LITMIR.BIZ

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for worms. What a strange child I’d been.

      We made our way to Violet’s small bedroom. It was simple and serious-looking, not what I’d expected from someone who frequented YouTube in a pink bikini. A bookcase dominated one wall, the bed was covered by a plain white duvet, and a printer sat neatly on a desk in the corner.

      I walked over to Violet’s bookcase and scanned the titles. A wide range of novels, from detective fiction through to a cluster of magic realism and a whole shelf of orange-spined classics.

      ‘Poncy books,’ Jai said. ‘Not your Fifty Shades type of girl.’

      ‘And look at the non-fiction,’ I said. ‘Journalism after Fake News, Journalism for the Internet World, The New Feminism, Women and Art.’

      ‘Feminism?’ Jai said. ‘She prances around semi-naked on the internet. Does that count as post-feminism?’

      I walked over to Violet’s desk. There was no sign of a laptop. I leafed through a pile of papers by the printer. Articles from the internet: ‘Art and ethics’, ‘Creepypasta and internet memes’, ‘When stuff goes mad on the net’, ‘Why stripping can be a feminist act’ and ‘Why stripping can never be a feminist act’.

      ‘Looks like there’s more to Violet than meets the eye,’ I said. ‘Nothing about meat though, or the threats from the animal rights people.’

      ‘Hang on,’ Jai said, and reached for a paper from the floor. He held it up for me to read: ‘When online threats turn to physical violence’.

      ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘She was worried.’

      I turned to Violet’s bed. The duvet had been dragged across it in a half-hearted effort to make things look neat, but you could still see the indentation in the pillow where her head had been the last time she’d slept there. On the other pillow was a neatly folded cotton nightshirt with a penguin on it.

      I stared at the penguin. I could feel the old me starting to come back. Struggling to get to the surface like a drowning swimmer. I wanted this girl to be okay.

      Back at the station, I stood in the incident room we’d been allocated, wondering if the temperatures were breaching any health and safety regulations. The place had the ambience of a Turkish sauna. I eyed my team. They were fanning themselves and muttering about the heat, sweating extravagantly.

      In front of me, too close, was DS Craig Cooper. Red-faced, puffy, damp. There was a small cut above his right eye. I knew this was a bad thought, but if someone had smacked him, I reckoned he deserved it. Next to Craig – turned slightly away – was DC Fiona Redfern, usually competent almost to the point of being annoying, but currently distracted by a workplace conflict I hadn’t got to the bottom of. Then Jai, not looking too bad, but unable to stop moaning about the weather for more than five seconds, partly to wind up Craig, who could never grasp that Jai had been born in England and was not acclimatised to the weather in the Punjab. Then a few more DCs I didn’t know well, and then the indexers, including a new civilian investigator called Donna, shipped in and paid a pittance to type stuff into our HOLMES database. She was a retired crime scene officer, so at least she knew the ropes.

      I steeled myself to do the briefing. This case had all the makings of being seriously high profile and I knew my boss, DCI Richard Atkins, would be concerned about me. My gran had recently died in circumstances which he knew had pushed all my buttons. But if anything it had left me numb, lacking in emotion, closer to what Richard would find desirable in a detective. Maybe this could be a chance for me to not get too involved. To prove I could follow the rules and do everything by the book. But for now, Richard wasn’t around. He was on his way home from sunning himself in a secret location that we were all very intrigued about.

      ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s get started. Yes, it’s a little warm and it would be nice if we had air-con, but we don’t, so let’s consider all the moaning about that done. We have a high-risk misper, Violet Armstrong, aged eighteen, disappeared from the abattoir at Gritton village yesterday evening. The last person to see her was a neighbour, when Violet went out at around eight.’

      All eyes were on the over-sized image of Violet’s face – dark eyes bright with expectation, confident straight-toothed smile, peachy skin.

      ‘The actual Violet Armstrong?’ Craig said. ‘Bikini-strutting Violet?’

      ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The actual Violet Armstrong.’

      ‘Wow.’ Craig licked his lips in an unpleasant manner. ‘Her videos are—’

      ‘Yes, thank you, Craig,’ I said. ‘We’re all familiar with her videos.’

      Craig smiled. ‘Oh, are you? There’s a thought.’

      ‘A more pleasant one than picturing you leering over them,’ Jai said.

      ‘Enough of the videos,’ I snapped. ‘She’s a high-risk missing person. Treat her like anyone else.’

      Fiona gave Craig a look of contempt before turning back to me. ‘Why was she at the abattoir at night?’

      ‘Works there. Why she would have chosen to work in an abattoir in an obscure Derbyshire village is one of the things we need to find out. This morning, her car was there, but no sign of her. No note. The CCTV was smashed. And her watch was by one of the pig pens, with the strap broken. There was blood on it, which has gone to be tested.’

      ‘By the pig pens?’ Fiona said. ‘Was that where she’d been cleaning?’

      ‘No,’ I said. ‘She shouldn’t have been in that area. We don’t know why she went there.’

      ‘I don’t suppose she was petting the pigs,’ Fiona said. ‘Given her views.’

      ‘CSI are there,’ I said. We were supposed to call them CSI now, just like on the TV show. I felt for the general public when our lot turned up sweating profusely inside their protective gear, instead of a bunch of Hollywood-polished Americans. ‘We have her laptop, which was in her locker with her bag and keys. Her purse was there, with her credit cards, and her passport was at home.’

      ‘She didn’t leave of her own accord then,’ Fiona said.

      ‘There are definitely some worrying signs. Violet had been receiving threats from animal rights activists. Social media comments saying she was asking to have her throat slit, and one this morning from a member of the Animal Vigilantes, suggesting she’d got what she deserved. We don’t know how the commenter knew Violet was missing.’

      ‘Shite,’ Craig said. ‘I always said those animal rights people were nuts. They’re the ones that wear those meat suits, aren’t they? What do you think, Meg? You hang around with those sorts.’

      I sighed. ‘Just because I’m vegetarian doesn’t make me an animal rights activist, although I wouldn’t rule it out for the future.’

      ‘I can’t believe you even respond to him,’ Fiona said. She’d been short with Craig recently, and she had a point. Ignoring him was usually the soundest strategy, but I had an enduring sense that deep inside (very deep indeed) there was a decent guy trying to get out.

      ‘Anyway,’ I said. ‘I don’t want us to assume Violet’s disappearance is anything to do with animal rights. It’s much more likely it’s a family member or boyfriend.’

      ‘Is she in a relationship?’ Fiona said.

      ‘Not that we know of – yet. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t. Her best friend’s coming in.’

      ‘What about family?’

      ‘Her parents are on holiday in New Zealand – of all the inconvenient spots. They’re on their way back. No siblings.’ I fanned my face and took a swig of water. ‘Christ, this weather.’

      ‘Not going to break for a week or more now,’ Jai said. ‘And the abattoir’s not far from the wildfire, so if she has wandered off for any reason, let’s hope she hasn’t

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