Prelude

"Sarge," the uniformed officer called out to his CID counterpart, DS Hill, as he stood by the door in his expertly tailored suit, supervising the search of the bedsit, small and decaying in structure, but clean and well-maintained, with the young woman's clothes folded neatly in the chest of drawers, her shoes lined up in a row by the door, and her meagre possessions laid out on the small dresser.

"What is it?" Hill stepped towards the officer who was on his knees next to the bed.

"Found this under the mattress."

Hill accepted the small notebook the officer held out to him and immediately began to flick through its pages. It was more than simply a notebook, it was a journal, an extensive handwritten account of a life that, somewhere along the line, had derailed in spectacular fashion.

"Got anything yet?" Hill's superior officer, DI Fielding, queried as she entered the room.

"This journal," Hill replied, promptly handing the treasure over.

Fielding flicked through the journal, at the dense black ink and the cramped handwriting, the author clearly wanting to make as much use of the available space as possible. The book fell open to a page headed 28 December 2018. Fielding read the entry aloud, while Hill listened as if his life, or more importantly his career, depended on it.

"The train from London was only meant to take two and a half hours, but it was delayed – I overheard a man say we were just outside Coventry at the time – but that added another half hour onto the trip. I didn't mind too much. I've waited years for this. Another half hour, another hour, day, month even. It doesn't matter. I'm so close now I can almost taste it. There's a saying, something about revenge tasting sweet. I haven't got there yet, but right now, yes, it's very sweet. The anticipation. The planning. It's the only thing keeping me going. Keeping me alive.

"I wonder what the police will say when they find out I've gone? They were very insistent that I stayed in London in case they needed to ask me more questions, to go to an identity parade, to share my sob story over and over. And then there's the court case, of course they'll want me to testify at that. But I don't care about all that anymore. It's in the past. I've escaped and that's all that matters.

"I'm going to sign off for now. The announcer just called the next stop. It's my stop. Weatherfield North. That's where I'm going to find her. Carla Connor. And then I'll get my revenge."