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Chapters (62)
  1. Title
  2. Copyright
  3. Contents
  4. About the Author
  5. About the Book
  6. Dedication
  7. Your Worst Nightmare
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. The Answer to All Your Prayers
  18. TEN
  19. ELEVEN
  20. TWELVE
  21. THIRTEEN
  22. FOURTEEN
  23. FIFTEEN
  24. SIXTEEN
  25. SEVENTEEN
  26. EIGHTEEN
  27. NINETEEN
  28. TWENTY
  29. TWENTY-ONE
  30. TWENTY-TWO
  31. TWENTY-THREE
  32. TWENTY-FOUR
  33. TWENTY-FIVE
  34. TWENTY-SIX
  35. TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. TWENTY-NINE
  38. THIRTY
  39. THIRTY-ONE
  40. Somebody Else’s Child
  41. THIRTY-TWO
  42. THIRTY-THREE
  43. THIRTY-FOUR
  44. THIRTY-FIVE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. FORTY
  50. FORTY-ONE
  51. FORTY-TWO
  52. FORTY-THREE
  53. FORTY-FOUR
  54. FORTY-FIVE
  55. FORTY-SIX
  56. FORTY-SEVEN
  57. FORTY-EIGHT
  58. FORTY-NINE
  59. Sunlight on Water
  60. July
  61. September
  62. Acknowledgements

‘Pneumatics,’ says Hagen. ‘Allegedly. Offshore wind farms, stuff like that.’

‘See, if your man was interested in wind turbines, he’d need to be down the coast a-ways, down at Redcar. The only offshore wind farm plans they had for around Hartlepool got turned down last year. Which makes you wonder why your man was parked up on Chatham Road, in an inland residential area. So we got CCTV from the Costcutter where he says he was and from another place of possible interest.’

Heron zooms in on the Google map, grabs the tiny figure to switch to Street View, and lands it on Chatham Road. The screen changes from a map to 360-degree-view photographs and the outside of the Costcutter. With a few twists of his mouse, he’s refocused on another building further down the street.

Hagen stares.

‘A children’s centre.’

‘Run by the council, mostly for the benefit of children under five.’

‘Well, what the hell.’

‘Begs the question again, what was your man doing parked up near there?’

‘Have you looked at the footage?’

‘Not yet. Thought I’d leave that to you. There’s an office you can use down the hall.’

Hagen starts with the images from the Costcutter, quickly finding the date and time Birch reported the car stolen and working back from there. He goes back an hour, two hours, three. In seven hours of footage, there’s no sign at all of the red Ford Focus.

He switches to the footage from the children’s centre, scrolling backwards through the hours from late morning to the middle of the night, watching in the daylight hours a parade of parents and pregnant women with small children and babies. Sticking with this one in case there has been, after all, a mix-up with the dates, he backtracks all the way to the previous morning, then goes back to the Costcutter footage and does the same with that. Up and down Chatham Road for forty-eight hours, there’s no sign at all of a red Ford Focus.

Brian Birch’s report of his car being stolen appears to be false.

Hagen takes out his phone and texts Naylor the outline of what he’s found, and he’s about to put away his phone when he sees an unfamiliar icon on the screen. With a jolt, he realises there’s email in his new account, the one set up for non-existent Mick Rutter as bait for the fake Petersen’s website. He clicks the link and opens up the message.