‘I gave my daughter away,’ she replied, her words subdued, ‘and I never told my husband about it. I never told my kids. I have plenty to feel ashamed for.’

It was obvious why she’d turned to Patrick to try and bring some closure. The police hunt had hit a wall back in 1987 and had lain dormant for twenty-eight years, and Patrick was a talented journalist, a friend she could trust, he had huge experience in hunting down leads, and he would want to help. Plus, she knew that if she asked him not to tell her husband – or mention it to Francesca, in case it got back to John that way – Patrick would do that as well. He was a man of his word.

If he knew anything, it was how to keep secrets.

Finally, the tape came to an end.

Quietly, Healy said, ‘Something makes sense now.’

‘What?’

‘When we found those audio bugs in the houses, there were five in each, but the Perrys and the Daveys had different types of devices from the Gibbses – different designs – and to Randolph and Emiline as well. You remember that?’

I did.

‘The Perrys’ and Daveys’ were smaller,’ he said, ‘harder to find; and in the other two houses, they were bigger, without the equalizer bars on them.’

‘Now we know why.’

‘The Perry and the Davey bugs went in at a different stage to the other two.’ And then he followed the idea to its natural conclusion: ‘They probably went in earlier because it was Patrick and Freda that were the focal point.’

I nodded. ‘Because they were looking into Beatrix Steards’s disappearance.’

Healy squeezed his eyes shut, as if he didn’t want to have to think about where this was going. But he knew, the same as me: it was bad now and was only getting worse.

‘So the bugs were in their homes before they even disappeared,’ Healy said.

Tori Gibbs had said something, back at the start, that I’d filed away and almost forgotten about. I couldn’t refer to the actual quote in my notebook, because the page had been torn out by Mills and whoever he came with, but I recalled enough. She’d been talking about Chris, about her brother actually building the houses, and had said something that didn’t seem important at the time.

The village had only just got decent broadband.

I called Tori. It was early, but she was already up, so I reminded her of what she’d said and asked what she knew about the Internet at Black Gale.

‘Not much,’ she said. ‘Chris just mentioned they were all being upgraded.’

‘At the same time?’

‘No. I think he said they could only do it in blocks because everything was so far from the telephone exchange. I mean, you know how remote that village is.’

‘Do you know what he meant by “blocks”?’

‘Like, a house at a time, I guess.’

Or two.