Ashworth shook his head. ‘It’s not on today.’

‘Gone shopping then?’

‘She knew we were coming to see her with the photos of Shaw and Morgan. And she’d have seen our cars parked out in the road.’

‘So she’s run away,’ Vera said. ‘Why would she do that?’

She lifted the phone in the living room and dialled 1471 to trace the last call made to the number. A distant female voice told her that the caller had withheld their number.

‘Or maybe,’ Vera said, staring out at the river where Patrick Eliot had died, ‘maybe she’s been frightened away.’

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Vera and Holly met Freya from Newcastle College at lunchtime. ‘Important to keep our options open,’ Vera had said, though she couldn’t stop thinking about Connie and her daughter. Another child to worry about. Patrick, Elias and now Alice. Somehow that must be relevant. She wished she were cleverer and could make sense of it. She blamed herself too, of course, for missing Connie that morning, for putting her belly before the investigation. She knew that Ashworth blamed her too.

So they’d driven into the city and parked illegally in one of the little streets near to the Rye Hill campus, outside a wholesale warehouse stocking Chinese food. The scent of spice in the air. They were on their way into the drama department when they saw Freya coming towards them, alone among the other students, who were giggling on their way to find lunch. Vera recognized the girlish way of walking that was close to dancing and the printed frock, this time worn over jeans with a jacket on the top. Freya didn’t see them until the last minute. She had her mobile phone to her ear, chatting to a friend as she walked about some play they’d been to see. Her face was bright and Vera could have wept for her.

‘Hello, pet.’

They swept her with them into a coffee shop, a greasy spoon with pretensions. Now the smell was of frying and of coffee from the big silver espresso machine.

‘You’ll be peckish,’ Vera said. ‘Now you’re eating for two.’

And it seemed that Freya was hungry. Morgan might be vegetarian, but the girl managed a full English breakfast and a mug of tea. The sausage and bacon disappeared in seconds.

‘You never told us you were in the Willows the morning the social worker died.’ Vera struggled to get the words out. She’d gone for a piece of flapjack, so sticky that it worked like superglue around her teeth.

Freya looked up. Big eyes, suddenly scared, over the mug. ‘You didn’t ask.’

‘Howay, we shouldn’t have needed to ask now, should we? A clever girl like you, you’d have guessed we’d be interested.’

‘Michael said you might draw the wrong conclusion.’