The rain started to fall just as Ridley stepped outside, forcing him to jog across the car park to his BMW. Jack felt sorry for him, even though his own arrogance—no, not arrogance; Ridley wasn’t arrogant—his own blinkered self-belief was responsible for this monumental mistake. Ridley was an excellent officer, but he played by the rules and the truth was that anyone can learn them. And once you learn the rules you can predict what someone might do. The women had predicted Ridley, move by move, and that’s why he’d failed. Jack was different. Jack, for the first time in his career, was thinking outside the box . . . He was thinking like them.

Chapter 33

The squad room was a hive of activity. Fourteen officers were all backtracking several weeks, retracing steps, re-investigating, re-interviewing, rereading, reversing through everything they knew, back to the moment the women were first mentioned.

They knew that they would not be traveling on their own passports, and that their mobiles had all been left behind at their respective homes. They knew that the school Angela’s children attended was under the impression that the Dunn family had gone on holiday to Greece; Riel and Aggie had been practicing yassas and efcharisto for days. They guessed that Angela would have lied to her children about where they were going, but they had to explore the possibility of them being in Greece regardless. They also knew that Ester’s parole officer was a total waste of space. He hadn’t even known she’d left the Isle of Wight.

Jack watched three PCs systematically work their way through Angela’s flat, expecting to uncover a clue. What did they think they’d find? Flight information jotted on a notepad perhaps, together with the name of the hotel they’d be staying in? Jack knew that the flat would be clean, because he knew Angela was smart. He paced the lounge, thinking. Not only did these women have to disappear without a trace, they had to disappear with £27 million. Jack had a sudden flash of inspiration and bolted for the front door.

Irene at number 36 remembered Jack from his last visit, and excitedly showed off the dining chairs Angela had re-covered, now sitting around her family-sized dining table.

“I wanted to ask you about Rob.” Jack showed his ID and Irene looked confused. “He’s done nothing wrong. I’d just like to ask you about his business. He does up cars, doesn’t he?”

Irene didn’t know how to answer in case she got Rob into trouble.

“Irene, I just need to know if their flat has a private garage.”

Rob’s double garage was also his workspace but it was sparsely kitted out now—as though the best tools had disappeared along with his family. Half-empty shelves lined two of the walls, and different sized hooks lined a third. Some of the tools left behind dated back decades; Jack could loosely date them because Charlie owned similar ones. Rob, like Charlie, was a man who liked quality and remained loyal to his old work tools through the passing years. He was probably an ordinary man, dragged into an extraordinary world by the woman he loved. Jack knew that he’d do exactly the same for Maggie.