‘I’ve been looking at Alex’s videos,’ Phoebe said. ‘I got – I actually got a little bit obsessed with the trolls. Some of them are repeat offenders, and the things they say are really vicious. One of them started a little while before the row I had with Issa about Alex stopping it all. It’s got a ridiculous username but … but I looked back through the posts from that account, and there was basically nothing much before the trolling, but the account’s been up a while.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘I looked at the comments this person had made three years ago, when it was first opened, and they’re totally different. A couple of nice comments on some music. And one of them is on the music of a friend of mine, and I remember that comment. I read it at the time, but the username was different then.’

‘You recognised it?’ Hanson asked.

‘Yes. Because it was a band I recommended to Issa and the comment was from him.’ She gave a strange, tight laugh. ‘The troll was Issa.’

Two things happened rapidly after Hanson finished her call with Phoebe Plaskitt. The first was that Lightman found Alex’s car on the ANPR file. It had been driven down London Road at three minutes past one on Friday night, and then past Asylum Green at one thirty-seven. He reported his findings quickly to Hanson and the DCI, whose expression was distant and, she thought, slightly troubled.

Before the chief had said anything, his phone buzzed, and he switched it to speakerphone before he said, ‘Domnall. Anything to report?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ O’Malley said, his voice tinny. ‘April Dumont has managed to smuggle Louise Reakes out of the house. She drove past me a good ten minutes ago and I’m positive Louise is no longer in the house. I’m ready to pursue, but I have no idea at present where they’ve gone.’

‘I’ll get Heerden’s team on it,’ the chief said and rang off. As he was striding back towards his office, he called, ‘I’d like you to get Issa Benhawy on the phone and find out where he is, too.’

Hanson nodded, her hand already going to her mobile. She could sense Lightman’s eyes on her as she made the call and waited through eight full rings before it went to answerphone.

‘No reply,’ she said.

It was Chief Inspector Yvonne Heerden’s team who tracked Issa down. It took them eight minutes to flag him on a traffic camera at the junction with the M27 Eastbound. Two minutes later, as Jonah and Lightman were walking towards the Mondeo, Heerden called to inform them that April Dumont’s car had been picked up slightly further along the same road.