‘Surely Hannah did that?’ Joel was still skimming the words.

‘She might, doesn’t mean she wrote down what she found.’

Joel wasn’t convinced. Judging by her notes, Hannah wrote just about everything down. ‘Read out his details,’ DS Rose said, then typed them in as he did. Joel moved to stand behind her.

‘There!’ he said. A list of Luckhursts had come up, and Joel recognised one. Records gave the address the Luckhurst family had moved from recently, and showed Nathan William Luckhurst as registering a business there. The only other information was the sector it was concerned in. ‘Finance,’ Joel read out. DS Rose clicked on the record. More details appeared. Joel skimmed them. DS Rose was a second ahead of Joel with her reaction, she got to her feet. Then he saw it too.

‘He’s registered in Fraud and Liability Detection,’ Joel said.

DS Rose scooped up the car keys. ‘He is.’ She said. ‘Nathan Luckhurst is a private investigator.’

Chapter 56

The traffic going back through Dover was so heavy that it brought them to a standstill. Joel had turned his phone right down and his police radio right up. They were continuing to monitor the search for Jamie Evans. It was still local, but the updates that had been energetic and hopeful at first were now flat and routine. Another patrol checking off another road of garden searches and door knocks: Negative.

Of course it was. These were the actions that would find someone suspected to have wandered off, like a confused and elderly person in their slippers at 3 a.m. But this was a young boy who had been abducted, a boy to whom real harm was intended, who might already be out of time.

Joel pressed his horn. The only reaction was a hand thrown up in the car in front and DS Rose spinning round to him like he had poked her in the side.

‘What are you doing that for?’

Joel didn’t reply. It was a reasonable question. The cause of the blockage ahead was plain: a large flatbed lorry was trying to manoeuvre through a gap on the left side of the road, its back laden with building materials and a crane to unload them with. Men in high-visibility clothing were making a hash of letting traffic through the thin gap that was left. It was all for the creation of new housing and he could see a sign giving the project a name and a strapline: The Old Mill – A New Development. For the people of Dover.

Finally they started moving. A break in the high wall on the left side revealed an open gate, through which the flatbed was still reversing, and Joel got a snapshot of a mini-digger bouncing from right to left across a row of brand-new houses. The next landmark to pass his window was a petrol station, which he knew signalled the start of Crabble Hill – and Marilyn Luckhurst’s address.