‘And the keys?’ Connie continued.

‘Still in the lock, ma’am. I mean, miss. We haven’t moved them.’

‘The neighbours have been spoken to,’ Baarda explained. ‘Looks as if the car’s been here a while, although there’s no precise timeline.’

‘Whose house is it anyway?’ Connie asked.

‘Elspeth Dunwoody’s best friend. The family is currently away sailing in the Caribbean and has no idea why the car would have ended up here. No one had spoken to Elspeth for a couple of weeks before her disappearance.’

‘Public or private best friend?’ Connie asked.

‘Is there a difference?’ Baarda looked confused.

‘Some best friends you only speak to occasionally, never get round to seeing in person because the bond is strong enough to withstand little contact. They’re difficult to trace unless you’re on the inside. If, however, she’s an “out on the town” best friend, or an “always standing at the school gates together” best friend, then someone would have noticed. It would have been easy enough to find this address and to come up with an excuse to get Connie here.’

‘Check that out straight away,’ Baarda instructed the uniformed officers.

They scuttled off, looking relieved to be going.

‘She’s not inside the property; it’s been thoroughly checked. Her mobile isn’t in the car, but her handbag is,’ Baarda said.

‘No keys, no handbag. No clothes missing from her wardrobe, and a genuinely distraught husband and kids. It doesn’t look good.’

‘Best will in the world, it doesn’t take a forensic psychologist to figure that one out.’

‘Why do people say that?’ Connie mused, working her way around the vehicle and looking it up and down. ‘Best will in the world. It always precedes an insult. Not a big, in-your-face kind of insult. Just something slipped in sideways.’

‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just that it seemed obvious.’

‘You are institutionally apologetic. Seriously, you’ve got to get past that.’ She knelt down by the passenger side door and looked more closely at the paintwork. ‘There’s something on here. Tell me what you see.’

Baarda joined her, the two of them on their knees in the gravel staring at the door.

‘It’s red and has formed a droplet, but it hadn’t dripped very far when it dried, so there isn’t much of whatever liquid it is. But that’s red on red. How did you see it when you can’t make out colour?’