It was after two. She was wondering how long she’d be kept waiting when the door opened and DS Carstairs returned, DI Fanshawe close behind. Neither thanked her for coming in. DI Fanshawe took the chair opposite and put a slim file on the table in front of him before looking at her, his eyes assessing.

His expression, unlike his colleague’s, didn’t appear to be condemnatory, his grey eyes a little warmer than she remembered. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. Tension made her shoulders ache.

Without a word, Fanshawe opened the file, withdrew a photograph and slid it across the table toward her. ‘Is this the man you met on the canal?’

Grateful that he had said met rather than any of the words he might have used, and certainly one of the words Carstairs would have chosen, she looked down at the photograph. Her initial reaction was no, it wasn’t him. This man had blue eyes, his skin was pale, hair tousled. But there was something… ‘It might be,’ she said, ‘but his eyes…’

Fanshawe took a sheet of acetate from the file and laid it over the photograph. ‘What about now?’

Molly gasped, reaching out and pulling the photograph closer. How well she remembered those fabulous turquoise eyes. Too fabulous; like a lot of that encounter, they weren’t real. She looked at the DI. ‘He was wearing coloured lenses.’ It wasn’t a question; she’d been fooled, but she wasn’t stupid.

He nodded. ‘When you mentioned his eye colour more than once, it reminded me of a case about a year ago where a witness spoke about a man’s amazing brown eyes. I pulled the case file.’ He tapped a stubby finger on the edge of the photograph. ‘His real name is Lucien Pleasant. He’s been implicated in a number of cases where people, usually women, have been conned out of a lot of money. He’s a slippery individual, we never managed to nail him down until last year when one of his alleged victims was found dead. He was arrested but unfortunately’ – Fanshawe’s lips narrowed – ‘the case was thrown out on a technicality and he disappeared.’

Molly’s eyes dropped to the picture and a wave of sadness swept over her. She’d been foolish, ripe for plucking. Her cheeks flushed with colour that was part embarrassment, part anger. ‘He was a con man,’ she said, gritting her teeth.

Fanshawe shook his head. ‘A very clever and slick operator which was why he was able to evade prison for so long.’ He sat back, his hands clasped over the hint of a belly and tapped his thumbs together. ‘Pleasant was way too clever an operator to be sitting by the canal on the off-chance that someone worth targeting would wander by.’ He waited for that to sink in before continuing. ‘Did you get any sense that he was waiting for you?’