‘The good news is that there is no blood. There was clearly a struggle. The hair you spotted in the hinge of the door matches Sam’s. My guess is she was being carried, probably unconscious, for her head to be that low.’ Quoroshi must have seen Gillard’s jaw clench, because he added. ‘Craig, we have no reason at this stage to think she is dead.’

‘Anything in the garage?’

‘No. The door was neatly closed after he departed. Your aunt’s emergency call seems to dovetail with that.’

‘Rigby won’t let me stay here, so I’ve just got to nip in and get toiletries and clothing.’

‘She’s quite right. If the abductor knows where you live, it’s crazy to stay. If he’s trying to get you, there will probably be another message. That’s why I think she is still alive.’

Gillard nodded. ‘Thanks, Yaz. I’ll be staying with Claire for now.’

As the crime scene van pulled away, the detective looked at his house, no longer cinched in by blue crime scene tape, and with an unsmiling female PC on guard. Gillard didn’t know her, and in his unshaven and lanyardless state, with a creased shirt and borrowed jacket, he struggled to convince her of who he was. In the end, he briefly put on the blue lights of the unmarked Vauxhall, then dug out some paperwork from the glove compartment. She still forced him to sign in on the clipboard on his telephone table. She thawed a little when he re-emerged from upstairs, showered, shaved and suited.

‘Just doing my job, sir,’ she said.

‘I know.’ He invited her in for a cup of tea and a bowl of soup, which overrode her initial refusals. He didn’t want to admit it, but he couldn’t bear to be alone in the kitchen from which his wife had been snatched.

Gillard was almost back in Guildford when he got a call on the hands-free. It was Detective Chief Superintendent Brian ‘Radar’ Dobbs. ‘I’m sorry to tell you this Craig, but Rigby has asked me to take over as senior investigating officer.’

‘What?’

‘I think it’s obvious that your mind will be drawn to the one aspect of the case that is of a personal concern.’ Dobbs was a grey and dour individual whose huge ears had earned him his nickname. He’d been on long-term sick leave with depression on and off for a couple of years, and everyone had expected him to retire. His return a couple of months ago had surprised everyone.

‘Yeah, the fact that my wife has been kidnapped, what a surprise!’

‘There’s no need to take that tone,’ Dobbs said. ‘The chief constable will undoubtedly give you her reasons directly. In the meantime you should take some time off and try to relax…’

Furious, Gillard cut the call, floored the accelerator and swore inventively for a couple of minutes. How on earth did anyone expect him to relax while Sam was being held by some maniac? Wouldn’t it be better to focus that nervous energy on cracking the case? He was quite prepared to work a hundred hours a day until she was found. There were things he knew that nobody else knew, there was information he could find that no one else could find. How dare they!