The Present: The must-read Christmas Crime of the year!

Two or three feet from the door, she stopped and stood there, waiting.

More silence.

‘Who is it?’ she called out at last.

No answer.

Shaking, she plucked up the courage to bring her eye closer and closer to the little spy hole. The fish-eye lens showed the street outside. Nobody about.

Still jittery and jumpy, her heart thudding against her ribs, Anna fumbled clumsily with the latch, got the door open, and thrust her head out. There was no sign of anyone. Not a soul.

Except …

There at her feet was a box, about the size of a hat box. A present. A Christmas present, neatly wrapped in shiny paper depicting the repeated image of a partridge in a pear tree. There was even a red ribbon tied into a decorous bow, and a nametag attached, also bearing the image of partridge in a pear tree.

Once again, she looked up and down the street, as if the mystery caller would suddenly be revealed. But there was no sign of him now.

Anna picked up the present. Something moved about inside, not heavy but certainly solid. Tipping it this way and that, she got the impression that there was liquid inside.

She turned the gift tag so that she could read what was written inside it. In red ink, and in bold capitals, she saw the words:

ON THE FIRST DAY OF CHRISTMAS

MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME …

Instinctively, she guessed it was from Miles. Before his ‘bad patch’, it had been a habit of his to leave little gifts on her desk to find when she came into the After-Dark offices.

As she carried his mystery present into the flat, she wished he’d hadn’t just left it and buggered off without a word. She wanted him here, even though he had always hated her flat and was forever nagging her to move out and find somewhere better.

Maybe he couldn’t say what he wanted to say in words, face to face. Maybe this present contained something that would make Anna understand what it was that was eating him up inside, what it was that was driving him to drink.

Sitting on the sofa, resting the present on her knees, she began tearing away the partridge-in-a-pear-tree wrapping paper. Beneath, she found a sturdy plastic box, airtight, water-tight, opaque. There were little hinged clasps holding the lid firmly in place. Anna unlatched them, one after the other, then prised away the lid and looked inside.

She didn’t scream. She didn’t hurl the box away. She certainly didn’t faint.

She merely placed the present slowly on the floor, controlled her breathing, willed herself not to vomit, forced herself not to panic, walked calmly – if shakily – to the telephone, and dialled 999.

Chapter 2 (#u67e7e0c3-4b47-5bfd-998e-9ee7fc5c38da)

The police officers who arrived at her flat took both Anna, and her ‘present’, back with them to the station. By 2 a.m. she was sitting in an interview room, drinking coffee, waiting to be interviewed. The image of what had been in that ‘present’ was still fresh in her mind. The image, and the smell. With the utmost clarity, she could recall lifting the lid from the container and at once being assailed by the sickeningly sweet stench of stale meat. Then she saw blood, thick and congealed to the consistency of custard, and a glistening red mush of raw flesh all heaped and slopped in the middle of it.

That awful memory was replaying itself inside her mind, over and over, when the door opened and the detective who was to take her statement strode in. At sight of him, Anna felt her blood run cold.

Detective Inspector Jim Townsend did not make eye contact with her as he settled himself behind the desk in front of her. Nor did he say a word. He glanced through a slim sheaf of papers, checked that the microphone on the table was working, looked at his watch, poured himself a cup of water, took his time sipping it, adjusted his chair – and then, and only then, did he look across at Anna.

There was a tense moment of silence between them.

Then Townsend spoke: ‘The standard procedure for commencing an interview such as this is for me to introduce myself. And I know that you’re a stickler for standard procedure, Ms Vaughan. So we’ll play this strictly by the book. With that firmly in my mind, let me introduce myself. My name …’ and he paused here, just for a moment, still fixing her with his icy stare ‘… is Detective Inspector James Robert Townsend of Middlesex Constabulary, CID.’ Another pause. ‘I’m here to take a statement from you, Ms Vaughan, about what happened to you approximately one hour ago. Please, start from the beginning, tell me in your own words what occurred, take your time, and …’ yet another cold pause ‘… do try and relax.’

‘I would like to give my statement to another officer, please,’ Anna said.

‘I’m afraid no other officers are available, Ms Vaughan.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

‘It’s a fact. Now – please – tell me what happened to you.’

Anna sighed and ran her hand over her face. She felt tempted just to get up and walk out. It wasn’t like she was under arrest. She was the victim here, for God’s sake. She was the victim of … of something … something horrible.

‘In your own time,’ Townsend prompted her, his voice emotionless, his eyes unblinking.

Anna took a slow breath, tried to forget the bad blood between her and Townsend, and said: ‘There’s not much to say. I was asleep in my flat when something woke me up suddenly at about one o’clock. For a moment I didn’t know what it was, but then I heard a sound, like a fist thumping against my front door.’

‘How many times?’

‘I think there were just two thumps – the one that woke me up, and then the second one I heard when I was awake.’

‘And then?’

‘I went to the door but there was nobody there … nothing … except for that gift-wrapped present.’

‘Were you expecting a present at all?’

‘No. Certainly not at one in the morning.’

‘And what about the handwriting on the tag, did you recognise it?’

‘No.’

‘But you went ahead and opened it.’

‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘I had no reason not to.’

‘Do you consider yourself to have enemies, Ms Vaughan?’

‘I’m a journalist. Naturally I’m going to upset people in the line of my work. Certain sorts of people.’

‘And this didn’t concern you enough to stop you from opening this anonymous present?’

‘No. No, it didn’t. Like I said, I’m a journalist. I upset certain sorts of people … and I don’t give in to fear.’

‘The very same thing could be said about the police,’ Townsend observed, and then he went on: ‘So – bravely, fearlessly – you opened the present. And what happened?’

‘I took the wrapping off, and the ribbon, and inside was this water-tight plastic container. So, I unclipped the lid … and opened it … and there inside was … Well, I’m sure you know already.’

‘Yes indeed,’ Townsend said coldly. ‘And what did you do after you looked inside? Did you scream?’

‘Absolutely not.’