‘DCI Mallory’s wife came in,’ Wren said. ‘After the medal ceremony. Margaret. She was really nice. She wanted to thank everyone. She’s a class act, that lady. She was asking after you.’ A pause. ‘You should go and see her.’

‘You want to take the police station or the local newspaper?’ I said.

Wren stared at me.

‘Did you hear me?’

‘I heard you. Police station or the local rag?’

She looked at me for a moment longer, then looked away.

We were on the high street now. There were quaint little teashops among the chain coffee shops and mobile phone stores and supermarkets. I pulled up outside one of the teashops. A life-sized effigy of Henry VIII and his dogs guarded the offer of afternoon cream tea and a taste of English summer.

‘I’ll take the local rag,’ Wren said.

They were not expecting me. But my warrant card got me into an interview room with the duty sergeant, Sergeant Lane, a big red-faced copper with the hint of a rural accent. He handed me back my warrant card with a smirking mixture of deference and derision. But he shook my hand and gave me a paper cup of scalding black coffee.

‘CID are back?’ he said. ‘We haven’t seen you out here since that unfortunate business with the sports master. But the perpetrator went down, didn’t he?’

‘This is another matter,’ I said. ‘A missing person.’ I slid the thin file across the table. ‘You’ve always worked in Potter’s Field?’

‘Born and bred here,’ he said. ‘The big city never appealed. It’s beautiful out here. Very green. You get out in the fields, it’s like the last few centuries never happened.’

‘Do you remember a missing person called Anya Bauer?’

He was half-heartedly leafing through the file.

‘And why would I?’ he said. He closed the file and raised his eyebrows. ‘Not much of a missing person, was she? More of a lost contact.’

The file slid back towards me.

‘So she was reported missing but you never followed it up?’ I said.

A slow smile. ‘You think we’ve got plenty of time on our hands? The local yokels.’

I smiled back at him. ‘Not at all. You must get busy. All those spoilt rich kids at Potter’s Field.’

‘Oh, they’re no trouble,’ he said, bridling. ‘We have a good relationship with the school. Always have done. If those kids are smashing up restaurants, then they’re doing it in Chelsea and Knightsbridge, not round here.’ He gestured at the file. ‘Foreign girl, was she?’

I nodded. ‘German. From Munich. Would you have tried a bit harder to find her if she’d been a local?’

He laughed. ‘Wouldn’t have had a choice, would we?’ Then his face grew serious. ‘Have you got a body? Is that what this is about?’

‘We don’t have a body. It’s more of a hunch.’