He filled Styles in on the progress he had made. Starting with her parents’ details on her birth certificate, he had found Nathan Barclay first. Natasha’s father had committed suicide back in 1983, although Porter had yet to find out the exact details of where, when and how. Her mother, Anne Barclay, had died giving birth to Natasha, ending the parental line of enquiry almost as soon as it had begun. Nathan had, it transpired, remarried when Natasha was ten years old, to Mary Atkins, who took on his name and bore him a son, Gavin. The marriage had not lasted, though, and they had divorced in 1981. Porter had run a background check on Mary Barclay, and found that she now went by the name of Mary Locke, and lived at an address in Edgware.

‘I would have preferred an actual family member,’ said Porter, ‘but she’s the only person I’ve found worth talking to so far. I say we have a drive up there this afternoon. I haven’t looked for the son yet. I figure she can point us in his direction to save me a job. We should be able to get a DNA swab from him as well to see if there’s a familial match against the sample we took from the hand.’

Styles grunted his agreement before he spoke. ‘My turn now?’

Porter nodded, settling back into his chair. Styles shuffled through a small stack of paper fresh from the printer. He had confirmed with the bank that the only activity on the current account had been the direct debits that had paid the bills, and that she had no other accounts with them. Styles was always a keen advocate of following the money trail, so he’d taken a step back and looked at the flat. With no sign of a mortgage either, he, like Porter, had been curious as to how she’d financed the purchase. Lucky for him, Natasha Barclay had been organised as far as her personal affairs went, and had bank statements filed away in a cardboard box at the back of a large storage closet. There had been four deposits, adding up to a little over the purchase price of twenty-five thousand pounds. They’d all come from the same account with a payment reference starting AH and followed by a sequence of six numbers, each string of digits different from the last.

The Land Registry showed that the flat, previously owned by Atlas Holdings, had been sold to Miss Barclay in 1980 shortly after her eighteenth birthday. A quick check at Companies House showed Atlas Holdings to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Locke & Winwood, who had a head office registered to an address near Gravesend.

‘That can’t just be a coincidence,’ said Porter. ‘Same name as her stepmum.’

‘Yeah, I’ll be surprised if there’s no link there.’