She crouched down and peered in a window which was lit up. A man and woman and a girl were sitting at a kitchen table. The woman was pouring tea. Staring at the girl, Toni realized that if it hadn’t been for that tell-tale mole, she might never have recognized Trixie. She was wearing glasses and her hair was dyed blonde.

Toni slowly backed away. When she joined Sharon, she said, ‘I’ll call the police.’

‘We’ll get no glory,’ said Sharon.

‘But they may have abducted her, even though it doesn’t look like that.’

‘You phone,’ said Sharon. ‘I’m going behind that hedge for a pee.’

Once behind the hedge, Sharon took out her mobile phone where she had logged in the numbers of all the important newspapers and television companies and began to talk rapidly.

Toni had managed to get Bill Wong and had urged him not to bring the police with all sirens blaring or Trixie might escape.

Very soon the first of the police cars began to arrive. Toni met them at the corner of the road. ‘Go easy,’ she whispered to Bill. ‘I think Trixie might have had trouble with her father.’

‘You mean abuse?’

‘Something like that.’

‘You stay there and leave the job to us.’

It seemed to take a long time. Then the press arrived in numbers. ‘It was Toni here that found her,’ said Sharon proudly.

‘And Sharon,’ said Toni loyally. They put their arms around each other and stood smiling and flashes went off in their faces.

Then there was a press scrum as the bungalow door opened and Trixie was led out, her head concealed by a blanket. The couple were led out as well, but Toni noticed they were not in handcuffs.

Detective Inspector Wilkes approached the two girls and said curtly, ‘Come down to headquarters. You’ll need to make a statement.’

On the way there, Toni said urgently, ‘Phone Agatha. She’ll want to be in on this.’

‘Why? She did nothing.’

‘She’s the boss. Phone!’

Sharon sulkily pulled out her mobile phone and pretended to dial. ‘No reply,’ she said cheerfully.

‘Did you leave a message?’

‘I forgot.’

‘Well, do it now!’

Agatha was outside James’s cottage. He was not at home. She went back to her own cottage and locked up. She went upstairs and undressed and showered and then decided to put a face pack on.

As she sat on the edge of her bed, waiting for the face pack to harden, she suddenly noticed the red light blinking on the phone receiver, which meant she had a message.

She picked it up, listened impatiently to the well-modulated recorded voice of the operator telling her she had one message and then pressed button one.

It was Patrick. ‘I’ve just had a phone call from a contact. Toni’s found that missing girl and the press are all over the place.’ Cursing, she ran to the bathroom and rinsed off the face mask, struggled into her clothes, rushed out of her cottage and into her car and set off for Mircester.