Free Then She Was Gone by Luca Veste Page B

anyway. He’s a
prospective MP, desperate not to get into any scandal until he’s been in the actual job for more than five minutes. I imagine he’ll have scrubbed the thing clean.’
    Murphy gave her a look.
    ‘OK, odds are there’s something,’ Rossi said, the ghost smile becoming real now. ‘Still, he looks far too clean-cut and a bit geeky for anything too weird. We’ll
get access and let you know.’ Rossi beckoned to DS Graham Harris, who wheeled himself over to her side of the desk. They began to speak in low tones.
    Murphy went back to recent John Doe cases, of which there were an alarming number. Most would be identified quickly, but some would be left to drift: the homeless, the missing, the immigrant,
the loner. All lying in a morgue in the centre of Liverpool with no one to claim them as their own.
    Most were too old to be Sam, but a couple caught his eye. He prepared a message and sent it to the coroner, thankful that he didn’t have to do so in person. Dr Houghton wasn’t
exactly the first man he would choose to spend time with. The antagonism between them had been one-sided for a long time, but Murphy’s dislike of Houghton had grown and now the feeling was
more than mutual.
    ‘Couple of deads in the morgue to look into,’ Murphy said, waiting for Rossi’s head to pop up from behind the monitor. ‘Nothing that promising, though. Same age bracket,
but one is almost pointless checking out. How are you getting on over there?’
    ‘Facebook is open, just waiting for Twitter. Only messages to do with work, from a cursory glance. Will take us time to go back any further.’
    ‘If he is in danger, there’s a possibility they’ll have been deleted anyway.’
    Rossi clicked her pen against her teeth for a few seconds. ‘Any word on his phone?’
    Murphy checked his notes. ‘Last switched on four days ago, which is the same day he went missing. Bounced off a mast in the city centre, but nothing since then. Must have been out in
town.’
    ‘What time was that?’
    Murphy looked again. ‘Some time just before midnight.’
    ‘Could be on CCTV, we could track him from that.’
    ‘Already on it,’ Murphy replied, dropping his notes onto a stack of others which he would get around to shifting off his desk at some point. ‘Not exactly a small area to check
though. There’s also the issue of how long this’ll stay out of the media for. The more we check into things, the more likely it is someone will talk.’
    Rossi shrugged and looked back at her computer. ‘Not sure why we’re keeping it quiet anyway. If he turns up, all’s well. If he doesn’t, then we’re going to need all
the help we can get.’
    ‘Can’t disagree with you there,’ Murphy replied, turning away and looking over towards DCI Stephens’s office. ‘I think that’ll change soon enough. Just the
way of things. There’s no way this’ll be kept quiet for much longer.’
    Murphy lifted himself off his chair and made his way towards DCI Stephens’s office. He knocked once, waited for a response, then knocked again when there was no answer.
    ‘Come in.’
    Murphy made his way inside, nodding when DCI Stephens held up a hand at him as she finished on the phone. The office was about the only thing that Murphy envied about the DCI position. However,
everything else that went with the job outweighed the joy of being able to collect his thoughts in private. He had enough on his plate as it was without the pressure that came with being in that
sort of authority.
    ‘OK . . . OK . . . Look, we’ll talk later.’
    He tried looking elsewhere and stared at a box file on a filing cabinet, wondering why she’d allowed him inside whilst still on the phone.
    ‘I know . . . I can’t talk now . . . Bye.’
    Murphy tried not to jump when DCI Stephens slammed the phone down on the desk. Definitely a bad time.
    ‘Yes, David,’ DCI Stephens said, a trace of impatience already apparent in her voice. ‘What can I do