Anna took his hand again in relief. Miller turned for the door.

‘I’ll bring the psychiatrist in. And I’ll get Nick’s clothing. And then we’ll get you guys home.’

Half an hour later, Nick was dressed in fresh clothing someone had found and had a handful of drug-help leaflets. They took a locked staff staircase down and into a section of the hospital patients never saw, and through a keycard door leading to a fenced car park. Anna felt like a hated criminal being protected from an angry public as she was escorted to trial.

‘You asked if one of them could be a woman. Why?’

After all that had happened, and after being parted from Nick in such circumstances, the last thing she wanted was to be split from him again. But the police needed Anna back home in case the kidnappers called, and they needed Nick at the police station to officially be told ‘No Further Action’ and released. So off he went with Bennet in a panda, while she rode with Miller. In the back seat, because she wanted at least to be able to pretend to be alone so she could think. But she only managed a few minutes before something ethereal that had been niggling at her grew flesh.

Miller didn’t look round, but said, ‘We’re just trying to cover all angles, dear.’

‘So this isn’t something from your Recogniser days?’

Now Miller turned in her seat, the question in the furrow of her eyebrows.

‘I googled you while I waited to see Nick. You knew Nick wasn’t the caller as soon as you heard the voice. But did you recognise it?’

Internet research on the captivating woman leading the hunt for her daughter had intrigued Anna. Forty-four, never married, no children, a career woman as long as she’d been of an age to watch any classification of movie. Gloucester Constabulary at eighteen, Ministry of Defence Police Marine Unit at twenty-two. At thirty, she transferred back to Gloucester Constabulary and into detective status, rising to chief inspector. Then, in 2016, she was headhunted by Scotland Yard’s Super Recogniser Unit, a new and groundbreaking and unique team composed of officers with an uncanny ability to recognise faces based on part-obscured or grainy images. Eight months there before a desire to return to major crime investigation propelled her into a DCI role with South Yorkshire Police, on whose website Anna had found this information. In her time with Scotland Yard, she showed an ability to recognise voices, not just faces.

‘I’d already heard Nick’s voice, dear. An old voicemail message on your landline. But I’ve not heard the other voice before,’ she answered. ‘But I know it was a woman doing a very good impression of a man.’