Nick’s second phone call was worse than the first. His hand was shaking as he waited for the phone to be picked up. He fought off images of whiskey in his hand. When the call was answered, and he’d said, Hello, it’s Nick, he got:

‘Nicolas? My Lord, where are you? What is going on?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Where are you? What’s happened? Your mobile number didn’t work, have you changed it? We haven’t got a home phone for you. Your brother is worried to death…’

Two minutes later, visibly shaking, Nick stormed into the dining room, where the DS sat with Miller, working at a single laptop. Both looked round when he roared:

‘I just called my mum to tell her, and she already bloody knows. You sent the police in London to her house. They knocked her up at God knows what hour and told her I’d vanished. She was worried sick. They made it sound like I’d been killed. Why the hell did you do that?’

Miller stood up, but the DS wore the sheepish face, so Nick glared at him.

His boss said, ‘You did vanish, Nick, and I’m sorry about this, truly, but that’s a hard and fast rule: we talk to the family. But I thought the London lads had been told that you’d been found.’

Now they were both looking at the sergeant, who offered: ‘I forgot to update them. I apologise. But they shouldn’t have said anything about Josie being missing.’

Nick shook his head in frustration. ‘They didn’t, small mercies. And I didn’t tell them yet. Because she’s coming back today, so they need never know, do they? But that’s pissed me right off, guys. What other cock-ups have you done? Maybe write me a list of them?’

He stormed off without awaiting an answer.

9.30 a.m.

Off-duty volunteer regular officers were getting a taste of detective work by sitting in cars in plain clothes, dotted around the estate, their job to report all moving vehicles. It wasn’t outlandish to think the kidnappers might have a scout floating around, watching. Anything intriguing was noted, reported, checked, and anything considered remotely relevant was added to the bloating action list. But nobody was stopped or questioned. One of the vehicles logged was reported to Miller as belonging to a fifty-two-year-old male with a conviction for assault back in the 1990s.

‘That’s my bank manager,’ Middleton said.