Anna:I did, yes. As you know.

Marlow:And in the end you had to call Janie’s husband, Harry?

Anna:One of the children wasn’t well. And it doesn’t pass me by that I might have been one of the last people to speak to him before – before …

Marlow:Anna, when you phoned him, you said you knew someone else was in the office with him?

Anna:That’s what I told your other officer. Because I heard Harry say, ‘Excuse me a minute,’ when he picked up. He told whoever it was that he’d take the call outside his office. I assume it was Miles Morgan. Isn’t that the name of the man?

Marlow:It is. And was it just the one person with him, that you know of?

Anna:(shakes head) I don’t know. Why, are you – do you think Janie might have been there too?

Marlow:Anna, had Janie ever mentioned the name Miles Morgan to you before Monday night?

Anna:No. Never. Why? Did she know him?

Marlow:She did know him, yes. So she’s never talked about him?

Anna:No. Who is he? Is he the person who was following her? Do you think that has something to do with the fire?

Marlow:That’s what we are trying to ascertain. But like I say, we don’t actually know what happened, because it appears no one knew Janie was worried that someone was watching her.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Four weeks before the fire

‘Come out for a drink with me.’ Harry was hovering in his doorway. Laura looked around at the empty office, glancing at the clock. Six-fifteen, she realised, her stomach dipping. It was Thursday evening; she’d been late home every night this week so far and had promised Nate she’d definitely be home by six tonight.

But Laura had been engrossed in Google. First she had been looking into Miles’s company, setting out thoughts to help her with the tender. At some point that search had blended into another around Mia, and for the last fifteen minutes she had been scouring Mia’s sparse Facebook account as far back as 2009, when she had first joined.

It told Laura little. There was no job history, no relationship status and recently a lack of photos altogether. In fact in the last twelve months Mia hadn’t posted or shared a single thing.

Before that there had been a few pictures of her with friends, but nothing that gave Laura much background on her. One woman appeared more than others, a girl called Jessica Louise – a middle name used for reasons Laura couldn’t fathom, unless she didn’t want anyone to track her down, or possibly because of her work.

There was something about Jessica that looked vaguely familiar, something in her eyes, though Laura doubted they’d ever met, for surely that would be too much of a coincidence.