Back at the station Jade and Detective Botha paged through the missing persons’ files, trying to ID the victim, with no luck.

Jade was thinking it might have been a robbery because there was no handbag or cellphone around the body and they had searched nearly the entire lot. That place was notorious for mugging but they had never had a murder there before. Cuttleson was a small town; murder was very rare. This was a new, and unwelcome, development.

Jade was typing up the case on the computer when she heard someone at the door. She looked up, and there was a middle-aged Indian woman with someone who was probably her daughter. The younger woman was holding her up as if the older woman would collapse at any time. Jade knew straight away that they were the relatives of the dead woman. In fact, the younger woman might have been her twin, they looked so similar.

She got up quickly to steer them away from the reception desk. She wanted to keep them from having to explain that their loved one had gone missing.

“Good evening, I’m Detective Khan. I think I can help you,” said Jade, as she nodded to the constable at the reception desk to let him know that these were the people they’d been looking for.

After an hour of careful speaking, shock, and lots and lots of tears, Jade had found out that the dead young woman in the vacant lot was Tasneem Pillay, twenty-two years old.

A young woman with a mother who didn’t deserve this, and a sister who would carry the entire load for this small family for the rest of her life.

To help that sister go forward, Jade promised her she’d find Tasneem’s killer – and Jade always kept her promises.

***

Tell us: Could Tasneem have been murdered for her bag and phone, rather than just mugged?