‘Fancy a curry?’

Rachel stared at Brickall in disbelief.

‘A curry? You’ve just had a kebab and chips!’

He shrugged. ‘So? I’m a growing lad.’

Rachel considered for a minute. On the one hand, she was quite hungry, having only eaten a handful of Maltesers since breakfast. On the other, her widowed mother lived around fifteen minutes away, in Purley, not far off the main A road into London, and her conscience was pricking her. She hadn’t visited for several months.

‘I think I’m going to spend the night at my mum’s,’ she said firmly, programming the address into the car’s sat nav. ‘Drop me off there and I’ll get a train in tomorrow morning. I think we’re long overdue a chat with the original Surrey Police case team, so I might go there first. You never know: it could shed some light.’

Parked on the leafy street outside her mother’s bijou 1930s suburban house in Purley was a familiar silver people-carrier.

Rachel grimaced. ‘Oh shit. Lindsay. What perfect timing.’

‘Who’s Lindsay?’

‘My big sister. Who never misses the opportunity to point out what a crap daughter I am.’

‘Shall I come in with you? Give them something more interesting to talk about?’

Rachel smiled and patted Brickall’s thigh briefly, then swiftly retracted her hand. The two of them tended to avoid physical contact, sticking to sibling-type joshing instead. ‘Thanks, but I wouldn’t inflict that on anyone, not even you.’

‘Not too late to turn round and make a quick getaway.’ He slammed down to first gear and revved the engine to illustrate his point.

‘No, I’m going to do the decent thing.’

Rachel hobbled up the front pathway, with Brickall watching her. She was very stiff, and would have loved to head to the gym in Bermondsey instead. Not too late to run back to the car, jump in and order Brickall to floor it…

But the net curtains in the front room were already twitching at the sound of a car’s engine, and the front door opened.

‘Well, well, well, we are honoured.’ Lindsay stood there, her arms folded. The outline of her henpecked husband Gordon loomed behind her.

Rachel leaned in and kissed her sister on her cool, dry cheek.

‘I was working on a job nearby,’ she offered.

‘Some of us don’t need an excuse to drop in,’ Lindsay sniffed. ‘But then some of us aren’t high-flying detectives.’

‘Who’s that?’ called Eileen Prince.

‘It’s me, Mum.’

‘Don’t worry, we’re not going to stay and spoil the prodigal’s visit,’ Lindsay said waspishly. ‘Gordon’s been fixing a leak under the kitchen sink, but it’s done now, so we’ll be off in a minute.’

Lindsay was nine years Rachel’s senior. They had not really enjoyed a shared childhood, and now, in adulthood, the same absence of closeness prevailed. Lindsay had left home when Rachel was ten, and six years later married a dull quantity surveyor called Gordon Reynolds. They had two timid teenagers called Tom and Laura, whose birthdays Rachel was perpetually forgetting, a golden Labrador and membership of the National Trust. They went on camping holidays, sang in a madrigal group, and sent round-robin letters at Christmas, with Lindsay still finding time amidst all this wholesome activity to emit disdain for Rachel’s self-centred, unencumbered life.

Later, when they were alone, Rachel and her mother made beans on toast and ate them on their laps in front of a cookery show, washed down with mugs of Horlicks: a comfortable and familiar ritual. Eileen, who had noticed her daughter limping slightly in the kitchen, asked her about her leg.

‘I did it when I was out for a run. It’s nothing. Really.’

Eileen fussed about fetching her a footstool, cushion and ice pack.

‘You and your jogging,’ she sniffed.

---

Rachel slept like a hibernating bear in her childhood bed, under a faded candlewick bedspread, surrounded by posters of Chesney Hawkes and the Backstreet Boys. At 8.30 sharp – the orthodox time for breakfast according to Eileen Prince – she endured a fry-up so huge that she was left bloated and dyspeptic. When she arrived at Eastwell police station, she was sure they would be able to smell the lard and bacon fat seeping from her pores. It was a test of her affection for her mother – and filial guilt – that she had not pushed it away in disgust and demanded a grapefruit instead. She planned to avoid eating for the rest of the day to redress the balance.

The desk sergeant told her that the only on-duty member of CID who had covered the Harper case was currently interviewing a suspect in a burglary. Rachel elected to go off in search of coffee and on her return was met in reception by an attractive and visibly pregnant young woman with a curtain of shiny dark hair and a calm, intelligent aura.

She extended a hand. ‘We’ve already spoken on the phone – I’m Leila Rajavi.’

Rajavi confirmed that the suspect she had just interviewed – and remanded – was none other than Gavin Harper. ‘He’s admitted the theft of the rhodium from his brother’s workplace,’ she told Rachel. ‘And Andrew Whittier admitted to being an accessory. That much was straightforward. But the value of the rhodium was another matter. We’re trying to work it out now, but it looks like it could be as much as half a million.’

‘So a Category One offence then,’ said Rachel with a sigh. ‘Great.’ This development added another layer of complication to their investigation of Gavin’s involvement with Lola Jade’s disappearance.

Rajavi’s expression was half exasperated, half resigned. ‘And already being on bail for the identity document fraud charge won’t exactly help his case. He’s looking at between three and six years, in all probability. Whittier could get one to two.’

‘If the judge allows that Gavin’s behaviour is down to upset caused by the disappearance of his daughter, then he might also get away with one to two years.’

‘Let’s hope he’s got a good brief.’ Rajavi gave a brisk, professional smile. ‘Now, what can I do to help with Lola Jade Harper? Any solid leads?’

Rachel shook her head at the machine tea in a polystyrene cup offered by a young plain-clothes officer with pale blonde hair and protruding ears, who was introduced to her as DC Matt Coles. ‘As you know, we tracked down Gavin Harper in Portugal. And of course we’ll go on looking into his possible involvement in Lola Jade’s abduction while he’s a guest of Her Majesty.’ She spoke with more confidence than she was feeling. ‘Our child protection unit are also making enquiries overseas: it’s still possible that she was snatched to order and taken out of the country. Obviously, in light of recent events, they’re going to be focusing on Portugal.’

Rajavi was shaking her head slowly.

‘You don’t agree?’

‘I was there at the mother’s house for the original search… It was obvious that the child had been taken from her bed, but there were no signs of forced entry downstairs. Michelle said that she must have gone to bed and left the patio door unlocked. It was a warm evening, so that’s possible, but…’ She hesitated.

‘Go on.’

‘If a child’s going to be abducted to order, it’s got to be planned. They’re not going to be able to rely on a downstairs door being conveniently left open. I don’t know… We searched the place from top to bottom the day she was reported missing, and a couple of weeks later they went in with cadaver dogs, but there was nothing. No sign of a struggle, no sign she was harmed in any way. And it would have been really difficult for a stranger to get her out of the property without waking Michelle. That was the major reason for going with the theory that the father had taken her. If she woke up and saw him in her bedroom, she wouldn’t have been scared. She’d have gone with him. And he could easily have had a key.’

‘He’d have needed a car. Was anything picked up on CCTV?’

Rajavi shook her head. ‘The council have a camera at the corner of Sycamore Drive, just where cars come in and out of the estate from the main road, but they’d been lax with their maintenance and it wasn’t working that night.’

Rachel tapped her pen against her notebook. ‘Okay, bit of a long shot, but do you know anything about the death of the Harpers’ son, Oliver, in 2008?’

Rajavi nodded slowly. ‘I’d only just joined as a WPC then, but I do vaguely remember something about that; it came up when Lola went missing… Would you like me to find the file?’

She returned a few minutes later, and Rachel glanced through it, but there were only duplicates of the reports that had been on the divorce file.

‘My colleague Debbie Mount was one of the officers that went to the scene,’ Rajavi offered. ‘She said there was something off about it.’

‘In what way?’

‘Something about Michelle Harper’s reaction that didn’t seem right. How she kept embellishing the story. Went into minute detail about the baby’s schedule for the whole of the previous twenty-four hours, as if she’d rehearsed it. Said he’d had a sore ear, then changed it to a cough. When Debbie pointed this out, she claimed he’d had both, and got quite uppity about it. And she was the same when her daughter disappeared. If anyone said something she didn’t like, she became overly defensive. Almost aggressive. I distinctly remember, when we heard about Lola Jade, Debbie saying: ‘Oh, she’s the one with the dodgy cot death.’

‘But the pathology was inconclusive. Sadly, it usually is in Sudden Infant Death.’

Rajavi shrugged. ‘I’m not saying there was any evidence on which to proceed. But…’

‘There was a suspicion.’

‘Exactly.’

---

Rachel blagged a lift to Willow Way in a uniformed patrol car, asking the constable to drop her out of sight of number 57.

The precaution was redundant, however, as once again the house was empty. She rang the doorbell and peered through the living-room window, but it appeared exactly as it had been before: tidy but neglected.

The side gate was bolted, but a sharp jab with her shoulder opened it and let her into the garden. There was a plastic swing at the far end of the lawn, grimy with lack of use, and in the shed was a lilac and white child’s bike that didn’t look as though it had ever been ridden. The garden was backed by a ten-foot-tall brick wall, forming part of a purpose-built garage block for some of the smaller properties in the adjoining street, confirming Rachel’s assumption that the only way out of the property was via the front door.

Number 57 was link-attached by the garage to its identical neighbour, and from the old-fashioned potting shed, pond and kitsch garden ornaments, Rachel guessed its residents were older than the Harpers. She approached the front porch, proudly decked with pots of dahlias, and then she saw it.

A CCTV camera.

It was almost completely obscured by a thick creeper that wound up the front of the house between the garage and the front door, and you had to look hard to see it, but nevertheless there it was, pointing towards the shared driveways, and the street.

Rachel rang the bell, and an elderly woman answered it. She was plump and rounded and rather hunched. Rachel was reminded of Beatrix Potter’s Mrs Tiggywinkle. She showed her warrant card and asked if she could have a quick word.

‘I expect it’s about that little girl,’ the woman said with satisfaction. ‘Come on through, dear.’

‘And you are?’

‘Mrs Lewis. Marjorie.’

‘Do you live alone?’

‘No, dear, my husband’s still in the land of the living.’ She gave a throaty little chuckle. ‘He’s out in his shed. Norman. Shall I fetch him?’

‘Yes please.’

‘Drink and a biscuit for you, Detective?’

Rachel refused the biscuit, her stomach still gurgling from its intake of fried food, but accepted a glass of weak barley water. Norman Lewis came in and introduced himself, declining to shake hands on account of the soil on his. He was also rotund and rosy-cheeked, and wore a battered moleskin waistcoat. A perfect Mr Tiggywinkle.

‘We used to see little Lola playing out with the other kiddies in the close,’ Marjorie said without preamble. ‘Didn’t we, Norm?’

He grunted. ‘When her mother would let her.’

‘Yes, Michelle was never very keen on letting her out of her sight. Didn’t seem to like her having friends.’

‘Really?’ asked Rachel. ‘Do you know why?’

Marjorie pursed her lips. ‘You don’t like to talk badly about someone going through such an ordeal, but she could be a bit difficult, couldn’t she, Norm, Michelle Harper?’

Norm nodded, chewing a garibaldi.

‘You never quite knew where you were with her: sometimes she was nice as pie, sometimes she’d just look daggers. Wouldn’t she?’

Norm affirmed that this was the case.

‘And the other kids – I’m on friendly terms with Lyn at number forty-nine; she’s got little ones – they never went round to next door to play, did they? They were all scared of Michelle. She used to shout at them, apparently, and—’

‘I wanted to ask you about your security camera,’ Rachel interjected. ‘How long have you had it?’

Marjorie looked at her husband. ‘Six months, is it, Norm?’

‘Seven.’

‘So you had it at the beginning of May?’

‘Yes, definitely,’ said Norman, spraying crumbs. ‘Our Philip put it up when he was here for Easter lunch.’

Rachel discreetly offloaded her glass of squash behind a pot plant and leaned forward. ‘Did the police ask to see footage at the time?’

‘I don’t think so…’ Marjorie sought confirmation from Norman again. ‘A young policeman came round here to talk to us the next day when they were doing their house-to-house enquiries. There were several of them out there in the close. But they didn’t ask about the camera, no. And we didn’t think to say anything, did we?’ She looked guilty.

Rachel’s heart sank slightly. Most domestic CCTV cameras automatically wiped footage within four weeks. But Marjorie suddenly perked up, having thought of something. ‘Ooh, Norman, what was it Philip said about the backup thingy?’ She turned to Rachel. ‘Our son set it all up for us: he’s the one who’s a computer whizz, we know nothing at all about the things. But I do remember there was something about the recordings being saved to a computer file thingy.’

‘Would I be able to speak to your son?’

‘He lives in Morden, but I expect he’d be happy to talk to you. They come down for Sunday lunch sometimes, but he works ever so hard – both he and Sally work – so we don’t tend to see them in the week. Sometimes we have the grandkids to stay to give them a break. Felix and Finlay. They love it because they get a bedroom each; they have to share one at home, with their parents using one for an office. But we’ve got the two spare rooms, so—’

Rachel interrupted Marjorie’s spiel by standing up and reaching into her bag. She handed over one of her cards, which was accepted and clutched with great reverence.

‘Give your son my details, and ask him to phone me as soon as he gets a minute.’