Jane nodded. ‘They said she’ll come back when she’s ready, but she’s not well.’ Jane looked at Jameson, then back to Bloom. ‘She has PTSD. She served in Afghanistan and she’s struggled since. She’s gone missing overnight plenty of times, but she always comes home the next day.’

‘How long has she been gone?’ asked Jameson.

‘How old are you?’ asked Bloom at the same time.

‘Sixteen,’ Jane replied.

‘And where’s your father?’ said Bloom.

‘I don’t have one.’

Bloom glanced towards Jameson.

‘How long’s she been gone?’ he repeated.

‘Over a week. She took all our money, left me nothing for food or rent and no one’s seen her. I’ve checked with everyone.’

‘No calls? No emails? Nothing online?’ asked Jameson.

Jane shook her head. ‘No one will help me,’ she said, her eyes still on Jameson. ‘But Claire said you might.’

Bloom watched Jameson nod and felt uneasy. He’d never asked for a favour before, so she knew this was important, but investigating the lives of family and friends was fraught with danger, as she knew only too well.

‘You said your mum was in the military?’ Bloom said.

Jane nodded.

‘Then they will help you … eventually.’ Bloom knew that particular machine wouldn’t kick in until Lana was due back at work. ‘But if your mum is in the habit of taking off unexpectedly then that’s probably what’s happened here.’

‘But I haven’t even told you the weird stuff yet.’ Jane lifted her bag on to her lap and began to rummage through it.

Bloom looked at Jameson and raised an eyebrow.

Jane thrust a stack of papers at Bloom. ‘There are more of them. I asked online if anyone else had gone missing like this and four people came back to me.’

Bloom kept her voice soft. ‘Hundreds of people go missing every week.’

Jane waved the papers until Bloom reached out and took them. She spread the pages across her desk. Each contained a thread of email correspondence.

‘There’s a pregnant woman in Leeds whose fiancé had his car run off the road, then he just got out and walked away, and she hasn’t seen or heard from him since. Another man in Bristol said his wife—’

‘Where’s the link?’ Bloom said to Jameson.

Jane frowned.

‘She means the thing that makes this more than random people going missing for random reasons,’ said Jameson.

‘They all went missing on their birthday,’ Jane said, as though this explained everything.

‘OK,’ said Bloom, stretching out the word. She wanted to be kind.

‘Show her the card,’ said Jameson. He had a look in his eye, a quiet confidence. He thought this would be the clincher.