But still. The man was missing. And he was – like it or not – one of their own. And so here Hunter was, still investigating and with little hope of getting a result. To add to his woes, he and his department had a brimming caseload without all this muck and fuddle about Donny. A rapist was at large. A murder had been committed. Two or three other things were brewing too, none of them good. He wanted to get back to all that, not faff around on this, and the Super was saying maybe they should sideline it anyway. Just for now.

But he’s one of our own, Hunter reminded himself.

He asked Fiona Maguire the question he had been avoiding, so far.

‘Fiona, do you have any reason to believe that Donny was perhaps seeing someone else? Another woman?’

She went pale. ‘No,’ she said, swallowing hard, rubbing her hands together as if they were cold. ‘Of course not.’

‘We’ve already looked in the den upstairs to see if there’s anything that could point us in the right direction where Donny is concerned,’ said DS Farmer. ‘Would it be OK with you, Mrs Maguire, if I looked again now?’

‘Yes. Of course. I’ll make us some tea.’

DS Farmer went up the stairs and turned left, opening the door into a small box room that Donny had obviously taken over as his personal space. There was a small desk, a captain’s chair, dark green carpet and a picture in dazzling orange tones of galloping horses on the wall. There were framed family photos lined up on the windowsill. Donny’s adorable kids, a girl and a boy. Older photos too, maybe his mum and dad. One of Fiona and Donny on what was clearly their wedding day, taken many moons ago when they’d both had more tread on them.

Sighing, Farmer looked around him. He’d already been through the two unlocked filing cabinets and they contained nothing, so far as he had been able to tell, except household bills and sundry stuff like that. The desk drawers – two of them – had held paper, pencils, pens, stapler and staples. He’d looked under the filing cabinets, then behind them. Checked the inside back of them to see there was nothing taped inside. He’d taken out each of the desk drawers to be certain there was nothing taped behind them or under them. Pulled the desk out to check the back of it. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

He took off his jacket, unbuttoned his waistcoat. It was superhot in here, Fiona obviously felt the cold, the poor cow. He sat down at the desk. Out of the window, he could see the backs of other houses. This was suburbia. Neighbours were very close and high fences made them more bearable. He thought of Donny, sitting here, looking out, thinking of . . . what? The woman he’d probably run off with? The dirty dealings he’d been doing with crooks on the manor? Everyone on the force knew the rumours, and Donny wasn’t popular because of it. In which case, Farmer thought that maybe what they were looking at here was not simply a bloke getting bored with life and taking to the hills with a younger model, but gangland revenge.