“But she might be a witness in this case, Jo. You need to tell someone. If she’s involved somehow—”

“She’s not involved,” Jo snapped.

Atkinson raised an eyebrow. “You can’t know that. You’re too close to this. Maybe you should think about handing it to another SIO.”

“No. I need to be the one in charge, Steve.”

“Why?”

She stared at the floor, hating that she was having to discuss her private life with a colleague. She never mentioned anything to anyone at work that didn’t involve sport or jokes or police work. She took a deep breath. “Ruby. She’s not my sister, not really, that’s a … force of habit. She’s my kid. But I didn’t bring her up—my mother did. Does that explain it well enough?”

Atkinson paused before he said, “It explains some things pretty well.”

They locked eyes.

“Are you here to help or just to make snarky comments?

“Sorry. That must be hard for you. I didn’t mean to be flip. Wow, I mean, I can see why you’re so worried about her.”

“Yes, well. Now you know. Can we get on with searching the place? Or is this a therapy session?”

They moved back into the main space.

“What are we looking for, boss?”

“Anything that tells us where she might have gone. How about you start with the post. I’ll look for devices.”

“Some of these aren’t opened,” said Atkinson, holding up the letters.

She took them from him, tore each one open and handed them over. “They look open to me.”

He stared at them, then at her, in disbelief. “If we reported her missing, we could have done that legally.”

“Done what?” She raised her eyebrows in a challenge. Atkinson shook his head, and started going through the contents of the envelopes.

Joanna pulled out a plastic box from under the bed. It contained mostly stationery. She rummaged and found a notepad and pen, a sheaf of envelopes with several missing. Ruby had been writing to someone. Harper held the pad up to the light, turning it this way and that, trying to read the jumble of illegible impressions left by the pen before the sheet above had been torn away. All she could make out were two words at the top of the page: Dear Sam. Sam Douglas, the fiddle-playing crusty from the folk music bar. Who lived on a boat and made no secret of the fact that he hated technology, that he owned no phone or computer and never would. Sam made his living as a joiner getting jobs by word of mouth. He moved around all the time for work. If you wanted to hide, Sam Douglas would be the man to help you do it.