Hagen’s booked a conference room for the meeting, and connected a laptop to a screen up front, projecting a blank Google search screen with several windows open behind it. Campbell, Hagen and Rose are already seated round the table, set for the long haul with coffee and biscuits, notepads and pens and an old-school Road Atlas of Britain Campbell’s fetched from his car.

When Naylor arrives, she’s out of breath from hurrying, her hair damp from running through the rain.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I was talking to Cheshire. In a nutshell, they’ve nothing new to report and they’re desperate for us to come up with something from this. The press is all over them. The Sun’s running a piece on their Chief Constable’s alleged crazy budgeting priorities. Apparently he authorised hundreds of thousands to be spent on a crack-down on speeding last year, and they’re questioning why that money wasn’t spent on catching paedophiles. Unfortunately for him, there might be a case to answer.’

‘Let’s get started then, shall we?’ says Campbell, leaning forward to take a biscuit. ‘Bradley, why don’t you kick off by showing us what you’ve found?’

‘Well,’ says Hagen, ‘all I did really was Google every way I could think of for twin bridges over rivers. I restricted it to UK cities and major towns because the high-rise view excludes everything else, on the principle you don’t get high-rises outside urban areas. Here, for example.’

He clicks on the tab for one of the open windows. The screen fills with an attractive image of two bridges over a wide river.

‘This is the Tamar Bridge in Plymouth, alongside the Royal Albert rail bridge, running between Cornwall and Devon. I think we should rule this out for two reasons. First, the settlements with a view of the bridges are mostly full of private houses and in no way fit Evan’s description of the place he was held. No sign of high-rises anywhere. Also, if you look here, you can see a third stone-built bridge just up-river, so I think if this were the place, Evan would have mentioned three bridges, not two. And it’s not a conclusive point but Plymouth’s a heck of a way from Pontefract.’

Campbell is nodding.

‘That’s not it. Are we all agreed? Let’s move on.’

Hagen opens up another tab. The landscape on this photograph is more urban, and again shows two bridges running over a wide stretch of water.

‘Rochester in Kent, a road and a railway bridge crossing the Medway. You can see in this area here, there are blocks of flats which might fit the description.’

‘Kent,’ says Naylor. ‘It’s near London, and not too far from the abduction site. That’s a big tick for me.’