Roland just hoped it was worth it.

Was it? Had he blown this on a whim, on a ridiculous suspicion? Was this one more thing in the long list of things he’d messed up?

No. He knew Tom. Despite all their differences, he knew his brother, and something didn’t feel right.

It was worse than that. Something felt wrong.

His phone started to ring. It was not a number he recognized, and normally he would have ignored it, but these were not normal times.

‘Hello?’ he said.

A woman’s voice came on the line. ‘Is that Roland?’

‘Yes. Who’s this?’

‘My name’s Nadia Alexander. I’m a detective sergeant with—’

‘Alice’s friend?’

‘That’s right.’

‘How can I help?’

‘It’s kind of a long story,’ she said. ‘Can you talk?’

Nadia

Nadia put her phone on the table and switched it to speaker.

‘You’re on speaker phone,’ she said. ‘Detective Inspector Jane Wynne is with me.’

‘Hello, Mr Sark,’ Wynne said.

‘Hi. Call me Roland. What’s this about?’

‘We need an address,’ Wynne said. ‘We’re hoping you know where your brother and sister-in-law are staying.’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘We’re investigating the recent murders,’ Nadia said. ‘And we need to talk to Alice.’

‘What does she have to do with them?’ Roland said. There was a guarded tone in his voice and she glanced at Wynne.

‘Just questions,’ she said. ‘But it is quite urgent.’

‘OK,’ Roland said. ‘I have the address. But there’s something else. Something a bit odd. I don’t think it’s really a police matter, but—’

‘We can judge that,’ Wynne said. ‘Anything is of interest at the moment.’

‘The thing is,’ Roland said. ‘I’m actually on my way there now.’

‘Why?’ Nadia asked.

‘Because of what happened.’

‘And what is that?’ Wynne said.

‘Tom’s putting together a photo album for Alice’s birthday. He asked some of her university friends to send pictures from those days, then he asked me to print them out and bring them up to him so he can get the album ready. He doesn’t have a printer where they’re staying. Anyway, the friends sent some pictures of Alice when she was eighteen, nineteen, and she looks quite different to how she is now. Similar – same hair and stuff like that – but only superficially. Tom noticed it too, but we put it down to the fact people change. Lose weight, that kind of thing.’

Wynne looked up, her eyes wide.

‘Mr Sark,’ she said, ‘this is very interesting information.’

‘There’s more,’ Roland said. ‘Another photo came today, of Alice and an Australian she met when she was travelling in the Lake District after she graduated.’

‘An Australian?’ Nadia said. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Alice sent the photo to her friends and said the other girl in the photo was an Aussie. She’s called Brenda.’

‘Not Andrea?’ Wynne said.