Every Little Breath: A Tense Psychological Thriller Full of Twists

‘G ood night’s sleep?’ Vicky commented drily as Finn stifled another yawn. He had only started his shift half an hour ago and was already on his third cup of coffee.

Last night he had been dog-tired and had turned down her offer of a nightcap, but after the conversation that had followed about Casey, he suspected Vicky was fishing to find out if he had really been in bed alone.

‘Not overly.’

‘Your new neighbour keeping you up?’

Subtlety had never been Vicky’s strongest quality. She kept pushing about Casey and it was starting to irritate Finn. They had been clear on the whole fuck buddy rule thing from the start and, until now, it had always been him stepping to one side whenever she had a new bloke on the scene. Now he had shown an interest in Casey, she was being sarcastic and was, he suspected, jealous. Not that he was flattering himself. He worked fine with Vicky as a colleague, but a relationship was never on the cards for either of them. He didn’t want that and knew she didn’t either. No, he suspected she didn’t like being the one stepping to the side.

‘In a way, yes,’ he answered to her question. It was none of her business and he was tempted to leave it at that, but the whole thing with Casey had irritated him last night. It wasn’t that she had told him in no uncertain terms to piss off. He had a hard enough exterior to deal with a knock-back. What had annoyed him, in fact, had played on his mind for much of the night, was the caller she had dealt with, who made it clear he knew she was working alone, and the fact that Casey didn’t seem to take the threat seriously.

She told Finn the man hadn’t bothered her, but he had picked up on the tone of her voice as her show continued, listened to her tripping over her words, sounding downright uncomfortable and distracted at times, and he knew she was lying. In the end he had turned off the radio and put on the TV for a bit, but she played on his mind, and he hated knowing that she was in the building all alone, would have to lock up and return to her car in the middle of the night, when no one else was about.

It wasn’t his problem she had told him and she was right. What happened in Casey’s life was none of his business. He didn’t like that either. Fifteen years ago she had been sweet and vulnerable and he had taken advantage of her. Now she was older, guarded and certainly more jaded, and the idea that he might have contributed a small part to her being that way, pissed him off. He had lain awake for what seemed like hours, fighting every protective instinct to get in his car and drive out to Mundesley, knowing that Casey didn’t want him there and that he needed to respect her decision, and when sleep had finally come, she had plagued his dreams, leading to a restless night.

Of course, he didn’t tell Vicky any of this, instead, he focused on the creep who had called into Casey’s show.

‘She was pretty shaken up,’ DC Shane McGuigan commented from across the office as Finn finished recounting what had happened.

His head shot up. ‘You heard it?’

‘No, I wasn’t on duty. Harry took the job. He thinks the guy was just dicking with her, but he went to check it out anyway. He spoke to the deejay lady, even followed up the threat, but he didn’t find anything.’

Finn narrowed his eyes. What was he missing here? ‘What threat? Casey made a 999 call?’

Shane looked at him in surprise, obviously assuming he already knew all this. ‘The creep who called her. The guy you were just talking about. He said that he wanted to play a game with her and that he was going to kill some woman if she didn’t do as he told her.’

‘What?’ Finn shot up out of his chair, suddenly a whole lot more awake. Why the hell hadn’t Casey called him back and told him what had happened?

‘I take it you know her well, then?’

‘They’re just neighbours… at the moment.’

Finn’s gaze cut from Vicky and her snide comment to Shane, whose eyebrows had lifted, the start of a smirk on his face.

This wasn’t good. He needed to speak to his boss.

An hour later he pulled up outside the building of East Coast Radio, having learnt that Casey worked there on a Tuesday morning in a sales and marketing role.

He had spoken with her station manager and guessed she wouldn’t be happy to see him, but that wasn’t his problem. This was work. Finn was lead on the Saffron Pollard case and right now he needed to know if Casey’s creepy caller had any connection to the missing woman.

Saffron was mentioned in the lyrics of the song he had requested, making it a little too coincidental for Finn’s liking.

The station manager, a guy called Justin Walters, greeted him. He was younger than Finn, probably only mid-twenties, with slicked-back hair, dark-framed glasses that looked more like a fashion statement than a necessity, and a faint sneer. After shaking hands, he led Finn past the studio and upstairs, heading down a narrow landing and into an office that had a ‘marketing’ sign on the door and where wide windows overlooked the beach. Casey sat with her back to the door, earphones in and focused on a computer screen.

‘Casey!’ Justin barked, and her head shot round, one earphone slipping out. ‘Police to see you.’

Her eyes widened as she looked at Finn and she pulled the other earphone out.

‘She’ll get you a drink if you want one.’

Finn decided he didn’t particularly like Justin, and wondered how Casey felt about working for someone about ten years younger who appeared to look down his nose at her and talk to her like she was some kind of lackey.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, getting up from the chair as Justin left the room.

Finn pushed the door shut after him, turned back to face her, noticing the dark circles under her eyes. She would have been up late and he doubted she’d had much sleep.

Still, her anger had gone. She sounded more surprised than annoyed to see him.

‘Your caller friend last night, I understand he got in touch with you again after we spoke?’ Finn struggled to keep his own annoyance out of his voice.

‘I… he… yes. I already went through everything last night.’

He could tell he had her flustered, confused even. Well that was tough. ‘I need you to go through it again.’

‘But… why?’

‘Because I have a missing woman, Casey, and her name is Saffron.’

Her face drained of colour and she sat down again. He knew she had listened to the lyrics, understood the relevance of the song to the name.

‘Do you really think…’ She trailed off, scrubbing her hand over her face and back through her hair. ‘You’d better sit down. Do you want a drink?’

‘I’m good.’ Finn gave her a hard stare, ignoring the seat she was gesturing to.

She seemed a little taken aback by that. ‘You’re mad at me, because of what I said to you last night.’

‘I’m not mad at you,’ he lied.

‘I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did. I know you were only trying to help.’

Irritation bristled. ‘This isn’t about you and me. This is about a woman who has been missing for two days, possibly longer. She has a five-year-old son who is wondering where she is and with each hour that passes, the chances of us finding her alive lessens, so can we focus on trying to help her?’

‘Of course.’ Her face paled further and she gripped her hands together. Finn could tell it was to stop them from shaking, and he inwardly cursed himself for being so harsh with her. She drew in a deep breath, exhaled slowly, gathering herself and regrouping, slipping on the mask before fixing him with a steely gaze. ‘What is it you want to know?’

Finn spent half an hour firing questions at her, getting her to go into detail about certain points, his frustration growing. Not only was he becoming increasingly concerned for Saffron’s safety, he didn’t like the idea that the individual who might be responsible for her disappearance seemed to have fixated on Casey.

‘I think he knows about what happened.’ She seemed almost afraid to say the words out loud.

‘Knows what?’ He suspected what she was talking about, but wanted her to say it.

‘He knew what I saw, about Amanda Haines.’ She had glanced up at him then. ‘He asked me, “you saved one life, but can you save them all?”’

A crank, possibly. At least that was what Finn hoped. Casey’s name had been in the papers. It wouldn’t have taken too much digging to find out who she was. Finding out she was a deejay, and a pretty one at that, would make her perfect fodder.

The Saffron connection bothered him, though, and he hoped it was just a coincidence.

Before he left the radio station he strongly advised her to not do her show alone for the next few nights. She must have been shaken because she didn’t argue with him, telling him that her friend, Ricky, was going to stay with her for the duration of tonight’s show and she would sort someone for Wednesday and Thursday.

That was good. Finn didn’t want her being alone. He pushed aside the nagging question of exactly what kind of friend Ricky was, reminding himself that it was none of his business and the most important thing was that she was safe.

He met up with Vicky back at the station in the afternoon, knew she had been to speak with Saffron’s parents.

‘They were a delightful pair,’ she informed Finn as he fired up his computer, wanting to listen to the live call again. ‘I can understand now where Saffron gets her charming personality from.’

‘Unfazed that she is missing?’

‘Just a bit. Her dad didn’t even take his eyes off the TV. Apparently she will be on a bender. The mother took it a little more seriously, though she is secretly hoping she might get to appear on the news. She was even fretting about which top she should wear if she does, because apparently black drains her, but her nice orange one might make her look fat. Those TV cameras add six pounds, you know.’

‘Nice.’

‘It’s sad really, because the person who cares the most about whether Saffron’s okay is her ex-husband, and she treats him like shit.’

It was true. Over the years, Tony Pollard had been the target of many of his ex-wife’s attacks. Finn couldn’t understand how the man could still have any feelings for her.

While he waited for the computer to load, he checked in with Suffolk Constabulary. Saffron’s picture had been distributed to their team, in case ‘Steven’ was telling the truth about being over the county line and officers had been told to keep a lookout.

‘How is your deejay friend?’ Vicky asked as he ended the call.

He studied her for a moment, unsure if she genuinely wanted to know if he had any new information or if this was another fishing expedition. She had offered to go speak to Casey, but Finn had insisted on being the one to do it, and he hadn’t missed the look she had given him before he left. There seemed no motive behind the question other than to ascertain if talking to her had helped their case, so he took her comment at face value.

‘Pretty shaken. She’s convinced whoever called her knows about her connection to Steven Noakes.’

It was the first time he had spoken with Vicky about Casey being the witness who helped put the serial killer away and he didn’t know how much she already knew or if she had even made the connection. It wasn’t something he had ever planned on discussing with her, but if there was a possibility that the radio caller was referencing Casey’s involvement, then Vicky needed to know.

She didn’t look at all shocked by his comment, which suggested she had already been doing her own research on Casey. ‘And is that what you think too?’

‘I think the information is there and easily accessible, but that makes it more likely to be a sick prank.’

‘Or someone connected to the Noakes family, maybe looking to get revenge. Obviously that’s the worst-case scenario. Saffron is missing, but we don’t know for sure anything has happened to her and the call made to the radio station could have been someone messing around. But we have to look at every angle, so we can’t completely rule it out.’

No, they couldn’t. Finn had already chewed over the possibility it could be someone connected to Noakes. He hadn’t said anything to Casey, as he didn’t want to scare her, but the truth was, he didn’t like that idea one bit.