‘That’s all very well, but if you’re right, then where is he?’ Eileen asked.

Geraldine shook her head. ‘I don’t know, but there’s a chance he never left, and that’s why we couldn’t find him. He could still be in her flat, hidden.’

Eileen stared at Geraldine for only a second before she was on the phone, expediting the issue of an emergency search warrant and barking at Geraldine to organise a search team. Questioning Ella further would have to wait. They were unlikely to get much sense from her anyway.

The search team went through Ella’s flat room by room. It was filthy, and the kitchen stank of rotting food.

‘No one could keep a baby here,’ one of the team said. ‘The health visitor would have it removed in a jiffy.’

‘The place can’t have been like this when her baby was still alive,’ Geraldine agreed. ‘She must have gone to pieces after Lily died.’

What was unusual was that every single room in the flat had bolts on the inside of the door. Wherever Ella went, she seemed to have wanted to lock herself in.

‘It’s as though she was afraid of being attacked inside the flat,’ a constable said. ‘How the hell she ever kept a baby here is just unbelievable. Did she lock it in with her wherever she went?’

‘Talk about paranoid,’ another officer added. ‘She’s an absolute maniac.’

‘Do you think she was afraid of ghosts?’ the first constable asked.

‘Ghosts?’ his companion echoed contemptuously. ‘You think bolts can keep ghosts out?’

‘Nothing can keep ghosts out, because they don’t exist, you muppet.’

‘Well, it may not have been ghosts, but she was keen to keep herself safe from something.’

‘Or someone,’ Geraldine said.

Every door in the flat had three bolts on the inside, top, middle and bottom. Only the door to the cellar was bolted on the outside. Geraldine watched as a constable pulled the bolts across.

‘They’re stiff,’ he commented.

The door creaked open, and the officer drew back with a shout of disgust. The foul smell reached Geraldine who was standing a foot away, and she covered her mouth and nose at the stench with an involuntary grimace.

‘I’m guessing there’s a body down there,’ the constable muttered, pulling a face.

But as he spoke, a grating voice cried out from the darkness at the foot of the stairs leading down into the cellar.

‘Let me out! Let me out! Let me out, you fucking bitch. I’m going to kill you!’

The constable slammed the door shut and slid the middle bolt across. ‘Fucking hell,’ he whispered. ‘There’s someone in there!’

Geraldine approached the door and pulled it open, trying not to breathe in the horrible smell.

‘Peter!’ she called out. ‘This is the police and you’re under arrest for the murder of your daughter, Lily.’