On this Sunday, Rachel decided, she had earned a lie in.

She reclined in her lacy four-poster, filling in the Rowe/Starling family tree. The names Harley/Harlowe, Charlie, Steven, Brianna and Lynette were all added on their respective branches. It should have been a calming, even therapeutic activity, but her heart was racing and her limbs felt taut. She had slept fitfully, unable to stop thinking about Rainey Starling. Rainey fitted the physical type. She was the right age. If any of them was Miss XX, then she was in the running.

After indulging in a calorie-dense Break-your-fast in the inn’s chintzy dining room, Rachel checked out and began the two-hour drive across the featureless plain towards Portland. This must be what they mean when they talk about Badlands, she decided, as she passed abandoned mines and fenced-off ghost towns.

The landscape made her uneasy, and she was relieved when she arrived in Portland a little before one. Tree-lined, brick-paved streets and trams gave the city a vaguely European air, and there were coffee shops, wholefood stores and bookshops everywhere she looked. The atmosphere of urban civilisation re-energised her. Despite growing up in suburban Purley, Rachel thought of herself as a city girl.

The address Norma had given her was on the north-east side of the broad Willamette River; a neat brick Arts and Crafts bungalow on a pleasant suburban street.

A man of around forty opened the door. ‘Yes? May I help you?’

‘Could I speak to Rainey Starling please?’

He frowned. ‘Rainey… who?’

‘Rainey Starling. I believe she lives here.’

The man shook his head. ‘Not now she doesn’t. I’ve been here the past year and a half. It must have been before then, I guess.’ He moved to shut the door.

‘Wait –’ With her ingrained police instincts, Rachel whipped out a hand to stop him – ‘did she leave a forwarding address at all?’

‘Not that I know of. Sorry.’

Rachel returned to her car to sit and brood for a few minutes. Her time on the beat had instilled in her that you didn’t abandon a lead without at least doing some door to door. Asking around. She spoke to an elderly woman in the house next door, who said she remembered Rainey, and her keeping some questionable company, but didn’t know where she had gone. There was no reply at the house on the other side of number 2725.

A small neighbourhood café and bakery was the next port of call. The young man behind the counter, who had dreadlocks and impressive flesh tunnels in his ear lobes, remembered Rainey too.

‘Yeah, she was cool. Came in here with her boyfriend quite a bit.’

‘Do you know where she moved to?’

‘I don’t, like, know the address, but I think she stayed in Portland.’

This news was only a very minor triumph, but Rachel celebrated by taking a seat in the café and ordering the house cold-press coffee and a surprisingly good lentil salad.

She took out her phone and called Rob McConnell’s cell. He did not pick up, and she didn’t leave him a message. He was probably still celebrating Annie’s birthday, she thought, suppressing irritation. It pained her to admit it, but after only a couple of days she was missing him. Missing his physical presence, but also his perspective and his input with the case. The ease with which they had bounced their ideas and theories to and fro had been extremely satisfying. It was a bit like working with Brickall, only without the mood swings and the swear words.

There was no time to sit and mope. She scrolled to Mike Perez’s number and tried that.

‘You really need to stop calling me on the weekend, Detective Prince.’

She could hear the smile in his voice, and found herself smiling too.

‘Good to hear your voice, Perez.’

‘Likewise. How’s my English buddy?’

‘I’ll come straight out with it: I’m in a bind, and I really need some help.’

‘Where the hell are you, anyway?’ Perez asked.

‘Portland. Oregon.’

She updated him on her return to the US after the third murder of a CasaMia host, and that she was now on a hunt for relatives of Ethan Rowe.

‘So I went to his cousin’s address here in Portland, only she’s moved.’

‘You want me to find another address for her.’

‘Please.’

‘Okay…’ Perez sighed. ‘I guess I could either spend my Sunday afternoon at the gym, or I could unofficially hack into the DMV and social security records of your suspect.’

‘You’re the best, Mike.’

‘Don’t think I don’t know you’re only using me for my access to government databases.’

‘Let it never be said.’

He laughed. ‘Leave it with me, Prince. Or should that be Prince-ess? See what I did there?’

‘I do. Like I said, you’re the best.’

---

An hour and a half later, Perez phoned her back.

‘Apartment 3, 1315 North West Upshur Street. Only you never heard that from me, okay?’

Rachel scribbled the address on the back of a paper napkin. ‘Never. But I still owe you one.’

‘Yeah, you keep saying that.’

She programmed the new address into the hire car’s cheap satnav and set off. The building was in the Slabtown district north of downtown Portland; a tired 1980s block that housed several apartments. She rang on the bell for Apartment 3, but there was no reply. Thrash metal music was audible from one of the apartments on the first floor, but when Rachel rang the bell for the other apartments there was no response bar the testy barking of a dog. It was back to waiting in the car.

After a couple of fruitless hours her bladder was bursting from all the coffee she had drunk. Rachel capitulated and drove to a Holiday Inn a few blocks away, where she reserved a room for the night. This allowed her to drop off her bag and use the bathroom. It now was six o’clock and starting to go dark. She returned to the apartment block on foot this time, more than ready to get some exercise. As soon as she approached she could see that there was a light on in Apartment 3. She rang the bell.

The intercom squawked. ‘Hullo?’

‘Is that Rainey Starling?’

‘This is she. How may I help you?’

‘My name’s Rachel Prince. Can I come in and talk to you please?’

There was a short pause. ‘No way, sorry. I don’t let in people I don’t know. Not when it’s dark.’

‘Please, Rainey. I’m a friend of your grandma. Norma.’ This was almost true.

‘My gramma doesn’t have no friends that talk like you do. You’re probably some kind of crazy person.’

Rachel quelled her rising frustration. ‘Okay, I tell you what, just open the door a crack and talk to me. You don’t have to let me in if you don’t want to.’

‘You might rush me. You might have a gun, like a mugger or something.’

Rachel rested her forehead on the door. She was tired and she was hungry, and she was close to losing her rag. Or blowing her cover. Or both. ‘I won’t. I promise. And I don’t have a gun.’

There was a silence of several minutes. Rachel leaned on the bell again.

‘All right, all right. You can come up, but you’ve got thirty seconds and then I’m going to call the cops.’ The door was buzzed open. Rachel walked up the stairs and tapped lightly on the door of Apartment 3. It opened a few inches. All Rachel could see were heavily kohled eyes.

‘Hands where I can see them.’

Sighing, Rachel raised her hands.

The door was pulled back several inches more, and there stood Rainey Starling. Young, pretty and blonde. And heavily pregnant.