Standard Test and Evaluation Bottle for use in experiments.

None of them seemed to make much sense, or offer much help in the hunt for Ben Delaney. I made another cup of coffee and sipped it, watching through the kitchen window as a fat pigeon balanced precariously on next door’s fence. The bird wobbled, shifted its weight, and flew off again.

There was an email waiting for me in my Hotmail account.

Just a subject line and a link. No text. No sign-off. The sender’s address was unknown to me.

To:             [email protected]

From:        [email protected]

Cc:

Subject:     You next

The link opened up a new window in the iPad’s browser. It was a BBC online news story from May 2010, with the headline: Janine Cooper murder: former lover found guilty.

A middle-aged man’s face, emotionless as a tombstone, stared out from the screen.

Andrew Blaisdale has been found guilty of the murder of missing Lincolnshire woman Janine Cooper.

The body of the 34-year-old beauty therapist, who disappeared in February 2008, has never been located despite extensive police searches in Market Rasen and the surrounding countryside. Prosecutors believed that Blaisdale, 39, buried his former lover in a shallow grave in a remote part of north Lincolnshire.

A jury at Lincoln Crown Court reached a majority verdict after almost two days of deliberation. Blaisdale will be sentenced on 21 June. He had denied killing Ms Cooper and attempting to pervert the course of justice, but detectives were able to use mobile phone data that revealed his movements on the day of the murder . . .

I read to the bottom of the story, a numbness in my stomach as each new detail added another parallel to my own situation.

A missing persons inquiry that became a murder case. A married man having an affair. And it seemed the victim was attacked in an underground car park. Electronic footprints left behind that led to the conviction.

There was no text in the body of the email but the meaning of it was clear: The Police don’t need a body to get you sent down.

Ben. His latest taunt.

‘Daddy?’

I jumped, startled, at the small voice behind me. My son stood in the doorway in his Thomas the Tank Engine pyjamas, his hair sticking up in all directions.

‘Is it school time?’

‘Not yet, Wills. Did I wake you up?’

He yawned and shook his head.

‘Daddy?’

‘Yes, Wills?’ I pulled out a chair for him at the kitchen table next to me.

‘Erm,’ he yawned again and seemed to forget what it was he was going to say.

‘What is it, matey?’

‘Do you love Mummy?’

Out of the mouths of babes, indeed.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘More than anything.’

‘More than me?’

‘Except you, big man.’

‘And does Mummy love you?’

‘Yes,’ I said, pouring him a glass of apple juice.

He thought for a moment, rolling a toy car along the kitchen table.