For every new challenge, the game matched you with an opponent. If you won, you moved up to compete against a higher-level player. The loser moved down a level and was paired with a lesser competitor. It was survival of the fittest. And it was constant. As soon as you completed one challenge, there was another waiting, and the threat of a competitor who could achieve the goal better or quicker. There was no time for anything else. It was exciting and addictive. Faye hadn’t felt this alive in years.

Her mistake had been choosing her stupid-ass husband as a target for the latest challenge.

She’d enjoyed cancelling his suppliers, calling up his clients to say he was under investigation for misconduct, spreading rumours about him on professional forums. She wished she’d done it years ago. All those days bored at home with the kids. She could have been having fun.

But she had enjoyed it too much. She hated him too much. And she’d lost sight of the game.

Now she was falling behind. It was all Harry’s fault. He had ruined her long before she had ruined him. He had ruined her body, convincing her to have children, and then ruined her career by encouraging her to look after the kids. She’d thought he would be successful and rich, but he had been boring and unambitious and, to top it all, an irritating arse.

She had to make sure Harry could never ruin her again.

13

Back in the office, Bloom and Jameson were waiting to hear from Geoff Taylor about the disappearance of his son Grayson.

As they waited for his call, Bloom pulled together a summary of the case on her iPad. She was creating an electronic incident wall, with everything they’d learned so far. They had a virtual wall for every case and they added fresh information and new hypotheses as the investigation progressed. It was an invaluable tool for collating their findings and sharing critical information.

‘There are literally no commonalities,’ said Jameson, peering over Bloom’s shoulder. ‘Our victims are different ages, different genders, and work in different professions. We have a thirty-five-year-old soldier signed off with PTSD, a forty-two-year-old self-employed accountant and mother of two, a twenty-nine-year-old shelf-stacker and a twenty-year-old politics student who all disappeared from different places across the country. The two women are parents, the two men aren’t – but Stuart is about to be a father and we don’t know for sure that Grayson hasn’t fathered a child. But still, that feels a bit tenuous. The women are professionals and the men aren’t.’

‘It’s a heterogeneous group. But with no diversity of ethnic background and all from England,’ said Bloom.

‘So why these four people?’

‘And why on their birthdays? That’s the biggest link so far.’