Emily Denyer raised her arm. ‘Sir, regarding the phone, could it simply be that she’d forgotten to charge it? We’ve all had that happen. And did he actually see the phone in the car?’

‘Good point, Emily, but it doesn’t explain the photograph. And two things make me doubt what he said about the phone. The first is that he told us he had repeatedly dialled her number. If she’d left it charging at home, he’d surely have seen it when he got back to their house. The second is that I peered in the window of their car as we left and I saw a phone charger in there, plugged into the socket. When we met Niall Paternoster, Glenn and I established that both he and his wife have the same make and model of iPhone. If it had been me in that situation, and I never went anywhere without my phone, I would have taken it and charged it in the car during the journey. Wouldn’t you?’

She nodded. ‘If it had been me, yes, assuming the charger was working – they can be temperamental.’

‘Her husband claims he looked everywhere for her phone when he got home, without success, so he is certain she has it with her,’ Grace said. ‘So where is it?’

‘He’s lying, chief,’ Norman Potting said. ‘Sounds to me like he’s disposed of it.’

‘OK, Norman, let’s go with that for a moment. For what reason would he have disposed of it?’ Grace asked.

Potting scratched his head. ‘Because there was something on it that he didn’t want us to find?’

‘Any idea what, Norman?’ Glenn Branson asked.

‘He didn’t want anyone tracking his communication to her, perhaps,’ Potting ventured.

‘A phone with a dead battery doesn’t give off any signal,’ Chris Gee said.

Grace jotted down in his notebook that the missing phone should be a line of enquiry. His job phone rang.

Raising an excusing finger, he answered.

It was ACC Pewe. ‘What the hell’s going on, Roy?’

‘One moment, sir.’

Had the shit already hit the fan? he wondered. Had Alison Vosper already started the investigation? Surely this was too soon?

Excusing himself, he stepped out of the room into the corridor and closed the door behind him. ‘OK, sir, I’m back with you.’

‘Back with me or out with the fairies?’ Pewe said in his normal, angry whine.

‘Beg pardon, sir?’

‘How long have you been a police officer, Roy?’

‘About twenty-four years, sir.’ Saying sir increasingly stuck in his craw.

‘And how many of those as a detective?’

‘Twenty-two, approximately.’

‘And how many missing person enquiries have you dealt with during this time?’

Now he knew that Pewe had no idea what was coming his way. Despite his cockiness, Grace maintained his veneer of respect. ‘I haven’t counted – sir.’

‘Have you counted how many officers and support staff you have on this one, Roy?’

‘I haven’t, exactly, no.’

‘Well, let me tell you something, you’ve got more people working on this case than you have brain cells.’