Best stood up. He walked to the kettle and flicked it on, then put a teabag in a mug. When the water was boiling he poured it on to the teabag, and turned to look at Wynne.

‘Thank you for your advice, Detective Inspector Wynne,’ he said. ‘But I’ve done nothing.’ He smiled, and his smile too was lacking any warmth. ‘If anything comes to mind, I’ll let you know. Now, please leave.’

Twelve Years Earlier, 9 July 2006: Evening

1

Maggie was hungry. She hadn’t eaten any of the food the man – she still didn’t know his name – had brought, in part as a protest but mainly because of a constant low-level nausea. She’d drunk some of the orange cordial, but that was it. Now, though, her hunger was becoming insistent. Her body needed what it needed, despite what was happening.

She was hoping the man would be back soon with something to eat.

She sat on the bed and stared at the door to the room. She’d examined it not long after moving in, wondering if it was like the doors in her house, in which case it might be possible to kick a hole in one of the panels.

But the man had clearly thought of that. It was made of metal, and, from the dull thud it made when she hit it, thick metal. There was no way of getting out through it.

There was no way of getting out at all.

The walls and floor – she had banged on the carpet – were concrete, or maybe stone. Even if she had a tool, a knife or a fork, there was no way she would be able to get through it. Besides, if she could make a hole, the man would see it as soon as it reached any size.

She was trapped. Well and truly trapped.

And no one knew where she was. If they did – if someone had seen the man pick her up – they would have come to rescue her by now. The fact they hadn’t meant that they weren’t coming at all.

She could be here for a long time.

She could be here forever.

And when she thought about it like that, she was overtaken by a panic that left her curled into a ball on the bed, trembling, her eyes wide open and her mind blank with fear.

When she wasn’t consumed by panic she was thinking about her parents and brother and friends and what they were going through. She could picture them all: James would be quiet and withdrawn, keeping his feelings to himself. He’d always been like that; often he would be worried about something at school or with his friends and he would deny there was a problem over and over, until eventually he would come to Maggie’s room and lie next to her and tell her what had happened.