Natalie was playing spiritual cheerleader, trying to keep them afloat with a constant stream of upbeat chatter about abductees who’d returned safely home, ‘even after years and years,’ she said. ‘There was this girl in Germany, I think – it might have been Switzerland. Or Austria. Anyway, she’d been missing for, like, five years, I read about it, and everyone had given up hope, and then suddenly one day, just like that, she reappeared – she’d escaped. The really weird part was that she could have escaped earlier, she said, it would have been easy, but she didn’t want to. There was something really weird going on, like, I think she’d actually fallen in love with him, they’d had a relationship …’ She saw DS Thomas’s face and stopped. Embarrassed, she took a shortbread – ‘Shouldn’t, really’ – and nibbled an edge before balancing it on her saucer. ‘Would you like one, Malia?’

‘I’m all right, thanks.’

‘So how long have you been in the police, then? Do you like it?’

Just after ten, Thomas’s phone rang again. She stood and went to the dining-room window, drawing the curtain a foot or so for a view out into the street. Samir: Robin could see it by her body language, the way she stood even straighter. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Right. Yes. Okay.’ She hung up and came back into the sitting room.

‘Jafferi,’ she said. ‘There’s movement.’

‘What does that mean?’ Luke said. ‘Actually?’

‘Maggie Hammond called him. About eighteen months ago, she had a client who’d been involved with Staverton, who she’d helped get away from him.’

Luke pulled a face of cartoonish confusion. ‘What do you mean, get away? She does benefit fraud cases, doesn’t she?’

‘Luke, shut up,’ their mother snapped.

‘She managed to speak to her about an hour ago. She wasn’t answering her phone so Maggie drove over there, to her parents’ house. She told her what was going on, asked if she had any clue where he might have taken Lennie, somewhere other than the places we know about.’

‘And …?’

‘She remembered a place out near Studley that he’d used to keep on the down-low. A farm building he used for storage, paid for cash-in-hand. She didn’t know where exactly but she thought she might recognize it – he kept a stolen car there, a sports car; she’d been out with him in it a couple of times. Maggie drove her there – they’re there now.’

‘Are they there?’ Robin heard her own voice.

‘They think so. There’s been a light, Maggie told him – a torch, she thinks, moving around. And voices – male and female.’

‘So what now?’ Dennis was gripping the arms of his chair.

‘There’s a team on their way there. Jafferi’s following them. Twenty minutes.’