Dominic knocked on a door with a rectangular metal plate marked LEARNING ZONE, opened it without waiting for a response, and went inside. I followed him into the sort of long, narrow room that exists primarily because the architect had a couple of metres left over when dividing up the floor space and didn’t know what else to do with it. A small window was open to its meagre health and safety-mandated maximum extent and a desk fan was pushing the warm air around. A desk ran along one wall and an athletic white man in an inspector’s uniform leant against it with his arms folded across his chest. Dominic introduced him as Inspector Charles, definitely not Charlie, Edmondson, who was geographic commander for northern Herefordshire, which meant that this was his patch and he didn’t seem that delighted to have me on it. Occupying the better of the two seats available was a short squared-off white man with an incongruously long face and pointed chin that looked as if he’d borrowed his features from someone taller and thinner and then refused to give them back. This was DCI David Windrow, senior investigating officer of Operation Manticore – the search for Hannah Marstowe and Nicole Lacey. He waved me to the other seat and I sat and adopted the appropriately earnest but slightly vacant look that is expected of lowly constables in these circumstances.

‘Apparently,’ said Windrow, ‘you’ve been up here on official business.’

‘Due diligence, sir.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I spoke to your Inspector. He said it was just a routine check.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And that you were volunteering to stay up here and lend a hand.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But you’re certain that there’s no . . .’ Windrow hesitated. ‘No Falcon aspect to this case.’

The police have a habit of taking a call sign and using it indiscriminately as a noun, a verb and, on special occasions, a burst of profanity. Trojan is firearms, Ranger is Diplomatic and Protection, and Falcon is what a certain DCI of my acquaintance likes to call ‘weird bollocks’. The call sign has been in use since the seventies, but it’s been getting more of an airing in the last year or two. This portends, depending on the canteen you sit down in, the dawning of the age of Aquarius, the End of Days or, just possibly, that the Folly now has at least one officer that knows how to use his Airwave properly.

Inspector Edmondson unfolded his arms and sighed.

‘So you’re not planning to continue a Falcon inquiry?’ he asked.

‘No, sir,’ I said. ‘I just want to help in any way I can.’

‘Apart from the obvious,’ said Windrow, ‘you got any experience in anything else?’

‘Just general policing, PSU, a bit of interrogation, and I’m qualified to use a taser.’

‘What about Family Liaison?’ asked Windrow.

‘I’ve seen it done,’ I said.

‘Do you think you could support an experienced FLO?’