He’d gone straight to Ian Carrington’s home in Rochford, a small town three miles north of Southend. It was only a twenty-minute drive to where Jerry Swann’s Baden Place farmhouse had stood at the edge of the Wallasea Island wetlands, before it was bulldozed.

‘How are you feeling, Detective Constable Power, I hear you’ve been through the wars.’

‘I’ll live,’ said Craig.

‘Good man.’ Vaughn pulled his tie low. ‘So what have you got for us?’

‘There’s no sign anybody has been kept here, or even visited. It’s very small, there are two floors, a kitchen, living room, one bedroom, an upstairs bathroom, but no cellar; a garden the size of a postage stamp. It’s rented. Very tidy, very impersonal. All the furniture came with the place, and Carrington hasn’t put much of an effort into making it a home. He’s been here for eighteen months, according to immediate neighbours, and was quite open about splitting from his wife and family. They have no idea what, if anything, he does for a living. One neighbour said they saw him this morning, getting into a car – and yeah, it was a blue Mazda – but he hasn’t been sighted since.’

‘What do they make of him?’

‘The usual. Nice bloke, if reserved. Doesn’t go to the local pub, keeps himself to himself, all that. Someone said he looked a bit haunted, but put that down to his family problems.’

‘Are there garages nearby, or a lock-up?’

‘Not connected to the house. If you turn up any rented spaces on your online searches, let us know.’

Vaughn tapped his fingers together impatiently, lifted his gaze to the incident room. Men and women rushed backwards and forwards across the office, or were hunched over phones and computers, building a comprehensive digital portrait of Ian Carrington from various databases.

‘What else have you found?’

‘Plenty, and I mean plenty, of documents. Folders, files, all relating to his old man’s dismissal and the Bad Place.’ Craig paused and they could hear the rustle of paper. ‘Tons of it, actually, he’s totally obsessed. There’s a laptop, too. We had a quick look. I’m no expert, but it looks to me as if he has different email accounts under different names. From what I can tell, he was the guy who was encouraging Paul to groom Sammi, and there’s correspondence with Jim Haskell, too. We’re bagging it up now and… hang on a moment.’ They heard Craig having a muffled conversation with one of the officers who was searching the house, and then he came back on the line. ‘And we’ve found keys.’

‘Keys?’

‘Sorry,’ said Craig. ‘Say again.’

Ajay leaned towards the speaker. ‘You found keys.’

‘About a dozen sets of keys in numbered envelopes. A lot of them are new and shiny, or don’t look used. Copies, maybe.’