Anxiety clicked up to fear. He hurried back up to the office, found his emergency backup briefcase, and extracted a tiny evidence bag, latex gloves and tweezers. He held the earring carefully to the light, but could see no sign of blood. That at least was a minor relief. There was no good reason for this little piece of costume jewellery to have found its way under the table.

There was one final and possibly large resource that he could use. He was reluctant to go across the road to ask his aunt Trish if she had seen anything. Sam had often complained that the woman spied on her, particularly when she was at home alone. But right now, that could be an asset. The detective looked out of the front window towards Trish’s bungalow.

Her car was gone too. That was highly unusual, because she always claimed she didn’t enjoy driving the big Ford Ranger that she had acquired from her sheep farmer sister. Trish had groceries delivered, and was more likely to walk to local shops than take the car. Gillard walked across the road and rang Trish’s doorbell. Only one light was on, the hall light that seemed to be on twenty-four hours a day. There was no reply. Gillard tried his own next-door neighbours on both sides. Only one was in and hadn’t seen anything.

Enough was enough. Gillard took out his own mobile and alerted the control room to Sam’s absence. He asked them to get the duty detective inspector to put a request for a trace on Sam’s mobile and flag up her car registration as a matter of urgency. He might look an idiot if she showed up, but he was prepared to take that chance.

Then he went back inside his cold, empty home, sat at the kitchen table and stared at the earring. How could he have been so complacent? So foolish as not to imagine that whoever it was who could find out where he was cycling on a particular day, probably already knew where he lived.

He held his head in his hands. For all his steely professional resolve, he was now just plain old Craig Gillard. For the first time in many years he had no idea what to do next.

It was nearly eleven when DI Claire Mulholland pulled up outside Gillard’s home, having driven at breakneck speed from her home in Staines. They had earlier had a long conversation on the phone. Claire had an enduring affection for her boss, who had acted as mentor and an inspiration during her early years on the force. She only once before witnessed him this distressed, and that was a few years previously when he had discovered a blood-soaked crime scene at the home of his long-ago former girlfriend Liz Knight. But if Sam had been abducted, this would be of a different order.

A police patrol car was parked on the front drive, and when Gillard answered the door to Claire’s ring, she was immediately part of an urgent conversation in the hallway. Two large and grim-faced uniformed officers turned to look at her, and the Surrey Police lanyard dangling around her neck, but she only had eyes for Gillard, who was as white as a sheet.