Monday 19 February

Monday 19 February is the date heading that opens the novel’s investigative narrative. It frames a stark juxtaposition between an unnamed young woman held in the dark and Detective Inspector Eve Strong’s arrival at a murder scene, then introduces the developing fear that another missing woman may be connected to the killing. The date establishes both the case’s immediate stakes and the investigators’ emerging focus on how the women disappeared.

Opening Scenes

The chapter begins with a young woman confined and unable to move freely. She is cold, distressed, and aware that calling for help would be futile; the scene presents her isolation before the narrative turns to the police investigation. The excerpt does not identify her, so her relationship to the body encountered in the following scene remains unstated here.

Eve studies the corpse without disturbing the scene, wanting to see it as the killer left it before colleagues begin their work. Her response combines pity for the woman who has died with disgust at what was done to her. Bill Nicol is beside her, and Eve’s practical shoes are a small but telling detail: she prefers footwear in which she could run if necessary. The transition from the confined woman’s perspective to Eve’s careful observation places private danger and police procedure side by side.

A New Missing-Person Report

The investigation’s concern widens when Gary Baxter reports that another woman has not returned home and has failed to appear at work. Eve asks whether the disappearance could be connected to the murder. Gary cautions that the connection is not yet certain, but points to the dates: the suspected killer appears to take a new victim shortly before killing the woman already held. The report therefore changes the missing person from a separate concern into a possible part of a repeating sequence.

That proposed timing gives the date its particular tension. A new disappearance may mean that someone is already at risk, even while the police are still assessing the earlier crime. The pattern is presented as a working inference, not a confirmed explanation, preserving the uncertainty that drives the investigation.

Routes and Opportunity

As the inquiry develops, investigators compare what is known about the women’s last journeys. Becky Allsopp had attended a business meeting out of town, travelled from Newcastle Central Station to Sunderland by Metro, and was last traced after leaving the Stadium of Light and walking beyond the CCTV coverage. Catherine Caslaw left a cinema and a drink with her boyfriend after an argument. Louise Usher had been at the gym after work; her father said she sometimes walked home, sometimes took a bus, and only occasionally used a taxi. Felicity Wanless left a pub before her friends and never reached home.

These different routines offer no obvious shared destination. The investigators therefore consider whether the women might have been taken into a vehicle without attracting attention: there had been no reported cries for help or screeching tyres. The contrast between ordinary journeys and an apparently quiet abduction shifts attention from where the women had been to how someone could approach them and remove them unnoticed.

The Taxi Warning

CCTV later gives the investigators a more specific lead in Jill Richards’s disappearance. Footage follows her from a supermarket past McDonald’s towards Roker Avenue, then picks her up again at a bus stop outside the Salvation Army, where she checks the timetable. She is seen flagging down a car that has the shape of a black cab but no sign on its roof.

That detail matters because Eve had already issued a warning to hail only white cars, and only when they carry a taxi sign on top. Jill’s apparent decision to get into an unmarked vehicle answers some questions and supports the investigators’ suspicion that the method of approach may connect the cases. The date’s opening uncertainty thus belongs to a wider inquiry in which ordinary movements, gaps in camera coverage, and the visible signs—or absence of signs—on a car become crucial.