She climbed out of the car, listening. Rush hour was over, and the estate was quiet, the only sound the rustle of autumn leaves drifting across the blacktop. Lucy walked to the front door and opened it – and it was only then, as she stepped inside, that she sensed a problem.

The burglar alarm did not commence its usual angry chittering.

The box on the wall was dead, its miniature light-show absent, which could only mean that its power cable had been cut. She quickly hit a switch, the hall light coming on – to reveal a rubble of broken pots and ornaments, of scattered papers and torn cushions, not just strewing the hall, but leading into and out of both the lounge-diner and bedroom, and even the kitchen.

Numbed, Lucy waded forward.

Was this a routine break-in, or something else?

At first, she could barely string two thoughts together to provide an answer.

When she came level with the back door, it stood open a couple of inches, having been jemmied: the jamb was shattered, the lock hanging out in tangle of splintered wood. Not atypical of everyday burglars. But there was still something vaguely professional about this.

To do the alarm first? How many opportunist thieves had that skill?

Not that it would have made sense for the Robbery Squad to be involved. What the hell could they have been looking for? After that last phone call she’d made to Tucker, they knew everything Lucy knew. And they couldn’t have expected to find her here, as they were the ones who’d lured her down to the Archways.

However, when she entered the kitchen, she saw something that took this incident entirely out of the realms of the routine.

As before, the entire room had been wrecked, every cupboard kicked in, every drawer pulled out, crockery and cutlery scattered in what looked like a needless frenzy. Even the landline, which occupied a worktop near the door, had been ripped out and thrown wall to wall, until its casing was smashed and its innards hung out. In its place, clearly having finally been discovered in the drawer underneath, lay her telephone and address book. When the intruders had found what they were looking for inside it, it had obviously been abandoned there, wide open, but with a single tell-tale page torn out.

The page on which all entries started with an M.

If Lucy’s memory was correct, there was only one of those.

Mum.

Chapter 38

Lucy and Cora’s houses were at opposite ends of the borough, so, though Lucy crossed Crowley at reckless speed, using every short cut she knew, it still took half an hour.