Tick Tock: The gripping new crime thriller from the million copy bestseller

‘Hey,’ a Piggott twin said. ‘Courtney’s in the shower. She won’t be a minute. Your eyes look red. How are you, babes?’

‘I’m okay,’ Teagan acknowledged. ‘I can’t believe she’s dead. Earlier I was watching stuff about Lauren on the news …’

‘Me too.’

‘It seems weird to see our school on the TV. There are tons of flowers outside the railings.’

‘Yeah, we have some to bring with us this evening.’

‘I’ve got some here, but I can’t put them down until tomorrow afternoon. Mum wants to come with me.’

‘Well, I’ll take a photo of where we put ours and you can put yours next to them then.’

‘I can’t believe you can go to the youth club and I can’t,’ Teagan said, forgetting her earlier thoughts of remorse.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll call you when we’re there. You can hear all about it.’ Caitlin flicked her hair back. ‘Did you see the male detective this morning? Perry something.’

‘Yes. Sophie did, too. He said it was because we were all close friends with Lauren.’

‘We had a quick chat as soon as we got back to school after, you know. Then we waited for our olds to come before he spoke to us again. He was really nice, put us at ease.’

‘Well he would – you didn’t do anything!’ Teagan rolled her eyes.

‘But,’ Caitlin leaned forward and whispered, ‘apart from her killer, we were the last people to see Lauren alive, weren’t we, Court?’

‘Yes, we were.’ Courtney sat down on the bed next to her sister. She was wearing a pink fluffy dressing gown with a purple towel wrapped around her hair.

Teagan watched as Caitlin shuffled across the bed to make way for her sister.

‘Hey, babes.’ Courtney waved at Teagan.

‘Hey yourself.’ Teagan waved back. ‘I wish I could come out with you two tonight.’

‘I know.’ Courtney sighed. ‘I wish you could, too. It’s going to be weird enough without Lauren.’ She held in a sob as her sister gave her a hug.

Teagan heard a voice yelling in the background. ‘Who’s that?’

‘Gotta go, Tee,’ Caitlin said. ‘Mum’s shouting us. We’ll speak to you laters, yeah?’

‘Suppose so.’ Teagan tried not to feel dejected. ‘Do you both want to come around here tomorrow – Sophie, too? Now school’s closed …’

‘Yeah, we could do.’ Courtney nodded.

‘Laters, babe.’ Caitlin blew her a kiss and the screen went blank.

Teagan huffed. It wasn’t fair that she couldn’t go to the youth club with her friends. Of course it would be safe after what had happened this morning.

But when she realised that one of their group would be missing, she burst into tears again. What were they going to do without Lauren?

THIRTEEN (#ulink_6a5d36af-b290-5379-9ee2-09d8dfb2bb89)

Bethesda Police Station was situated in the lower part of Hanley, in the city’s Cultural Quarter. It sat alongside the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, the City Central Library, the Magistrates Court, the Stoke News, where Simon was based, and Chimneys, the station’s local pub. Work had also started on an apartment block, next to the two Smithfield buildings situated behind it. For the past few years, it had always been a hive of activity, noise and fanfare.

Like Dunwood Academy, Bethesda Police Station was an L-shaped building, but it was over three floors. Grace’s team was on floor one, a large open-plan office with several other teams in operation besides Major Crimes. Luckily, she sat at a bank of desks in the far corner, which meant slightly less noise.

She was in the incident room at that moment. She rubbed at her neck, trying to ease the pressure. It was just before six that evening and she was waiting for an early team briefing to start. The crime was the first of its kind to be connected to a school in the city and the national press as well as the Stoke News were already all over it. TV cameras were outside both the school and the police station. Grace resented their intrusion as much as she welcomed it, in terms of its necessity for information sharing and gathering.

Nick had given another brief statement on camera and they had a team waiting to man the phones, hoping the public might ring in and give them a lead. All it took was someone remembering something from earlier that morning. Jogging a memory, recalling anything different.

On the whiteboard in front of them was the recent photograph Grace had commandeered from Lauren Ansell’s parents. The schoolgirl’s face stared back at them, so full of life. It was hard to think she was dead.

Conversation was going on around her as people piled into the room.

‘I spoke to so many girls today who are going to be scarred by the death,’ Sam said to Grace. She had been at the school most of the afternoon in the mobile unit. ‘I know once I get home this evening I’ll be giving Emily a cuddle, even if I have to wake her up. I need to feel her beating heart next to me, hold her in my arms.’

Sam’s daughter, Emily, was eight years old. Sam was divorced from Emily’s father, but living with a new partner, Craig. Grace knew lots of parents would struggle with the death of a child – she certainly would have if she’d had any. It brought home to people how this sort of thing could happen to anyone.

Even having no children of her own, it made her think of her half-niece, Megan Steele, who she hadn’t seen since her mother’s arrest. Megan was the same age as their victim, although thankfully not a pupil at Dunwood Academy. Not for the first time, Grace wondered whether or not it was appropriate to get in touch with her but, as usual, she decided it wasn’t.

She glanced across at Perry, who was deep in conversation with another officer.

‘Frankie, you’re back with us!’ Grace said, her smile wide as she addressed the keen and eager young man in uniform. She’d asked for him as soon as the investigation had started, knowing there would be long hours and few staff to spare.

‘I am indeed, Grace!’

Frankie was otherwise known as PC Mick Higgins. Mick was drafted in to help whenever they were busy, but as it often became confusing with their DI being named Nick, after their last murder investigation had finished she’d asked if he had a nickname.

Mick had grinned. ‘They call me Frank.’

‘Frank?’

‘It’s not because I’m a boring old fart,’ he insisted, ‘but because I’m a chip off the old block. My granddad, Frank, was a beat bobby for thirty years.’

‘Would you mind if we called you that? Or, better still, Frankie?’

It had stuck immediately. Grace was glad he was on their team again. She would have liked him permanently after Alex had been sacked last year. One day she was sure Frankie would make a great detective, but for now, she’d settle with getting him on the larger cases they dealt with.

‘Okay, everyone,’ Nick said as he came into the room and sat down at the head of the table. ‘Welcome to Operation Middleport. Just to let you know, we’ve not yet had positive identification that our victim is Lauren Ansell, but I will be visiting the morgue later this evening to confirm this. Let’s see what we have so far. Grace, do you want to start us off?’

Grace cleared her throat. ‘Lauren was sixteen years old. Found strangled in a field near to her school. She was with a class, out cross-country running. According to her friends, twins Caitlin and Courtney Piggott, she’d lagged behind to tie her shoelace and they’d carried on walking. When she hadn’t rejoined them, they’d doubled back and found her unconscious, possibly dead by this time. We can’t be certain.’

‘Neither twin is known to us,’ Nick said. ‘But do you think it’s something they could have done and are covering up? Maybe an argument over a boy, or something silly.’

‘We can’t rule it out entirely until forensics are back.’ Grace shook her head. ‘Perry spoke to Caitlin and Courtney Piggott.’

‘I don’t think they had anything to do with the murder, because their teacher saw them come around the corner without Lauren,’ Perry said. ‘There wouldn’t have been much time to hurt her before or after that. They all have clean slates, too. Pleasant girls according to their headmaster and the teachers I spoke to. Lauren seems to be well liked, no obvious signs of being a loner.’

‘There were a fair share of teens outpouring their grief and there are flowers galore outside the school gates on the railings,’ Grace added.