I didn’t want to go home again to my empty, messed-up house. Not yet. I was restless and wanted to keep moving. So instead I emailed the images of the Range Rover to Larssen – with a message asking if the police could run the registration plate through their computers – and rode the moped to Edgware Road.

The mobile rang as I was taking off my helmet. It was Larssen, on speakerphone. It sounded like he was driving.

‘Joe, where are you?’ There was an urgent tone to his voice.

‘Cricklewood, I’ve been –’

‘I was on my way to your house, but can I meet you where you are instead?’

‘OK. What’s up?’

‘There’s a wine bar on Cricklewood Broadway called the Monkey Tree, do you know it?’

‘It’s just down the road from here. What’s going on, Peter?

‘I’ll tell you when we meet. Should be there in ten.’

The Monkey Tree was smart and bright and had lots of mirrors on the walls. Not really my kind of place – I preferred a good honest pub with decent beer on draught and logs crackling in the fireplace. I ordered a black coffee and sat at a corner table with one eye on the door. The local lunchtime news was on a large plasma TV high up in the corner of the bar.

A police search at Fryent Country Park was the top story.

There was footage of the search shot from some distance away – presumably the police were preventing the media from getting too close – showing two white police tents set up in the woods near the lake, and maybe half a dozen white-suited forensic officers at the scene, carrying boxes, crouching, digging, photographing, pointing, like so many worker ants around the nest. I knew it was happening but felt a jolt of recognition all the same: the lake, the open-air theatre, the bridge. I had been there two days ago to meet Ben. There was a hollow feeling in my stomach, a feeling of impending doom, like something very bad was just around the corner and I had no choice but to keep pressing on until it hit me right between the eyes.

The TV was muted but the subtitles appeared at the bottom of the screen.

Police are tonight searching a park in north-west London as part of a murder investigation, the subtitles said. Forensic teams have been at the scene, at Fryent Country Park in Kingsbury, for more than twenty-four hours as they look for evidence following a tip-off from a member of the public.

Larssen came in, breathing heavily, his cheeks red. He saw me, hurried over and sat down. While he got his breath back and extracted his iPad from his briefcase, I told him what I’d been doing and detailed my latest discoveries. He cut across me.

‘We don’t have much time,’ he said, ‘so I’ll be as quick as I can.’

Chapter 64

64