‘I’m sorry to have to drag you in at this time on a Sunday, Ms Wright, but we’re extremely anxious to trace your partner Kyle Halliday.’ DI Claire Mulholland was sitting opposite Angie Wright in an interview room at Woking Police Station. A matronly female constable sat in with them. It was just before nine a.m. and the detective inspector had been up all night. ‘We are urgently looking for him in connection with a series of murders and abductions across the Home Counties.’

The woman actually laughed. ‘I think you’ve made a mistake.’ She looked fresh as a daisy in a flowered top, yoga pants and pink glitter-covered trainers: a glossy carapace of self-confidence.

‘He’s in Madrid, I’ve already said. He’s usually away overnight five, sometimes six nights a week, mostly in Europe, but occasionally in the US.’

Ms Wright’s hair was thick and silky, her make-up subtle but effective, highlighting her exquisite cheekbones and clear blue eyes. There was a faint waft of some kind of expensive perfume too. It all looked annoyingly effortless, particularly for this time on a Sunday morning. Claire was needled, and found herself dropping a piece of information that she had intended to retain until the end of the interview. It would have floored almost anyone.

‘Our information, Ms Wright, is that your partner is not abroad, but in the UK and travelling with a seventeen-year-old girl. Were you aware of this?’

Angie Wright looked utterly unperturbed. ‘I would suggest your information is incorrect. Kyle rang me last night. He’s staying at the Hotel Intercontinental, near Madrid airport. I really think you’ve got the wrong man. Perhaps you could show me a picture of the man you’re looking for?’

‘We can get you one a bit later.’ Claire knew they didn’t yet have a single up-to-date picture. The old pictures of Gary Harrison would just confuse the issue. The research intelligence team were working hard to retrieve the photographs of Gabriel Hallam that Ellen Bramley had deleted from her own phone, but that meant delving into the server of the service provider. Results were due any minute now.

‘Well that’s it then, you don’t know who you’re looking for,’ she replied, retrieving her own iPhone from her white leather Versace shoulder bag. She swiped and tapped, and then showed Claire the phone. ‘That’s my Kyle.’

It was a picture of a tanned man reclining by the side of a pool in some sunkissed locale. The face, smiling and sunglassed, was only partially visible because of the deep shade of a sun umbrella, and a raised cocktail, but the toned body would have graced the cover of any glossy magazine.

‘Have you another where I can see his face?’ Claire asked.

‘He’s a bit shy,’ she giggled, flicking through the phone before passing it across. ‘Try this.’

The picture was a facial close-up, slightly blurred and clearly without the cooperation of the subject. The big smile, the hazel eyes and the rugged jaw proved it. Halliday was spectacularly handsome. The CCTV of the flying slipper incident had done him no justice. Even as she looked at the image, Claire could sense the interviewee’s eager smile, as if she expected some kind of compliment on the hunk she had managed to snare.