Guilt wrapped powerful limbs around her. This was a time of great stress for her father, too, and if attacking her, if a wild accusation, was to be his way of pressure release, so be it. A lifetime of blame and disrespect had immunised her to his disrespect. She would gladly take his pain, and Jane’s, into her own, because they would barely dilute it. She also knew that he partly blamed himself. Her father, the great entrepreneur, business-maker, couldn’t tolerate mistakes and, for the very reason he’d interrogated the police, abhorred having any aspect of his life beyond his control. Blaming himself after the unavoidable death of Anna’s mother had cemented his inability to deal with failure. Scrambled emotions explained his errant tongue.

But his accusations had left an acidic residue in the air, which she couldn’t avoid breathing deep into her mind. Nick. She recalled a claim both of them had uttered in anger at one point: I hope one day I’ll come home to find you’ve just left for ever.

Mixed with the evidence that said he’d taken Josie, it looked bad. But not to someone who really knew Nick. Not to her. If Nick ever had the idea to leave with Josie, he would have given it a voice, if only to make a threat. No way would he just run with her, and certainly not in the middle of the night. The only concept more ridiculous was that he’d snatch her in order to extort money. But Father and the police seemed willing to jump all over that one.

She got on her knees and reached under the bed. She returned with a present in wrapping paper, which she quickly tore open. She’d spotted the item when searching for her lost phone. Then, it hadn’t mattered, but now it did. She needed it to beat back all that confusing evidence against Nick and remind her that he was a good man.

The card said…

To My Darling Wife, Happy Writing

It was attached to a bow-wrapped box containing a writing pad, pen, mini voice recorder, and CD of ambient music, which she couldn’t write poetry without.

‘Excuse me?’

She looked round to see a brand new uniformed police officer, an overweight female in heavy boots and latex gloves. Lettering on the breast of her jacket said SENIOR CSI. A Crime Scene Investigator, Anna realised, with shock. Someone else who had sneaked in while she was in the bedroom. Someone whose job was to find fingerprints and DNA and… blood. The horror took all words from her.

The CSI said, ‘I haven’t worked the girl’s room yet. Heard you in here, didn’t want to intrude. All done?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry. But my daughter, her name is—’

She stopped as the phone rang.