‘Yes. But she wasn’t. The whole thing was a diversion. Annabelle was never here.’

‘But the kidnapper was,’ Dudek said. ‘Unless someone else drove the car.’

‘No one else drove the car,’ Wynne said. ‘He was here. Just not with her.’

‘Then where was she?’

‘The truck stop,’ Wynne said. ‘There’ll be a corner that isn’t covered by the cameras. He had a car – or a van, something like that – waiting there, and transferred her. Then drove her Golf here, and walked back. It’s what? Two miles? So at a brisk walk that’s twenty-five, thirty minutes?’

She looked at her watch.

‘What time did the Golf leave the truck stop?’

‘About fifty minutes ago.’

‘So he arrived here forty-five minutes ago, then walked back. We need footage of every vehicle leaving the truck stop in the last twenty minutes. And any people entering the truck stop on foot, although I’m guessing he found a way in that the cameras can’t see.’

‘What I don’t understand,’ Dudek said, ‘is why? Why do all this?’

‘Because the kidnapper knows we know the first car he took her in, and we’d have every traffic cop in the country looking for it as soon as Annabelle Westbrook’s husband called us. He needed to switch.’

‘But now we’ll track every car – or van – that left the truck stop. It’ll be harder, but we can do it.’

‘I know,’ Wynne said. ‘So maybe this bastard’s not as clever as he thinks he is. But that’s good news for us, and bad news for him. Let’s go. We need to review that footage.’

2

‘Pause it there,’ Wynne said. ‘Now go back a few seconds. Play.’

They watched a white van, old-ish, nondescript and unmarked, pull out of the truck stop. It headed in the direction of the pub – the Bear’s Paw – they had just left. It moved steadily, observing all posted speed limits.

‘That’s it,’ Wynne said. She clenched her fist. The time stamp was 6.40 p.m. Right as she was arriving at the pub. ‘That’s them. I saw that van. I was behind it.’

‘We can’t be sure,’ Dudek said. ‘There are other vans.’

‘True,’ Wynne said. ‘But I’ll bet you’ll see all the others leaving the truck stop ten or twenty minutes after they arrive. Thirty at most. We need to check them all, obviously. But this one you’ll spot arriving a day or two ago.’

‘We’ll check,’ Dudek said. He rewound the footage until the van was back on screen. ‘And in the meantime we’ll issue an alert for that van.’ He wrote down the licence plate. ‘And we’ll pull up the names of everyone who’s ever owned it.’

Annabelle

The road grew bumpy. The jolting sent bolts of pain through her shoulder, but the yellow straps made it impossible to move to a more comfortable position.