The perfume Amy wore was sweet and floral, something like lily of the valley. Harper thanked her for the coffee, a feeble effort at stalling.

“Well?” said Amy, not acknowledging the thanks.

“I’m just keeping an eye on, um, someone. Someone’s car, anyway. He’s gone inside that building.”

“A suspect?” said Amy, blowing into the hole in the top of the takeaway cup. She rummaged in her bag, brought out a packet of walnuts and offered one to Harper, which she took.

“Not really a suspect, more a person of interest.”

Amy lowered her coffee and gave Harper a hard stare. “What are you doing, Joanna? You absolutely have to tell me. I won’t leave until you do.”

There was a pause. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you …”

“So tell me.”

Harper thought about it. It was so pleasurable to give Amy new gossip; Harper could picture the way her face would be lit from within as she leaned in to listen. But, from twenty years of service Harper was hard-wired to keep police business to herself. As Amy waited, she tapped her shiny blue nails on the gearstick. Harper’s professional reluctance to share fell away. This wasn’t actually, after all, official police business anymore.

“You have to promise not to say anything,” said Harper.

Amy mimed zipping her mouth shut.

“I mean it, Amy. If anyone finds out about this, I won’t just be slapped on the wrist. I could be in real trouble.”

“I completely promise. You can trust me. It’s off the record, entirely.”

All playfulness gone, Harper could see that she was sincere.

So, Harper told Amy about the visit to the Tranters’ house two days before. Amy listened, her eyes gleaming as Harper recounted how she’d become convinced that the husband was lying about something, but also that Lauren was scared and vulnerable and quite possibly mentally unstable. She added that the bushes had been trampled, and although that in itself didn’t prove anything, it bothered her.

Like the shadows on the tape bothered her.

Amy sat up, remembering. “This is the abduction case from the hospital, isn’t it? The false alarm?”

Harper nodded.

“But you just said there was someone hanging around outside their house, which would indicate someone is out to get them. So was it a false alarm or not?”

“In the hospital they told me the mother was having a psychotic episode. But when I spoke to her at the time, I don’t know. I believed that something had happened.”

“I remember. You were upset. Because of the babies thing.”

Harper looked at Amy. “Yeah. I told you that I …”

“Have a weird thing about babies, I know. It’s a sensitive subject for you.”

Maybe she’ll ask me now, thought Harper. For a few seconds neither of them said anything.