildly again, banging into one of the shaft walls and then another with that deep, echoing boooommmmmm . She held her breath, waiting for it to stop moving. Praying the cable was still holding. Then she knelt, picked her mobile phone off the floor and dialled again. Same sharp beep, same no-signal message.
    She placed her hands on the doors, tried to force her fingers into the gap down the centre between them but they were not moving. She opened her handbag, rummaging inside for something she could ease into the tiny crack. There was nothing there other than a metal nail file. She slid it in, but after a couple of inches it hit something solid and would go no further. She tried moving it to the right, then sharply to the left. The file bent.
    She pressed every button on the panel in turn, then slapped the wall of the lift in frustration with the flat of her hand.
    This was just great.
    How long did she have?
    There was another ominous creak above her. She imagined the cable of twisted wires steadily uncoiling, getting thinner and thinner. The bolts fixed to the roof shearing, bit by bit. She remembered a conversation at a party some years ago about what to do if a