His phone rang. It was not a number he knew; it could be the kidnapper. His shoulders tensed.

‘Go and watch TV,’ he said. He didn’t want Norman to hear him talking to the kidnapper. ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’

Norman gave him a searching look, then walked towards the living room. Matt answered the call and lifted the phone to his ear.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Matt Westbrook.’

He was expecting a man’s voice, perhaps with a new ransom demand, but it was a woman who spoke.

‘Mr Westbrook? This is Detective Inspector Jane Wynne. I’m in charge of your wife’s case. I wanted to give you an update.’

‘There’s an update?’ he said. ‘Did you find her?’

‘Yes, after a fashion. Your wife’s car left the M56 and went into the truck stop at Lymm. We have it entering on CCTV.’

‘Is that where she is? Did you find her?’

‘Not exactly. Her car left a few minutes later. We tracked it to a relatively small area.’

‘Where?’

‘On the road leading to High Legh. We’re pretty sure they set off in that direction and stopped en route. There’s a camera at a garage along that road and they haven’t gone past it. So the car is somewhere on a short stretch of that road.’

Matt tried to quell the swelling hope. ‘Are you going to look?’

‘I’m on my way there now.’ DI Wynne paused. ‘I want to be clear. We don’t know what we’ll find. It’s just a lead, at this point. But I want you to know we’re doing all we can.’

‘Thank you,’ Matt said. ‘Do you want me to come there?’

‘Not yet. I’ll call you as soon as we know anything. And I’m going to need to get your version of events, Mr Westbrook, and to talk to your children. I’ll be in touch soon.’

‘OK,’ Matt said. ‘Good luck.’

Sunday, 8 March 2020, 6.40 p.m.

Wynne

1

Wynne’s phone said the pub was a mile further up the road. She was behind a white van; they passed a forty-mile per hour sign and it sped up to exactly forty. A white van driver with a strict respect for speed limits. Rare, in her experience. She chided herself for the prejudice.

Not because she cared about prejudice in itself, but because prejudice led to bad assumptions, and they led to bad detective work.

Half a minute later she turned into the pub car park. It was quite full; there were a lot of people visible through the pub windows.

At the rear of the car park she saw a squad car. DS Dudek’s red Vauxhall Astra was parked next to it. She slowed to a stop and got out.

Dudek was standing by a blue Golf with two uniformed officers. He turned to her and gave her a thumbs down.