‘I thought I did, at a casino last night. But I couldn’t get a picture.’

‘Are you sure you’re OK, Joe? Your voice sounds a bit strange.’

‘Just tired, trying to get my head around things,’ I said. This last week I had become a stranger to myself.

‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

‘Look after our boy.’

‘Of course. You would tell me if there was anything else, wouldn’t you?’

The taxi turned a corner and pulled to a stop by the side of the road.

‘Got to go. Love you. Kiss Wills for me.’

‘When will you –’

I hit end, cutting her off.

The taxi had stopped on a broad, well-kept street of smart Victorian houses. I paid the driver and got out, checking up and down the street. No police. No Ben. It was 8.51 a.m. – just getting to a time when I could reasonably knock on the door of a complete stranger.

The garden of number 33 was immaculate: neatly cut lawn, trimmed edges, shrubs pruned back away from the path. A spotless cream Mercedes A-class sat on the driveway, latest registration plate. Just a few months old. The front curtains were open, upstairs and down. I rang the doorbell and stood back from the door. She was a widow who had lived alone since Ben’s dad died of a heart attack a couple of years ago, and I didn’t want to freak her out before we’d had a chance to talk.

A figure approached down the hallway, outline blurred through the frosted glass, accompanied by the yelping and yapping of small dogs. For one mad moment I wondered whether it might be Ben walking down the hall towards me. Or maybe I’d walk in and find him sitting on the sofa in his pyjamas, munching a piece of toast, watching Jeremy Kyle with eight days of beard on his face. After all, what better place was there to lie low than in your mum’s spare room, 250 miles from London? Maybe he’d been here all week, monitoring everything via social media.

The door opened and a thick security chain snapped taut.

Chapter 72

72

A woman looked at me through the gap.

Not Ben.

She was in her mid-fifties, younger than I’d expected, trim and tanned and dressed in white jeans and a long grey woollen cardigan belted at the waist. She had the same oval face shape as Ben, the same eyes, deep dark brown – eyes that narrowed now at the arrival of a stranger on her doorstep. There was a scramble of growling and jumping at her feet as two Jack Russell terriers tried to get through the two-inch gap allowed by the door chain.

She looked up at me without saying anything – studying me like a headmistress awaiting an explanation.

‘Mrs Delaney?’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m a friend of your son. A friend of Ben’s, from London.’