The inspector felt the knot tighten.

‘Ray, you ring her family and see if they’ve heard from her. Bridget, try her friends and check back in your apartment. I’m sure it’s nothing, but it’s out of character for Laura to miss a team meeting and not phone and I’d prefer we got to the bottom of it – otherwise we’ll spend the day worrying. Did she mention at all where she was driving to yesterday or what she was pursuing?’

Michael and Ray both shook their heads.

‘And it was just the Holland staff she was working on, wasn’t it? Or had she gone back to try to pin down where Cormac Ryan went when he left West Cork?’

‘She didn’t get as far as Ryan,’ Michael said. ‘We were going through the Holland employees all day. She hadn’t spoken to anybody about the taxi driver.’

‘Okay. Go. Make the calls. I’m going to ring around a few stations and see if she’s called in anywhere.’

The inspector took the stairs two at a time up to his office, feeling like his heart was in his mouth. It could all amount to nothing. Laura could saunter into the office any minute, with a perfectly rational explanation as to where she’d been all night. For all they knew, a family member had been taken ill or had had an accident. She might have been in an accident herself. He didn’t want that to be the case, but he did need to know there was a reason for her absence.

His imagination was running ahead of him. Could Laura have stumbled on something related to the case that had put her in danger?

As soon as Tom thought it, he dismissed it. She wouldn’t have put herself in peril. Laura was an experienced officer.

And yet … she was in her early thirties, single and pretty – a little too close to the serial killer’s type for comfort.

Tom had this cold feeling in his gut that something wasn’t right. Laura was the sort who’d send a text even if she had two broken legs, just so nobody would worry where she was. If she had been in an accident and was incapacitated, surely her family would have been contacted by now? And if that had happened, they’d have got in touch with her job.

Tom went through the numbers of colleagues in other stations on his phone, dialling each of them on the landline in case one of the team tried to ring or text his mobile.

After thirty minutes, Michael and Ray arrived in his office.

‘Nobody has heard from her,’ Ray said, unable to keep the alarm from his voice. ‘Not her family, not her friends. Nobody. Bridget’s at the apartment and says Laura hasn’t been back there. Her phone is still out of service. Brian is ringing the hospitals. Tom—’