Chapter 1

It’s a small town, Ponteford. Less than 40,000 people. Within its borders, you will find an out of town Outlet Shopping Centre, complete with a fourteen screen cinema, one of the very few indoor ski slopes in the country and its greatest claim to fame is that it has the highest concentration of pubs in the country. It’s a quiet town where the people go about their business not interfering in anybody else’s. But, it has a secret.

Ponteford traces its history back to the Roman legions. Specifically, its founding when the Roman IX legion needed a place to camp on their way to what is now York to subdue the Brigantes, a tribe of Britons who ruled the area in those days.

It was also a quiet town, its police station was small, not many officers were stationed there, working under their commander, Detective Inspector Peter Ford.

Peter sat in his office, one grey and dismal November morning reading through the weekend report. It wasn’t going to take long, nothing much had happened. A couple of drunks had started a fight after being ejected from one of the local pubs. The town football team had suffered a pitch intrusion, which was about it apart from one drink driver and a couple of folks stopped for speeding on the bypass.

After finishing the report, he stood, stretched and set off down to the kitchen to make himself a coffee, brought it back to his desk and pulled up the current investigations index on his computer. It was the standard set of applications for renewals of licensing. He had to make a decision, based on the previous twelve months whether the force were going to object to any of the renewals or ask for any restrictions on those renewals. He couldn’t find any reason to object to any of them. He had a very law-abiding town on his hands. In the three years since he’d taken over the station there had never been any form of objection to a licence renewal. There had never been anything more than minor offences and the occasional driver having one too many for the road. A pleasant, sleepy backwater of a town where very little ever happened, at least to attract the attention of the police. Peter was happy with the situation.

What he was not happy with was the information that he’d received from a meeting of all the local commanders the previous Friday. The Police Authority were planning to shut down all the local offices and consolidate them into one area headquarters, centrally located. It meant, as far as he could see, that if there were something major that happened, police response could take up to an hour in some cases.

He was pretty much convinced that that would make the county a somewhat more dangerous place to live.

All in the name of progress and providing a better more responsive service, or, as those on the ground put it, saving a shitload of money. It was, however, something for the lord high muck-a-mucks on the Police Authority to decide. Peter wasn’t going to worry unduly about it. His job would be safe, even if he was moved somewhere else to do a different job.

As a graduate entrant, with a law degree and a practising certificate from the Bar Council, he was, he knew, a valuable asset to the county.

His lecturers at Gray’s Inn had queried his decision to join the police. He’d answered them simply with one word. Money. During his year in pupillage, he’d earned enough to live on, just. It would be ten years at least before he earned enough to call himself successful. He was on the fast track with the police and knew that in ten years he’d be at least an inspector, possibly a chief inspector, earning more than the average barrister at the same age. So, money won. He was, he knew and his bosses knew, a potentially good police officer, he’d go far.

His musing on the future was interrupted by the ringing of the phone on his desk.

“Ford,” he said into the mouthpiece.

“Peter it’s Dave Fox,” the familiar voice of his boss, Divisional Commander, Detective Superintendent David Fox, said, “I have an incident report for you. Since it took place on your section of the bypass, I’d like your guys to handle it.”

“Ok,” Peter said, “what are the details?”

“I’ll send you the papers over, but basically, at 4:17 am today 999 got a message about a girl lying naked and unconscious on the bypass, just inside your area boundary. Ambulance and one of our RT units attended, the girl was taken off to A and E. Like I said, your boundaries, your case. You need to send someone over there to interview her when she’s conscious.”

“All right, I’ll go myself, I’ll take Fiona with me, she’s good with people.”

“Whoever you want, Peter, it’s your patch, your case. I’m emailing you the paperwork now.”

True to his word, the paperwork was there in minutes. Peter printed two copies, one for himself, one for PC Fiona Shaw. Not only his best officer with females, his best with any sort of human interaction.

He picked up his phone and dialled the ready room extension. Fiona answered.

“Fiona, we have a job on, I need you in my office ASAP.”

“I’ll be right there, Boss,” she replied.

She was true to her word. Less than a minute after he put the phone back in its cradle, there was a knock on his door.

“Come in, Fiona,” he called out. She obeyed and sat down opposite him when he pointed a finger at the chair placed just to one side of centre across his desk.

He handed her a copy of the report that the Super had sent and sat back in his chair while she read it.

“Well?” she asked when she finished.

“According to the Fox, it’s our patch, our case. We have to go to the hospital and interview her.”

“Then we’d better get going, do we know where in the hospital she is, Sir?”

“No, but we’ll find her.”

“Your car or one of the official ones?”

“We’ll take mine” he said, “but you can drive.”

They were at the hospital in under 40 minutes, thanks to the occasional use of the blues and twos, the blue flashing lights on his dashboard and the two-tone siren, parked the car outside the main doors, against the protest of the hospital porter standing there. Peter flashed his warrant card.

“Police business,” he snapped at the man as they walked past him and into the atrium.

At the desk, Peter told the clerk who they were and who they wanted to see.

“I can’t really help without a name, Sir,” she said, “perhaps if you were to ask at A and E, someone there might be able to help.”

They walked round the front of the hospital to a door marked A & E, Ambulance crews and trolleys only.

When a large uniformed security person stopped them, Fiona’s warrant card persuaded him that they were allowed through and they approached the desk.

“Good morning, we’re here to interview a young lady who was brought in during the dark hours of this morning, She’d been found naked beside the Ponteford bypass, we don’t have a name.

“I wasn’t here then, Sir,” the clerk replied, “if you walk down to the department and see the duty sister, she’ll probably be able to help you.”

They followed her advice. The sister in charge looked it up on the computer and told them the unknown young lady had been examined, found healthy apart from a touch of exposure and transferred to ward 14 on the second floor. Peter thanked her and they trekked through the back corridors of the hospital to the main bank of lifts, took one up the two floors and along the corridor to the ward.

Peter’s warrant card took care of the woman behind the ward clerk’s workstation’s objection on the grounds that it wasn’t visiting hours and directed them to a side room at the end of the corridor.

They found a slight, slim young woman with blonde hair lying in the bed apparently asleep.

As they approached her, her eyes opened, revealing the palest blue eyes Peter had ever seen.

“Hello,” Fiona said, “my name is Fiona Shaw and this is my boss Peter Ford. What’s your name?”

The girl looked at them and remained silent.

“We’re here to help you, but we need to know who you are, where you come from, who we can contact to let them know you’re safe.”

She continued to look at them, the expression on her face blank.

“You are English, yes,” she said when she eventually broke the silence. She spoke with an accent, but one that Peter, who was usually pretty good with accents couldn’t place.

“Yes, we are,” Fiona agreed, “could you tell us your name?”

“I don’t know,” she said pausing between words as if trying to remember what each word should be.

“You don’t know your name?” Peter asked.

She shook her head, “No,” she said.

“What about where you’re from?” Fiona asked.

She shook her head again.

“Do you have any recollection of what you were doing before you were found beside the road?” Peter asked.

She looked at him as if she didn’t understand what he was asking.

“Do you remember anything before you were found?” Fiona clarified.

All that got was another head shake.

“What is the first thing you remember?”

“I awoke, here in this place. What is it?”

“It’s a hospital, you know where sick and injured people go.”

Peter stood up, “I’m going to go out and call the office,” he said, “get someone to go over and search the place where she was found, see if we can glean anything.”

Peter stood and left the room, called the office and gave his instructions. They were to send two officers out to the place where the girl was picked up and do a thorough search.

“What for, Sir?” Phil Richards the duty desk sergeant asked.

“Anything that’s there, Phil,” he replied, “anything at all, whether it appears relevant or not. Clothing, bags, even a used condom, anything the boys find, I want it. You’ll find details of where she was found on my desk.”

“I’ll get that started, Sir,” Phil said.

“Thanks Phil, this one looks like it’s going to be complicated.”

Peter ended the call and walked back to the room, where he found not two but three young women. One of them wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope draped around her neck.

He looked at her, smiled and spoke.

“You know if this were an American cop show, you’d be either a doctor or an assassin sent in to kill the patient.”

“Well fortunately for the young lady, I’m better at keeping people alive than killing them. I’m Mandy and I’m one of the doctors here.”

Peter shook hands with her and introduced himself and Fiona.

“So, what do we have here doctor?” Peter asked.

“If you’d like to walk along to sister’s office with me, I’ll show you the reports,” Mandy replied.

Peter followed her out of the room and to the sister’s office.

“Take a seat inspector,” she said as they walked into the room and she sat down opposite him behind the desk.