Vin sat with his head in his hands. He was sitting in the cold clinical surroundings of a morgue. It was three in the morning. The strange telephone conversation he had hours before was still going around in his head.
Hazel had gone missing five days ago without a trace. He and his wife Stephanie had joined in the search and made countless appeals on the media. Vin now knew how other parents felt when their daughter or son disappeared. He now knew how they felt when told their child had been sexually assaulted and then brutally murdered. His body went into a spasm as he recalled identifying his daughter. The draw was slowly pulled out from the wall like a filing cabinet drawer. He prayed in earnest that the body he was asked to identify would not be Hazel’s.
Vin gave a sharp intake of breath as the cover was removed and her gentle features were revealed. There were no books written to prepare any parent for this horror. A police officer approached him.
‘Are you okay sir?’
Vin looked at him in disbelieve, ‘What do you think?’
‘Sorry sir. Excuse me, words can sound rather crass at a time like this.’
‘Do you know who did this to Hazel?’ his eyes searched the officer’s face for an answer.
‘Not yet sir. But the lads are at the crime scene searching for clues. Rest assured we will find whoever did this.’ The officer had one of those faces that inspired confidence.
‘I will need to go home and tell my wife,’ Vin’s words were barely audible, ‘What do I tell her? What the hell do I say?’
The officer placed an arm on Vin’s shoulder, it was enough, all his grief came flooding out as if a dam had been breached.

Vin turned to the officer and asked if he knew anything about how his daughter had been murdered,
The officer looked uncomfortable, ‘Please sir, someone will be along shortly to explain.’
‘But you know don’t you?’ Vin eyed him suspiciously ‘I need to know.’
‘As I say sir someone will be along shortly.’ The officer made as if to move to a point further down the corridor.
‘Do you have children..eh? I don’t know your name?’
‘Frank, sir and yes I do… a boy and a girl.’
‘So you must have some idea of what I’m going through. If it was your daughter lying in their wouldn’t you want to know?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Then for pity sake please tell me,’ tears were welling up in Vin’s eyes this time out of frustration rather than grief.
‘I’ve been told to say nothing until my commanding officer arrives.’
‘Okay. Just tell me one thing. Where was she found?’
The officer cleared his throat looked in the direction of the door at the end of the corridor then looked directly at Vin, ‘She was found on the path which leads to the old quarry.’
‘The old quarry? What on earth was she doing there? That’s in the opposite direction to where we live. I don’t understand…… Why would she be there?’ Vin appeared to be pleading with the officer for an answer but in fact he was blaming himself.
At that moment the door at the end of the corridor swung open and the figure of Chief Inspector Hurst appeared. He walked briskly up to Vin and put out his hand as a way of introduction. Pleasantries over Vin wanted to know facts.
‘All in good time sir,’ said Hurst, ‘Could you tell me where you were between the hours of 9.00 pm and midnight?’
Vin looked at him incredulously, ‘What?’
‘Just answer the question sir.’
‘My daughter has been murdered, she’s lying in the other room and you ask me where I was?’ Vin’s voice had risen considerably.
Hurst showed no flicker of emotion on his face, ‘Where were you?’
‘At home with my wife.’
‘And she can verify this?’
‘Of course.’
‘There is a police officer with her at the moment.’
‘You haven’t told her about Hazel?’
‘She will have been informed,’ said Hurst taking a small notebook from his inside pocket.
‘I should have been the one to break it to Stephanie,’ protested Vin.
Hurst said nothing but continued flicking through the pages of the notebook. The other officer, Frank, had become decidedly uncomfortable and Vin noticed.
‘Is there something I’m not being told?’ he glanced from Hurst to Frank.
‘Do you know the footpath leading to the old quarry?’ asked Hurst.
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Do you own a pair of brown leather gloves?’
‘Yes . I have them in my pocket,’ Vin put his hands in his pocket to find them missing, ‘They seem to have fallen out of my pocket or else I left them at home. Look I’m not bothered about the gloves I need to know about my daughter.’
Hurst did not look at Vin but simply pulled out a plastic bag containing a pair of brown leather gloves.
‘Would these be you gloves sir?’ He passed the plastic bag to Vin so he could inspect the contents.
‘They look like mine. I’m not sure.’
‘They have your name on the inside,’ said Hurst abruptly.
‘My wife… she always writes my name inside gloves because I always lose them. Where did you find them?’ Vin was about to remove them from the packet when Hurst intervened and snatched them off him. ‘I don’t understand?’
‘So you keep saying sir. They were found at the scene of the crime.’
‘What? You don’t think for one minute that I… you do, don’t you ? You think I murdered my own daughter……..’ his voice trailed off as he realised the full impact of the gloves near the brutally murdered body of his precious daughter.