Alex made a call to the station, getting straight through to the investigating team’s main incident room. Detective Constable Jake Sullivan answered the call.

‘Boss. Any updates?’

‘Not yet. Could you do me a favour?’ she asked, wondering how he managed to sound so excitable even when answering the phone. ‘Check Niche for Leah Cross.’

The Niche database held records of every arrest made over the past few years, as well as the details of every person who’d made contact with police. It had occurred to Alex as she’d been leaving the English department’s building that Leah might have crossed paths with the police before, and if so, it would make things a lot easier for the investigating team. It wasn’t the first time she had begun to find herself suspicious of someone who was supposedly a victim.

She waited a moment while Jake typed in the girl’s details and waited for a result.

‘No. Sorry … nothing.’

‘OK.’ It was annoying, but not unexpected. Leah hadn’t struck her as the type of girl to get herself into trouble with the police, although time and experience had taught her there was never a type.

‘Anything else come in?’

‘Yep … we’ve heard back from the DVLA.’

‘How many?’

‘Six hundred and three.’

Six hundred and three vehicles listed in the South Wales area of the same colour and similar description, with plates that matched the first five numbers provided by the eyewitness who had seen the hit-and-run take place. It seemed a daunting task to find the right match, although Alex realised the numbers could have been worse. She’d worked on cases in which the odds against reaching results had been far greater, but they had managed in each case to get there one way or another. They would manage again.

‘Try to find a link,’ she said. ‘This was no accident.’

Whoever had been driving that car last night had known Leah, of that much Alex felt certain. Had the incident been a warning? And was it linked to Tom Stoddard’s drug dealing? Was Tom telling the truth when he said Leah was involved? Leah had been the victim of a hit-and-run. The focus should be upon finding out who had been behind the wheel of the car, and although doing so remained paramount, the mystery surrounding Leah Cross was beginning to take precedence in Alex’s mind.

With nothing to work on from the database, she referred back to the printout she had been given by the secretary of the English department. She retrieved her iPad from the glove box, typed in the passcode and accessed the internet, then typed the address she had been given into the search engine. Finding little more than average street values and recent house sale prices, she moved the search to the local council and looked up their contact phone number. She was redirected to Teignbridge District Council’s electoral services department and gave them the address she had been given by the university.

‘Just a minute,’ the man at the other end of the line said.

Alex was put on hold and found herself listening to the kind of background music that had once been played in the discount supermarkets she had visited with her mother; tinny keyboard versions of popular songs that made them so bad they became almost unrecognisable. The memory of those places was instant, the music taking her back, just as the smell of grilled bacon always reminded her of Saturday mornings, of her dad making sandwiches and singing along to the radio as he buttered thick slices of hand-cut bread. It would never be cut straight and the layer of butter he’d slather on would have sent a heart specialist into a panic, but those bacon sandwiches and sugary cups of tea first thing on a Saturday morning always tasted so good.

For a moment, Alex felt a cloud of sadness envelop her.

‘Hello?’

She was brought back to the present by the abrupt halt of the music and the council worker’s voice back at the other end of the line. ‘OK, I have the names here for you.’

Alex retrieved a pen from the pocket of the car door and jotted down the names the man provided. Jonathan and Carol Brooks, both aged forty-five; living at the property for the previous thirteen years.

‘Is their employment status recorded with you?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ the man replied. He was silent for a moment, gaining access to the information she had requested. ‘Jonathan Brooks is a GP. Carol Brooks is registered as a self-employed childminder.’

‘No one else living at the property? No children?’

‘No, just the couple.’

‘OK. Thank you – you’ve been a huge help.’

Alex cut the call and started the car. She stared at the address on the printout, wondering again why Leah Cross had provided the university with false details. She wondered if that was even the case. Had it been Carol Brooks she’d spoken with earlier, and could the woman have been lying when she’d claimed not to know Leah? There was so much the girl was hiding, Alex felt convinced of that now. Getting hold of the truth was likely to be complicated if they were to rely on Leah to start telling it.

She pulled out of the car park and back onto the main road headed north towards Pontypridd town centre. Almost immediately, her mobile began ringing; the name of her mother’s nursing home flashed up on the Bluetooth screen on the dashboard.

‘Hello?’

‘Alex, it’s Romy from Park View.’

Though she had known who was calling, the sound of the nurse’s voice at the end of the line filled Alex with a sense of dread. They never rang her unless something was wrong; she realised in that moment that she had been waiting for this call, knowing it would come in the not-too-distant future.

‘We’ve called the doctor out. Your mother has taken a bit of a turn during the night.’

Taken a turn, Alex thought. She wondered what that meant exactly, although the implications could be nothing but negative.

‘Alex?’

‘Yes, I’m here … sorry. Is the doctor still there?’

‘At the moment, yes.’

‘OK,’ Alex said, turning right at the next set of traffic lights in order to redirect her route. ‘I’m on my way.’