It wasn’t just the lack of light or space, though given her choice of small mammals, Robin thought, she’d say Valerie Woodson was more of a harvest mouse than a White Rabbit. Her shoulders hunched as she scurried ahead of them, and though her colouring was sandy – once-auburn hair fading to an odd peach-grey – her eyes were so dark, they looked like buttons, currants in a bun. Maybe they’d adapted to the conditions.

It was brighter in the kitchen, where she stood dazzled in front of them.

Maggie smiled gently. ‘How about a cuppa?’

The woman spooned Nescafé into mugs Robin recognized as garage giveaways from twenty years ago while Maggie kept up a soft patter about the rain, the lead story in the Post on the table, a pot of snowdrops outside the back door. The kitchen was old but looked-after, the white Formica almost stain-free even as the red plastic handles dated it at warp speed. The fridge was covered with magnets shaped like pizza slices and strawberries, a London bus.

An ‘I heart Devon’ magnet anchored a photograph of Valerie and a girl of fifteen or sixteen. They squinted into the sun, arms around each other, their lop-sided smiles so similar they could only be mother and daughter despite the girl’s extra two or three inches and dark brown hair. She wore denim cut-offs and a turquoise vest top and, unlike her mother – the small visible area of whose shins was the colour of cream cheese – she was tanned. Behind them was a beach, unmistakeably British: windbreakers, buckets and spades, and one egregiously burned fat white back.

‘Torbay,’ said the woman as she carried the mugs to a small table. ‘Five years ago. Six this summer.’ She fetched a third chair from the front room. When they were all sitting down, they were elbow to elbow. Robin moved back a little, let in some air.

At close range, the woman looked ill. Her skin was paper-dry and blotchy, raw around the nostrils from nose-blowing. Her eyes were marbled with pink. When she saw Robin notice how her hands trembled, she moved them quickly under the table as though ashamed of the weakness.

‘She left a message just before eight this morning,’ Maggie had said in the car, ‘Alan gave her my number. I was in the shower, and when I called her back I got voicemail. Phone tag. Anyway, she got hold of me while you were getting the food. Her daughter’s missing, she says, has been for four days. We were in the vicinity so I said we’d come round, talk face to face.’

She sat forward now, silver bangles chiming against the table. ‘So tell us what’s going on, Valerie. As much detail as you can.’