Baarda sighed. ‘Okay. We’ll put out a general alert, distribute Meggy’s details. I’ll get officers checking out Meggy’s known friends in case she was reporting any concerns. We’ll also need to access her social media, see if she’d made contact with anyone suspicious online.’

‘I’ve done all I can. I’m going to Angela’s house. I need to go back into the first crime scene, immerse myself in it, figure out what it was about Angela that attracted her killer. You coming?’

‘I think they need my help here,’ Baarda said.

‘I think they do, too,’ Connie said. ‘Watch the woman – Carmen. The father’s expressing distress and upset through anger. Carmen’s just pissed off at getting the blame. Not sure I’m seeing much real emotion there.’

‘You think she might be involved?’ Baarda asked.

‘It’s not that, but she doesn’t genuinely seem to care enough about Meggy, so maybe she was regularly late to pick her up. If that was the case, you’ll need to check for suspicious activity in the area going back a while. I’d guess that someone was watching the family home as well as the school.’

‘We’ll start canvassing the area now,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Connie. I appreciate the assistance.’

‘That’s okay. Sorry I called you an extra from a Jane Austen movie.’

‘No you’re not,’ Baarda said, already walking away. ‘Detective Sergeant,’ Connie heard him shout. ‘I want a helicopter in the sky straight away looking for a dark blue-grey car leaving this area or parked up with mud-obscured plates. I want this man left in no doubt that we’re looking for him.’

Chapter Twelve

Meggy stared at the inside of the door. The peepholes worked from the outside inwards. That was horrible. Being locked in was bad enough, but the thought of being locked in and spied on was extra disgusting.

As soon as he’d closed the door behind her, there’d been thumping and crashing on the staircase, and Meggy thought she’d heard him cry out. Slowly, she’d tried turning the doorknob, holding her breath with hopeful anticipation. She tried not to let her disappointment turn to tears, shifting her attention instead to the darkened flat. A bloom of light came from a crack in a doorway at the end of the corridor. Meggy wasn’t a fan of darkness. She didn’t dislike it as much as she hated the sight of blood, but still. She wanted to go to the light, to find a safe place.

Already she was imagining fashioning a weapon, searching for a phone, climbing out of a window. But the man was a creep, not an idiot. He’d known enough about Carmen to fool Meggy briefly and get her talking. He’d watched her, known Carmen was often late. And he’d been in the park that day.