Scratching his unshaven chin, Mark swung into the main office to find DCI Edwards pointedly checking his watch. ‘Problems on the home front, I take it?’ he asked him acerbically, his expression one of despair as he looked him over.

Mark followed the man’s gaze down to realise the front of his shirt hadn’t fared too well after his encounter with the cat and his none-too-elegant scramble over the garden gate to rescue it. As if it mattered what he looked like, with a child on the missing list.

‘House fire. Neighbour’s,’ he explained, heading straight to his own office and his filing cabinet for the clean shirt he kept there in case of emergencies – of which there were many lately, with a new baby in the house.

DS Lisa Moyes was two steps behind him.

‘Can you bring me up to speed, Lisa?’ he asked her, tossing his jacket on his chair and reaching for his shirt buttons.

‘It seems the girl was taken from home – assuming she was taken.’

‘Which is where?’ Mark asked.

‘Farley Village, close to the Herefordshire border.’

Just twenty miles or so away from his own house, Mark realised. God, it could have been one of his kids.

‘Parents were celebrating last night, apparently,’ Lisa went on. ‘Wife’s birthday party. It all went a bit pear-shaped when hubby decided to give her a big surprise and shag one of the young female guests.’

Mark arched an eyebrow. ‘Thoughtful bloke.’

‘Very. And doing it in their bed was a nice touch, I thought.’ Lisa smiled flatly.

Mark nodded, tugged off his shirt and reached for the clean one. ‘So, when did they notice she’d gone?’

‘This morning.’ Lisa sighed. ‘Mum went up to check on her and found the bed empty. They checked the house and garden and then called us.’

Which basically gave them a timeframe that was wide open. Mark tugged in a terse breath. ‘I take it they argued after the birthday surprise?’

‘Volubly, according to the residents of the neighbouring property. At it half the night. Husband makes himself scarce at some point. Wife falls asleep on the sofa with a bottle for company. Fairly standard stuff.’

In which case, it was possible the girl had slipped out, seeking to extract herself from what might have been one of many arguments, assuming the husband made a habit of screwing around. Mark’s inclination as a kid had been to do the same. Knowing the shouting was a prequel to his father’s violence, he’d been petrified. But wherever he went, whatever space he squeezed into, the bastard would always find him. He’d been terrified of the dark, imagining zombies or vampires lurking in shadows, but he’d felt a hell of a lot safer walking the streets at night than he had at home.

‘We’ve searched all the likely places – house and garden again, gardens of properties within walking distance of the house, fields beyond it,’ Lisa continued. ‘And we’ve also managed to contact the wife’s sister, who says that she poked her head around the child’s door before she left. She confirms Daisy was still in bed.’

Daisy. His thoughts immediately went to Poppy, imagining her missing and terrified in the company of some sick individual, and Mark felt something twist inside him.

‘We’ve currently got uniforms going door to door throughout the village. And we’re pulling up all local sex offenders,’ Lisa said, holding the door open for Mark as he hurried with the last of his shirt buttons. ‘There’s something else,’ she added, as they walked towards the incident room. ‘Might be relevant, might not, but I’m thinking it makes the husband definitely worth checking out.’

Mark read her expression and guessed he wasn’t going to like it. ‘Shoot.’

‘The young female he was caught in flagrante with, she was very young. Just three days past underage, to be precise.’

Mark felt his jaw clench. ‘Tosser. Find out whether he’s on the sex offenders’ register and make sure we have his PC and phone. If he refuses to hand them over, pull him in.’

‘On it,’ Lisa assured him. ‘Talking of tossers…’

Mark followed her unimpressed gaze to see DS Cummings strolling towards them, a sleazy smirk all over his face.

‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’ His gaze drifted from Lisa to Mark, who was hastily tucking in his shirt.

‘Piss off, Cummings.’ Mark eyed the man disdainfully and moved past him, only to meet the now decidedly despairing glance of his DCI.

‘Problem?’ Edwards asked him.

Mark got the message. Even now, years after he’d communicated his feelings to Cummings regarding his sexual harassment of female colleagues, Edwards never missed an opportunity to remind Mark of his ‘tendency towards hot-headedness’.

‘Not with me,’ Mark assured him.

‘Good,’ Edwards said. ‘DS Cummings will be working with you on this one. Given the gravity of the case, let’s leave the personal feelings aside in favour of finding the girl, shall we?’

‘Sir.’ Mark nodded, determined to do just that. Every second spent here was time wasted, as far as he was concerned. This would automatically be escalated as a high-risk case. The fact was, though, if the child had slipped out for whatever reason, with March temperatures averaging seven degrees, death from exposure was probable if she wasn’t found soon. Time, therefore, wasn’t a luxury they had.