Gregor’s eyes darkened. “And how do you imagine I would teach a baby not to cry, precisely?”

“Well, I don’t know, but Constance said—”

He hissed at her, angry now. “Constance said? Didn’t I explain what’s going on with her? You can’t trust anything she says. The woman’s delusional.”

“Gregor, let go—you’re hurting me.”

He looked down at where he’d grabbed her upper arm and immediately released her. Mouth open, he stared at his hand like he didn’t recognize it.

“Ruby, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean …”

She backed away from him, rubbing her arm, a bruise forming. Then she looked at his face and saw that he was about to cry.

“It’s fine,” she said, though despite the pity she felt for him, it was not. “No harm done.”

“Are you sure? Oh god, I don’t know why I did that. Seriously, I’m really sorry. Did I hurt you?”

He searched her face, but she couldn’t quite meet his eye. “Not really.”

“I’m such an idiot. Let me see …”

She drew farther away, toward the door, as he reached out to try to touch her. “No, honestly, I’m okay. But I should go, anyway.”

“Don’t—I mean, you can leave, of course you can. And I would understand if you didn’t want to come back after what I just did.”

A tear slid from his eye. He hung his head, shoulders slumped.

“I’m sorry too,” said Ruby. Though for what, she wasn’t entirely sure.

CHAPTER

24

NOW

Joanna

Sunday, December 23

JOANNA GATHERED THE team together in the incident room. She brought up a grainy image, an enlarged section from the train station CCTV, of the little girl wearing her pink bobble hat.

“Priority number one is safeguarding this child. Leonie, assuming that’s her real name, is not registered with any midwife or health visitor team, nor with Social Services or the National Health Services. Also, although we strongly believe that Leonie and her mother live or have lived recently in Gregor Franks’s apartment, neither the electoral roll or the council tax listing show anyone apart from Gregor at the address. As for the mother, all we have so far is this image.” She pointed to the photo from the station CCTV in Sheffield of the woman with dark hair buying a ticket.

“And this is where it gets interesting. Whoever this person is, it’s not the same person who was allowed to leave with the child on Friday night. This is the reason facial recognition software didn’t track where she went after she returned to the station, because she never did.”

One of the constables said, “I don’t understand.”

“I can’t explain it either, Jade, but these are the facts we’re working with.”