Before leaving for home Dee Samms asked to speak with her boss. The sergeant was clearly annoyed with herself for not connecting Serena to the kidnapping when she’d first visited her flat.

‘I’m sorry, boss. If I’d been more vigilant–’

Alex cut her off. ‘Don’t burden yourself with guilt, Dee. You did everything by the book and I’ve no complaints. We’ve interviewed dozens of colleagues and friends of the Stones, and you just happened to have the one who mattered, but you couldn’t have known at the time. Hell, even I discounted her as an unlikely suspect, so forget it. That’s an order.’ Alex smiled at Dee and she left for home with a grin on her face.

After a quick visit to the station’s press office, Radford also left for home and some much-needed sleep. It was ironic how the case was so demanding of his time, yet the nature of it made him want to be at home with his own children. Hopefully they were close to wrapping it up, and perhaps the next day would bring the break they needed.

The rain lashed down as DI Radford drove to work the following morning. He couldn’t remember a time when they’d had such torrential rain. Must be all this global warming, he thought as he dashed from the car into the police station.

Half the team were already in and the office was buzzing with activity. Graham was logged into the ANPR system while others searched footage from CCTV on the main roads out of Bristol.

The last thing Radford had done the previous evening was to ask the press office to release the Photofit picture of Pete Turner which would hopefully be in all the papers that morning. Now Danny was safe and he’d identified the image as Turner, there was nothing to lose in going to press – they no longer needed to pussyfoot around keeping facts from the media and the general public.

Radford found someone had already placed the early editions of the local and national papers on his desk. The image was there for the entire world to see and would also be on the television news broadcasts throughout the day which would hopefully put pressure on Turner and Serena Murphy. All their work now hinged on the supposition that the pair were still in the Bristol area and the publicity would panic them into making a move, a wrong move. Radford guessed they would attempt to leave the city.

After reading the newspaper reports, Radford was pleased with how the case had been covered. He walked from his room into the office and called the team together for a briefing.