‘OK, what do we do now?’ asked Styles. ‘She’s off limits unless we get Campbell on board. I’ll back you if you want to try again so soon, but …’ The way he let the sentence trail off told Porter everything he needed to know about his partner’s desire to take it to Campbell again so soon.

Porter opened his mouth to speak when it hit him. ‘We go and see her,’ he said.

‘Just like that?’ said Styles. ‘And your grand plan for not getting us both hauled in front of Campbell and Milburn is … ?’

Porter shook his head. ‘She won’t talk, not this time. Think about it. She’s cornered by her own lie.’

Styles looked blankly at him, so Porter continued, speaking slowly, checking out the strength of his argument as he went.

‘First off, we have her lying to two police officers investigating her stepdaughter’s disappearance and probable murder. Why would someone lie about that unless they had something to hide? Secondly, if she lied to Locke as well, she’s going to have to try and spin the same lie to him if we call her out on it. She’s hardly going to call him up this time and say “Honey, I just fed the nice officers a line of bullshit which makes me a potential suspect. Could you make a few calls and clean this one up for me?”, now is she?’

Styles shrugged. ‘Maybe he knows about it.’

Porter barked a short laugh. ‘You think after everything we know about him he’s that sloppy? Anything’s possible, I suppose, but I seriously doubt it.’

‘What are we saying, then, that she had something to do with Natasha disappearing, and made up these trips to cover her tracks so Locke wouldn’t suspect her?’

Porter felt a tightness forming across his shoulders from hunching over a desk for too long, and rubbed at it with one hand. ‘Honestly? I don’t know. Maybe. We know they didn’t get on. We know she’s hiding something. People make bad choices in the heat of the moment. It would explain why she had Locke call up the deputy commissioner. Maybe she’s trying to scare us off.’

Styles held Porter’s gaze for a moment while he crunched the possibilities in his mind. ‘What the hell, let’s do it. You’re right: whatever happened, she’s part of it one way or the other. That’s the only way this makes sense.’

Porter shook his head this time. ‘I’ll go. No sense in us both getting a kicking over it if I’m wrong.’