‘Again, please, why did Anna scrap the car?’

He didn’t know where this was going, but he gave an answer.

‘She got disillusioned with London after she almost got carjacked in the street. She was driving home and someone cut in front and tried to steal her car. He threatened her with a knife, but she managed to drive off. So she wanted to scrap it. Bad memories maybe. Your point?’

‘Long way to go to scrap the car. Way out of London.’

‘I told you. She got a recommendation. Your point?’

‘Why did you leave London?’

He snorted with impatience. ‘We were thinking about kids, about a family, and London’s too expensive and too hectic. I’m sure Anna told your people this. What’s the relevance of any of this?’

‘Well, Nick, I apologise if it sounds like I’m interrogating you. Kids, family – the same story Anna’s father told one of my detectives. But Anna herself told my people a different story. She said her boss, Marc Eastman, the MP, kicked up a stink with some comment he made about Bovine TB. I looked online for it. It seems farmers get no compensation for killing their affected sheep, pigs and goats, and he wanted that to change. He was accused of trying to increase the animal kill rate. Anna told my detectives she left her job because of this backlash, which wasn’t restricted to a bashing in the media. Threats. Personal threats. Some of those animal welfare groups can be quite vindictive, see. Did she ever mention that to you?’

He was puzzled. ‘Well, yeah, I knew about that. But she didn’t often talk about her job and never really made it out to be a big deal. But I know once she’d left that job, she didn’t want to be associated with it. So… is this important? Are you saying this could be about all that animal culling stuff? Some animal rights idiot took my daughter? But it’s been eight years.’

She rocked back slightly, as if his words had physical weight. ‘It’s one thing, Nick, to not talk shop about new policies on unemployment or whatever. Quite something else to not tell your family you were reading death threat letters. It seems this was the reason she changed her name. It affected her that much. Did she tell you why she changed her name?’