Alex wandered back across the office. It had taken him a staggeringly short amount of time to do a job that Joe couldn’t ever have attempted, despite endless training days in dull, overheated seminar rooms.

‘The photo of the girl was taken on the university campus.’

‘Really? That’s your old territory, isn’t it? You reckon they’ll let me poke around in their student database without a warrant?’

‘Depends on who you ask. There’s some techies up there wouldn’t lift a finger to help the police if the Home Secretary told ’em to, never mind a warrant.’

‘I’d better turn on the charm, then.’

‘Charm? You been on a course? Oh,’ he added as he prepared to leave, ‘I emailed you all the location info I could get off the phone. It didn’t take much time, there’s…’

‘A program, I know.’

Joe expressed his thanks to the empty space where Alex had been, watching as the tatty T-shirt and jeans glided silently away.

He dialled Craig Shaw’s number again. Still unavailable. Two days like that, according to his mum. The mobile provider could be asked for the last active locations. But they’d need a warrant for that. A scumbag like Shaw, forty-eight hours on the loose? Not a chance of that getting signed off.

He opened Alex’s email and read through the location data from Jane Shaw’s phone. It hadn’t left Leeds in a year. It hadn’t been anywhere near the Batley drop-off or any of the other towns on Craig’s professional itinerary. More lies from mum. Craig hadn’t borrowed her phone. Not while he was working, at least. But why would his mum lie about that? Meanwhile, the picture of the girl that had been taken up at the uni was time-stamped nearly five months ago.

One thing was certain: Jane Shaw and Joe were going to have a long and detailed interview tomorrow. As long as she’d not had a liquid breakfast.

6

I can normally come and go without anyone seeing me. I’m lucky like that. With some things it’s just a matter of luck, isn’t it? But you also make your own luck, take advantage of what you’ve been given. It cuts both ways. Good luck, bad luck. Sometimes you’ve just got to reset the balance.

It’s been two days. Two days since everything changed, under the old railway line in Cleckheaton. It’s come back to me in staggering detail, every second of it. Opening the door, his body already slumped against the steering wheel. Hauling him up by the jacket of his nylon jogging suit. His legs looked so skinny through the thin fabric of his trousers.