‘Come on.’ Imogen got out of the car. ‘Now we’re looking for Cynthia Muffett.’

Theresa wondered whether anyone lived here at all. It looked as though the owners had been away for a long time.

Imogen stepped up to the front door, rang the bell, then wiped the tip of her finger with a tissue.

They waited, but there was no sign of life inside.

Theresa stooped and looked through the letterbox. She was thinking there would be a mound of mail lying there, but no. Then something caught her eye. The slightest movement at the end of the hall. A skirt disappearing round the architrave of a door.

‘I saw someone,’ she whispered. ‘There’s a woman inside. She’s hiding behind a doorway.’

Imogen pushed Theresa away and shouted through the letterbox. ‘We know you’re inside, Mrs Muffett. You’d better answer or we’re going to call the police.’ She stood up and pressed her finger on the bell. She left it there. It was a shrill bell.

To help, Theresa rattled the letterbox.

Eventually feet shuffled along the hall. Then the door, on a chain, opened a crack. Two eyes, make-up smeared, peered through the gap.

‘Yes?’

Only one word, but enough for Theresa to smell alcohol fumes on the woman’s breath.

‘Mrs Muffett?’

‘Who are you?’

‘It’s Imogen Firbank, Mrs Muffett. I was Neil’s headmistress.’

The fingers of one hand curled around the edge of the door. ‘What’s he done now?’

‘We just need to come in and talk. Neil isn’t in trouble. But, if we don’t have a word privately with you first and try to sort things out, he could be in very bad trouble.’

The woman slid the chain off and tentatively opened up.

‘Who’s she?’ She pointed at Theresa.

‘I’m the child’s grandmother.’

‘Which child?’

‘Chloe Firbank, the underaged girl Neil has run away with.’ Imogen stepped into the hall.

‘Aren’t you Mrs Firbank?’

‘Yes,’ said Imogen. ‘I am Chloe’s mother.’

‘So he’s run off with a young girl.’ Mrs Muffett, still in dressing gown and slippers, her hair unkempt, shrugged. ‘Like father like son.’

Leaving a trail of Martini fumes in her wake, Cynthia Muffett slopped down the hall to a large, open kitchen which looked out on to an impressive garden. Theresa and Imogen followed.

‘Where does your son go to school nowadays, Mrs Muffett?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean what school does he attend? He’s fifteen years old, Mrs Muffett. By law he has to be at school.’

‘Drink?’ Mrs Muffett sat on a high stool and topped up her glass from the bottle.

Theresa and Imogen declined.

‘How would I know? His father won custody. His father wins everything.’ Mrs Muffett gulped back the Martini in one. ‘I suppose Neil’s at a school near to where his father lives.’

‘And his father lives where exactly?’