‘Not a problem,’ said Edmondson. ‘The ACC thought it reflected well on the force – diversity wise.’ He gave me a humourless smile. ‘Everyone pulling together and all that.’

That’s me, I thought. Poster boy for diversity.

Windrow steepled his fingers.

‘You’ve been with the SAU for over a year,’ he said. ‘Correct?’

‘Since February last year,’ I said, wondering where the hell this was going.

‘So you’ve had experience of unusual cases?’ he asked. ‘Cases involving the—’ He stalled. Behind him Edmondson shifted his weight uneasily and spoke.

‘The supernatural,’ he said.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said, and there was a pause while we all tried to think of what to say next.

The two men glanced at each other.

‘Do you see any of that in this case?’ he asked.

‘Sir?’ I said. Because if I’ve learnt one thing, it is to let the senior officers make their position clear before you risk opening your gob.

‘You came up to interview . . .’ Windrow checked a yellow sticky note attached to his policy book. ‘A Mr Hugh Oswald over by Wylde?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘It was a standard TIE.’ A Trace, Implicate or Eliminate is the backbone job of any major inquiry, find someone and either make them a suspect or eliminate them from the inquiry.

‘And you’re satisfied that he’s not involved?’ asked Windrow.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘On account of him being ninety-three and pretty much confined to a wheelchair.’

‘And there’s no possibility of an accomplice?’ asked Windrow.

There was his daughter, who I hadn’t thought to check. But then I’d assumed that the main purpose of the trip had been get to my moping self out from under Nightingale’s feet. I should have at least statemented her – Lesley would have killed me for being that sloppy.

‘I did a standard assessment,’ I said, and wondered just how desperate West Mercia Police were, to be talking to me about this.

Edmondson folded his arms and then unfolded them again.

‘I know you haven’t been attending briefings,’ said Windrow after a pause. ‘But you must be aware that we are not making any progress. All we know is that the most likely scenario is that the girls got up in the middle of the night and left their homes voluntarily. After that they just vanish.’ He tapped his finger on his desk a couple of times. ‘We believe it would be remiss of us not to consider all possible angles. And, since you’re here and available, we’d like you to do a Falcon assessment on the whole case.’

They were that fucking desperate.

I nearly froze up, staring at the pair of them in disbelief. But fortunately my highly tuned bureaucratic arse-saving instincts kicked in and I managed to say that I’d have to clear it with Nightingale first.

They agreed and even let me make the call outside their earshot.