Now they knew why Jason had disappeared without trace, but they were no closer to discovering where he had been hidden away, or to finding his baby, or to working out who had killed him or his father-in-law.

‘There are too many unanswered questions surrounding these tragedies,’ Eileen said.

With the baby still missing, the team were all hoping desperately that there would turn out to be no more than two deaths in this sorry family.

‘It all centres around Jessica,’ Eileen said. ‘Is she really an unfortunate victim in these crimes, or does she have something to do with all of it? Her baby, her father, her husband. She’s the common link.’

‘Along with her mother,’ Geraldine pointed out.

Eileen nodded. ‘True. They might even be in this together.’

It sounded unlikely, but nothing could be ruled out. Jessica and her mother had both been questioned, but as yet no evidence had been found that suggested either one or both of them could be guilty of any crime.

‘Can a mother kidnap her own baby?’ Ariadne asked.

Before Eileen could answer, her phone buzzed. Studying the screen, she frowned.

‘Here’s an unexpected development,’ she said. ‘I’ll upload the message and we’ll have him brought straight here for questioning.’

Johnathan Edwards had been stopped at Leeds Bradford Airport, attempting to board a plane. Clearly he had not realised how serious the police were when they had told him not to leave the area.

‘He thought he could just skip off,’ Eileen fumed, but there was a distinct note of triumph in her voice.

The airport was about an hour’s drive from York, and two hours later Geraldine and Ian faced Jonathan across an interview table, with a duty solicitor present. Geraldine entered the interview room behind Ian and took a seat without once glancing at her colleague, but consciousness of his presence at her side made it hard for her to focus on anything else. She wished that Eileen would stop partnering her with Ian. They had worked together on many cases over the years, and knowing one another as well as they did made them an extremely effective team. All the same, every time Geraldine saw Ian her breath seemed to catch in her throat, and she felt an urge to reach out and put her arms around him, drawing him close. She wondered whether she might speak to Eileen about it, but was reluctant to appear unprofessional. She had always prided herself on her refusal to allow personal problems to intrude on her work.

‘You were caught attempting to leave the country,’ Ian began the interview.