‘I’ll send someone to bring you tea,’ Singh said closing the door and letting out a sigh. This was not the case he wanted to be working on.

Singh returned to the interview room, accompanied by a FLO, just as Susan was finishing off her cup of tea.

‘This is Julie. She’s a family liaison officer.’ Julie smiled warmly at the distressed woman. ‘I’ve been in touch with the hospitals and no man fitting your husband’s description has been admitted. I’ve put an APB out on the car. What we’ll need from you, please, Mrs Kilpatrick, is a photograph of your husband so that we can circulate his image, which will take place within forty-eight hours from now. In the meantime, Julie will take you home. If you can please give her anything that has your husband’s DNA on it, like a toothbrush or comb, that would be very helpful. Also, please create a list of regular places or address that your husband frequented so that we can start a search.’

Susan thanked the sergeant, who was keen to return to the incident room, as she was led away by Julie.

‘Missing persons case filed, sir,’ Singh informed Palmer as he looked at the clock and realised it still wasn’t quite lunchtime. ‘Probably just a cheating spouse who’s done a runner.’

‘Good. I want to you go through these.’ Palmer handed a list of names to Singh. ‘Let me know if anything interesting shows up.’

‘Sir!’ From across the room Elly Hale shouted, waving at Barrett who looked up from his desk, unimpressed at being summoned in such a way.

The rest of the officers turned and stared. When Barrett saw the look of excitement on the sergeant’s face, and when he realised she was clinging to a phone, obviously still in the middle of a call, he leapt out of his chair and went to where Elly was standing. Her eyes were bright and her deep-red painted nails gripped the handset held tightly to her chest.

‘I’ve got a journalist calling from the Cambridge News head office in Waterbeach. They’ve had a delivery, sir. A box arrived addressed to the paper. The editor has just opened it and called us immediately. The box had three fingers in it.’

‘Three?’ He knew what this meant, and he didn’t like it one little bit. ‘Tell him not to touch a thing.’ Barrett waggled his finger. ‘Get forensics over there now. Do we know how the package was delivered?’

‘It was discovered on the front step outside the entrance to the office. No one saw who put it there.’

‘Tell them not to touch it,’ Barrett repeated. ‘And tell them that no one is to come or go from the office. I want to speak to everyone on site.’