‘It’s a kidnap,’ Dudek said. ‘A really weird kidnap.’

‘Weird? How?’

‘It’s a mother of three kids, Annabelle Westbrook. I don’t have all the details, but she was the ransom—’

‘What do you mean, she was the ransom?’

‘Like I said, I don’t have all the details, but it seems she was the price of her own kids being returned. She went with her husband to the swap.’

‘She did what?’ Wynne said.

‘She went to the place the kidnapper told her to. She and her husband and took an ex-cop and tried to track the kidnapper’s vehicle with a drone. But they lost them.’

‘Are they insane?’ Wynne said. ‘Why didn’t they call us?’

‘I don’t know. But they didn’t. Anyway, the kidnapper took the wife and the husband tracked them as far as the M56, heading towards Manchester.’

‘How long ago was this?’

‘About thirty minutes since it was called in. We put cars on the exits to try and pick them up.’

‘And?’

‘They’d already left the M56. Junction nine.’

‘How do you know?’

‘They’re on camera. Clear as day.’

‘Where did they go?’

‘Into the truck stop. There’s a big car park there.’

‘Let me get this right,’ Wynne said. ‘Someone kidnapped three kids and held them ransom. The price was their mother, who accepted this and made a plan for her husband to follow her with a drone?’

‘Right.’

‘But he lost her, because they went onto the motorway. And now they’re in a truck stop.’

‘You got it.’

‘Presumably they went there to switch cars?’ Wynne said.

‘That was what I thought,’ Dudek replied.

‘So we just stop every car that comes out. And look on camera for any that already left. Focus on vans, that kind of thing.’

‘That was the plan,’ Dudek said.

‘Was?’

‘Was,’ he confirmed. ‘Because a few minutes after Annabelle Westbrook’s blue Golf went into the truck stop, it came out again.’

‘And? Where did it go?’

‘Towards High Legh. We lost them along the way, though. It’s a country road and there are no cameras.’

‘Shit.’

‘But there’s good news.’

‘Which is?’

‘There’s nowhere to turn off that road before you do get to a camera, at an all-night garage. And they haven’t passed there yet.’

‘So they’re somewhere on that stretch of road?’

‘It looks like it. They’ve been there for about half an hour.’

‘Are there houses? Places to hide?’

‘A few. And there’s a pub. We’re heading there first.’

Wynne looked at the bottle of wine. She put the cork back in. She could call Sheila and postpone.

‘What’s the name of the pub?’ she said. ‘I’ll meet you there.’

Matt