‘STOP!’ Sharon’s energy returned all at once. Her voice bounced off the door she was facing. ‘Danny was angry, he was angry that his daughter nearly DIED, that she’ll never be the same again, that none of us will! He’s angry at all the pain, his pain, mine, our children, and what have you lot done? Nothing! He’s angry about the drink drive charge. He held his hands up from the moment those lights come on behind him and you lot still took great pride in parading him in front of the press for photos when he was at his lowest point. Even putting out your own post on fucking Twitter, hanging him out to dry as an example to all that no one’s above the law, how even the captain of the town’s football team gets arrested. Bully for you! He never pretended to be above it. He made a mistake and he held his hands up and you lot made a massive song and dance out of it. So yeah, he was angry. But shooting a young woman? Copper or not, my Danny … No!’ She thrust her hand at the note that was still on the floor and now a blur behind thick tears. ‘That isn’t him!’

Sharon was close enough to wrench the door. She was through it before she heard it smack against the wall behind her. She marched back over to her daughter’s bed, relieved to see that Jamie wasn’t back yet. She hurriedly pulled all three curtains round the bed to make a cocoon, to make it just her and Callie with the rest of the world blocked out. She swept up her daughter’s hand.

‘It’s going to be all right, honey. I promise you that.’ But her words felt empty. She glanced round the three walls of curtain, already dreading that at some point she was going to have to open them to the world again.

Chapter 34

‘Dammit.’ Joel had stayed silent the whole walk back to the police parking bays, but now he thumped the steering wheel to express his frustration.

‘What’s the matter?’ DS Rose leaned in through the driver’s window. Her own car was parked just behind.

‘I need a team. Some people I can point at a simple job.’

‘Like?’

‘Like calling round the local hotels. We need to find where Danny was staying so we can search that room. A team could do it within the hour.’

‘Assuming he’s booked in under his own name. It sounds like he was pretty determined to hide from his wife,’ DS Rose said.

‘Maybe. But people seem to know who he is round here.’

‘So maybe he isn’t staying round here. Or he’s at some bed and breakfast in the arse end of nowhere. There’s plenty of them in the Dover area.’